Tu Madre

Tu Madre is a cult-hit, non-conventional taco chain in Los Angeles with 8 locations. Their mission is to reinvent the taco using non-traditional ingredients that celebrate the unique culinary scene of LA.

Services

Brand Strategy,
Verbal Identity
Brand Identity
Packaging
Web Design
Content 
Production

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the TRUFFL

More than just a taco stand, Tu Madre stands for the idea that everyone should boldly be themselves, do things their own way,  and shake up the world doing it. As a brand, Tu Madre uses its charisma,  humor, and fearlessness to get people to look at Mexican food differently.

Process

We tasted the full Tu Madre menu, and used our personal vast experience exploring LA’s street taco culture to survey the competition — a tough job but someone has to do it!  We interviewed key principals, customers,  and reviewed yelp reviews and social media concepts. Along the way, we learned that what makes Tu Madre special is a brash, provocative personality and a blend of Mexican and Angeleno culture. 

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Brand Strategy

Our key insight allowed us to build a provocative brand that would both shock, amuse and charm customers with a maverick and brash brand personality.  

We infused the brand with a deeper purpose behind that personality as well. Tu Madre is provacative not just to get attention, but to encourage each of its customers to embrace their uniqueness and fearlessly share it with the world. 

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Brand Identity

Tu Madre’s visual concept is built upon our brand positioning that combined Mexican culture and Angeleno culture. We found a common ethos in bragadocious West Coast hip hop stars and traditional Mexican luchadors, so we used custom illustrations, typography and more to create a unique visual langauge that blended the two cultures seamlessly.  

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Illustrations

Our custom illustrations blended menu items like tacos, along with luchadors and hip hop artists as part of branded seals, packaging, menu design and more.

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Packaging

We designed key packaging items and menus that showcased not only different elements of our brand identity but also key messaging meant to surprise and amuse. For example, our burrito and taco wraps invites customers to "Swipe Right On Tacos" as they unwrap their food.

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Verbal Identity

As an unconvential taco brand appealing to an in-the-know millennnial audience, our verbal identity featured a provocative and humorous personality designed to create Instagram-worthy moments on social media, apparel, packaging and throughout restuarant interiors. 

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Merchandise & Collateral

We conceptualized of-the-moment, Instagrammable merchandise and apparel that feature key messaging such as “Oaxaca on the Wild Side” and “Guac Daddy.”

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As the third brand I have done with TRUFFL, I trusted the agency implicitly to rebrand Tu Madre. As our most valuable brand in our restaurant group, we would not have used any other partner other than TRUFFL and gave them free reign on all aspects of the brand. Their ability to deeply understand our company’s ethos helped them truly captured what I had hoped for but could not articulate myself. And they did so with personality and humor that truly makes Tu Madre special and unique. I feel we now have a brand identity that can help us take Tu Madre across the country and am immensely grateful to the TRUFFL Team.

Josh Pourgol, Founder