ROLE
Art Direction
Graphic Design
SCOPE
Campaign Identity
Visual System
Design Direction
Social Media Content
TEAM
Photography: Mohamed Youssef
3D & Animation — Ahmed Ehab
MARKET
Abu Dhabi, UAE
AGENCY
makeamark
YEAR
2025
Founded in 2016, MLT began as a pop-up driven by a clear belief: street food can be elevated without losing its soul. Established by an Emirati female chef, the brand blends refined culinary technique with bold, honest flavors—delivering a casual dining experience that feels intentional, precise, and quietly premium.
From its origins with mac & cheese to a full-scale contemporary food concept, MLT has consistently challenged expectations of street food through disciplined execution, ingredient quality, and a design-forward approach to its brand expression.
For Ramadan 2025, MLT introduced a seasonal campaign across Abu Dhabi that reinterprets its identity through a culturally rooted, visually unified system applied across packaging, menu, food trucks, and social media.
CHALLENGE
Ramadan represents one of the most culturally significant and visually competitive periods for food brands in the region.
The challenge was to adapt MLT’s identity into a seasonal system that:
- • Feels culturally relevant for Ramadan audiences
- • Increases visibility during a highly saturated market period
- • Works seamlessly across physical and digital platforms
- • Maintains the brand’s minimal, premium identity
- • Introduces seasonal emotional warmth without losing recognition
The existing identity needed to be flexible enough to scale across:
- • Food trucks and outdoor visibility
- • Packaging systems for Ramadan offerings
- • Social media storytelling and campaign visuals
- • Menu communication for limited-time products
CONCEPT & SOLUTION
The approach focused on a seasonal identity evolution—not a rebrand—allowing MLT to stay recognizable while becoming culturally and emotionally aligned with Ramadan.
Why Red?
From Neutral
to Seasonal Boldness
The visual shift to red was a strategic extension of MLT’s identity into the emotional and cultural rhythm of Ramadan, designed to express warmth, intensity, and the communal dining experience central to the brand during the season. Rather than functioning as a purely aesthetic change, the color operates as a system-level adaptation that reinforces the brand’s bold food personality while shaping a more expressive seasonal presence across packaging, menu systems, and social media content.
Alongside this, the logo was subtly refined by transforming the terminal dot into a crescent-inspired form, introducing a minimal and symbolic reference to Ramadan within the existing identity. This adjustment maintains full brand recognition while embedding a contextual layer that connects MLT to the cultural essence of the campaign, allowing the system to feel both familiar and seasonally relevant without compromising consistency.
