Case study · Tribo das Frutas
One tribe for every table
A traditional natural-food restaurant in Curitiba was serving three different crowds at three times of day. We gave them one world to belong to, then turned it into a system that could scale across a growing franchise.
- Role
- Creative Lead (via Consultoria Motriz)
- Period
- 2020–2021
- Team
- 3 designers and creatives
- Scope
- Repositioning, brand world, mascots, menu, packaging, interiors, social, photography, team training
- stores across Paraná and Santa Catarina, on one brand system
- 1 → 6
- touchpoints redesigned, from menus and packaging to murals
- 8
- from strategy to rollout, through to the end of the contract
- 2 yrs
The challenge
Tribo das Frutas was famous for its winter soup buffet, but sold almost everything: açaí, fruit, salads, smoothies, milkshakes. Its identity was dated, and nothing tied that mix together. Each part of the day brought a different audience:
- Weekday lunch: office and retail workers from the neighbourhood
- Cold evenings: soup-buffet regulars
- Weekends: younger customers coming for açaí
The business goal was clear: build loyalty beyond lunch, especially in the evenings and on weekends, with à la carte dishes and not just the buffet.
My role
I led a team of three through the project and was the main point of contact on the client side, managing stakeholders, scope and timelines. I also worked hands-on on photography and print.
The insight
The brand didn't need a new logo. It needed a world.
Key decisions
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One tribe, every audience
We built a jungle "tribe" universe with custom mascots, warm and welcoming enough for families and children, but flexible enough for the lunch crowd and weekend açaí fans. My contribution to the concept was to blend real jungle elements with the mascots and the actual products through photo manipulation, so the world felt tangible inside the restaurants instead of cartoonish.
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Design for a franchise, not a store
During the project, the single restaurant grew into a franchise. We turned the identity into a modular system: menus with price variations by location, regional promotions, and standard delivery packaging that every unit could follow.
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Protect the core brand
As new partners joined, so did new ideas. Rather than stretching the main brand to fit each one, we launched a separate brand, Pátio Pastel, and a pocket format of Tribo das Frutas for a food-truck court.
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Higher-value delivery
We designed a delivery line around smoothies, milkshakes and açaí, the products that add the most value for customers, including portioned products for wholesale.
How I led it
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Aligning partners around strategy, not taste
The franchise brought in partners with their own creative visions. Much of my work was showing how each idea could fit the overall brand strategy instead of a single location, and allowing controlled regional adaptations within the system.
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Training the people who deliver the brand
We ran internal training for managers and front-line staff.
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Bringing in specialists
We commissioned a graffiti artist for murals in the Paranaguá store.
The system
Mascots and brand world · menus · delivery packaging · uniforms · interior design (murals, a hedge wall, vinyl graphics, illustration) · social media · photography
Results
Sales figures are under NDA.
- 1 restaurant → 6 stores across Paraná and Santa Catarina (5 Tribo das Frutas units + Pátio Pastel), all running on the same brand system
- Perception moved from "a traditional buffet" to natural, fresher, healthier food, the positioning we set out to build
- The weekday lunch was reframed: an everyday buffet, but with better, healthier food
- A two-year partnership, from strategy to rollout, through to the end of the contract
What I learned
With a franchise, brand alignment is a people problem before it's a design problem. Today I'd run alignment workshops with every partner and stakeholder at kickoff, before the first design is shown.
