LG2’s rebrand for Ashton embeds visual codes from the brand’s past into its future-ready identity

If you’re thinking about a cheesy, carby bar snack in Canada, poutine ought to come to mind. The divine dish of french fries and cheese curds topped with gravy has been dished out hot since 1969 by Ashton, the oldest poutine chain in the country, and a Quebecer favourite. Despite serving delicious, fresh plates of poutine, the restaurant and its image were stuck in time, coupled with the challenges of stagnant sales, an ageing clientele and their inability to recruit younger generations. In 2022, two young entrepreneurs acquired the 23 branches of Ashton and set out to revamp the legacy restaurant, collaborating with Canadian branding agency LG2. Before LG2 could begin charting a way forward, they first had to look back at the meaty history of the brand – there was a lot there for them to work with. The restaurant began in 1969 as a trailer serving french fries run by Ashton Leblond. “He called it the Ashton Snack Bar,” says Creative Director, Branding and Design, Mira Moscatel-Gauthier. The team picked some visual codes from this trailer and the brand’s design history, carefully remixing them. “In tribute to snack bar culture, all the classic codes of diners – that were already part of the brand and of the architecture – were integrated with a modern twist. Chez Ashton became Ashton, and we created a custom typographic signature,” she adds. The wordmark was designed to emphasise the generous, indulgent nature of poutine, gently hinted at through the characters’ flowing and curved shapes. “Starting from the original serif, we made it deliciously fuller, fresher and more timeless,” Moscatel-Gauthier explains. “The change to a lower-case ‘a’ is intended to make the brand friendlier and to signal the change of ownership from which the chain’s name originated.” The team paired the bespoke mark with Suisse Int’l, “a direct echo of the ubiquitous changeable plastic letters of old diner menus,” and Tusker Grostesk, which references the outdoor marquee signs still used by small restaurants today in many rural areas. The typefaces, and their nostalgic underpinnings, gave the restaurant’s identity a sense of belonging to a certain time, without stripping away its modernity.