Move over, Colonel Sanders. Chick-fil-A’s the new king of fast food chicken. Perhaps this is due to better-tasting food. Or perhaps it’s due to better advertising. Maybe it’s a combination of both.
I’ll be conducting a reverse engineering analysis on design principles used in a Chick-fil-A Facebook news feed post shared on January 28, 2019 which is featured above. It’s noteworthy that the official Chick-fil-A Facebook page currently has over 8 million followers. Their audience is diverse in age and primarily lives in the United States. Their post relates to their target audience by centering the content on the most-ordered menu items of 2018 and poses the question: “Did your favorites make the cut?”
Of the seascape principles, the Zeitgeist principle is emphasized. Over recent years, top 10 lists have been gaining popularity, and the article counts down the top 10 most-ordered items at Chick-fil-A for 2018. Additionally, posting this at the beginning of a new year capitalizes on the trend of analyzing the recently ended year.
In a way, this also uses the attention principle by making the viewer feel part of the experience as they are asked if their favorite menu item made the list. It makes them associate their contributions and favorites to the popularity of the items that made the list.
- Unaltered Image – Caption
The article begins with the tenth item on the list. At this time, I’m not going to analyze this image. Rather, I’d like to focus on the text below it. A caption or explanatory text can be just as much a part of the design as the image itself. This relates to the principle of typography. Firstly, a sans-serif typeface is used to be easily readable to the viewer. However, you will also notice certain words are colored red. This is to emphasize the menu-items which are the main purpose of the article. At any point a menu item is mentioned, it is displayed in red text. This applies the principle of repetition as it can be consistently seen throughout the entire article at any mention of a menu-item.
Draw-over 1 – Caption
2. Unaltered Image – Lemonade
The sixth item on the list is the lemonade. This image may seem simple. That is the point. This is a great example of the principle of contrast used to emphasize the key element of the image. A white fading background in no way diverts attention away from the focal point of the image which is the drink itself, the Chick-fil-A logo, and a fresh, yellow lemon. Sometimes simplicity is the best way to get a message across and contrast helps achieve this effect in this example.
Draw-over 2 – Lemonade
3. Unaltered – Chicken Nuggets
The last principle of design I’d like to highlight is that of “not half.” This means that the composition is not split down the middle. This produces an asymmetrical layout that has the beginnings of some form of hierarchy. In this case, the chicken nuggets themselves are the focus of the image and that is clearly established by the amount of the image they occupy. There is no ambiguity to their order of importance.
Draw-over 3 – Chicken Nuggets
Conclusion:
Clever marketing as seen in news feed posts is one of the contributing factors to Chick-fil-A’s success. Applying seascape principles such as the Zeitgeist and attention principles help the company stay relevant and relatable to their target audience. In this reverse engineer analysis, use of typography, repetition, contrast, and the “not-half” principle have been determined to be factors in good design choices.