HOKKAIDO RAMEN SANTOUKA – SIGNAGE – 2012

This project required creatively painting a sign on existing brick, windows, and building structure.
91 Dundas St E, Toronto, ON

This restaurant has a very well known brand and it was crucial to have the logo prominently and creatively displayed for this busy downtown Toronto restaurant. The traffic going by on Dundas St is immense, just blocks away from Eaton Centre. Smart for the restaurant to take advantage of this spot with such high visibility.

You can see the sign coming from many directions to the restaurant.

This design team was venturesome in their choice of placement of the logo. They placed it on the second floor, very large, the added spark was that they painted it on the window too. So wherever the window was the design went right through. It was very daring and separated the building form the rest of the block it was on. The second image they had painted across the broad side of the building facing east towards the downtown shopping centre.

We projected the main logo on the wall, from across the street. We also need a different source of power than the building itself, we at times have run a power cord across a busy or main street. However this particular street had streetcar tracks that ran 24 hours so the cord would be destroyed the first time streetcar came by,

To solve our power issue we used a generator with a GFCI plug this will allow the computer and projectors to work without shutting off, due to power surge.

For the height and access to the wall we set up scaffold. The scaffold was used on the west side of the building and the north side of the building. The scaffold was on wheels so we were able to move it around, so we could access the wall we were going to paint.

HISTORY OF SANTOUKA

Santouka came to be when Hitoshi Hatanaka, the founder, uttered the famous words known far and wide today, “I’m going to make delicious ramen.” As an introduction, Ramen is a famous Japanese dish. It comprises of wheat noodles served in a broth bath made from meat or fish, with a hint of soy sauce and chopped green onions toppings. The Santouka ramen is one of a kind, served with pork bone soup (tonkatsu) and pickled plum in a thick, round bowl. Mastering this perfect blend of flavor has been achieved through repeated trial and error.

The soup’s mild, coaxing flavor spreads throughout your mouth and morphs into this rich taste, loved by many. Hitoshi Hatanaka prepared his special blend of ramen for his family and got exceedingly great reviews. With his family’s delight as his motivation, Hitoshi Hatanaka proceeded to start his company in March 1988 and opened his first restaurant in Asahikawa, Hokkaido. The restaurant that housed only nine seats had just one item on its menu: the Shio ramen. From these humble beginnings, Hokkaido Ramen Santouka was born.

Downtown Yonge St

Downtown Yonge St is the place to be in Toronto, Ontario Canada for entertainment and shopping sprees. Yonge St is the entertainment district on Yonge Street. Among the main attractions of Yonge St is the Toronto Eaton Centre mall, the Yonge-Dundas Square open to the whole public. Toronto Eaton Centre is Toronto’s main tourist attraction. Yonge St also has popular entertainment spots. These include the Elgin and Winter Garden Theatres, the Canon Theatres as well as historical art sites such as the Old City Hall and the Maple Leaf Gardens.

Yonge St has been the entertainment and retail center of Toronto for over a century. Initially, the shopping center title went to King Street, located east of Yonge. The expansion of the Toronto Eaton Centre into Yonge Street facilitated the development of the area into a prime shopping district. Just after the Eaton store opened, the Robert Simpson department followed suit and opened a store on Queen Street, a stone-throw away from the Eaton store. The Robert Simpson Department is known today as the Hudson’s Bay Company store.

The entertainment aspects of Yonge St were not left behind. Massey Hall, Pantages and not to mention, the Wintergarden theaters were built along Yonge Street. Today, the Massey Hall is as it was all those years ago, its appeal and grandeur untouched. However, the Pantages and Wintergarden Theatres were converted into movie houses and then back to live theater spots.