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The Picture of Sub Perfection
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Business New Haven
10/16/2000
By: Tammy Rachau
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BNH talks to Ruth Woyciesjes, creative director at Subway International of Milford, about her role in the shaping of the Subway image.
What are some of your responsibilities as creative director?
I direct the art department, which falls under the larger heading of marketing. I am responsible for the artwork flow within our department, which consists of eight designers. We do anything from materials for research and development to styling food in commercials and print. We do the logo designing for new products. Actually, we are involved now with Subway store decor and design.
How does the art department interact with the other departments at Subway?
I'm actually directly under the CMO of marketing and, on that level, there are many departments that we service. Local store marketing, public relations, store design - we service all of these departments in different capacities.
We do all of the local photography. Art directors style all of the food for all of the local shooting, which is usually conceptual development for research and development, including new products and test products. And then we also get involved with the advertising arm of the company and either styling or supervising the styling of the products.
How did you learn about food styling?
I really just learned how to be a food stylist through experience. I started with Subway about 12 years ago when we began using agencies. I noticed that every agency or every art director that was hired had his or her favorite food stylist. The problem that arose because of this was that we began to look different every time we appeared. There was no consistency. In my background, food has always had an important place. I come from a large family, and I also happened to do catering on the weekends. So, I was a food-friendly person to begin with. Besides which, I find that most of the stylists around today are creative people - former art directors or sculptors or something that makes them just that much different from a chef or a baker. They go just one step beyond, because they have a creative talent.
What are the most important considerations when you do your work as a food stylist?
You have to know the product inside and out. You have to know what its limitations are. You have to know how to keep it fresh. It is also important to know your legal limitations. When you are dealing with a featured product, it has to be real. The trick is to keep food looking real in unreal, unusual circumstances. We aren't using fake food or anything like that. You may have seen programs or writing about these food stylists who use unusual ingredients to simulate the food they are photographing, or put different things on the products. Well, you can do that if you are doing editorial photography, but you can't do that if you're advertising a featured product. For instance, they put Elmer's glue on cereal. They can do that because they aren't selling or advertising the milk; they are advertising the cereal. The cereal itself has to be real. So for us, our bread has to be real, our meat has to be real. We don't really have any little tricks that we use or anything. In addition, we measure all of the ingredients. We weigh all of the meat to make sure that what you see in the photographs is what you are really getting when you go into Subway. I am at the shootings to be the food police, so to speak, in one sense. We have to be very serious about the perception of reality.
What are some of the things you are currently working on?
We just completed some party materials. The biggest thing for Subway is that we just launched new sandwiches, as well as a whole new recipe for our bread. We are cutting the breads differently, and the breads are topped with seeds, which we didn't do before. We increased the quantity of fresh vegetables. One thing that we in the art department were a part of was in the making of the new menu boards which show the new 'Subway Selects,' the four sauces and the four sandwiches. So it is almost like beginning with a whole new company, because it has never before experienced such far-reaching changes in 35 years.
What relationship does your art department have with individual franchises throughout the country?
We mostly interact indirectly, unless I'm there for a local shoot. Then I do get a chance to deal with a store owner. For a filming, for example, I might use a specific store to bake the bread in. The advertising department is really responsible for the production, as well as the shipping, of the materials that would be going out to the franchises. We also have fulfillment services at Subway headquarters that help to distribute any operational materials, such as charts, etc., that would assist them in running the business. Some of the things that we are designing end up in the franchises, of course, such as the menu boards that we did recently. Sometimes we get involved in prototyping display materials that eventually get created by a manufacturer to go into the stores. Any support material that you see in the stores, really, starts with us - window signs, etc.
How does Subway test developments in areas such as store décor?
I am chairman of the project that is looking into the store for the future. We did a lot of research with our franchisees, our development agents and the consumer to find out what the consumer mindset is and what kind of surroundings they feel most comfortable in. What we basically did was take that information and designed a new look for ourselves. Of course, now we are going to take it back to the consumer in a conceptual way and get his input on it to see if we have to refine it.
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