Yard Sale Pizza is celebrating its 10-year anniversary, marking a decade of culinary excellence, community engagement, and spirit-led branding in partnership with Land of Plenty. To mark the occasion, we thought we would write a little bit about what we think is special about our longest-standing client and favourite pizza pals.
With 13 sites across London, Yard Sale Pizza has been driven by a community-focused vision and a commitment to authentic, handmade pizza from the outset. Founders Johnnie Tate, Nick Buckland, and Dan Spinney—art school friends with a shared passion—started YSP with the simple ambition to create a neighbourhood pizza brand that resonates deeply with its local customers, ultimately challenging the likes of Domino’s with a more independent artisan delivery offering.
We have played an integral role in shaping the YSP brand, being there alongside since its inception, helping push the boundaries of convention when thinking about how a modern brand exists. Together, we have co-created an identity that is as much about the experience and spirit as it is about a logo, color palette, or typeface.
The overall tone of the brand harks back to its origins, where a hand-built pizza oven in Johnnie’s backyard was used to test recipes on friends and family at weekly supper clubs. Things dough-balled(!) for the business from there, leading to the first site in Clapton, East London. But we harnessed this very DIY and community-focused attitude for what was to come.
The multiple hand-drawn logo strategy—originally curated with help from creative friends of the business—expressed the values of individuality and creativity, eschewing the idea that a logo is the all-encompassing component of a brand, while simultaneously distinguishing YSP from cookie-cutter high street pizza joints.
This approach allowed for a future-proofed strategy of having unique shop designs for each subsequent location, embedding a sense of local ownership around each site, and reflecting the founders’ emphasis on creative expression. This was about doing all they could to avoid becoming ‘just another chain’ while still growing the brand in line with their vision for the business.
Land of Plenty Co-Founder, Joe Russell, comments:
“The guys at YSP have always had a really clear sense of where they wanted to take the business and what feels right for the brand to authentically capture who they are. But they have always resisted the urge to rigidly document this in any sort of brand guideline—often challenging us to think in the opposite way to how we would usually build a brand. This is mainly to allow the brand to organically grow and go in directions that are informed by what is going on around us and them. Why does a brand need to behave with such a rigid set of parameters if the people in charge of expressing it know exactly how to capture the personality?
There has always been a certain dichotomy at play with YSP. How do we retain the essence and looseness you get with smaller independent brands—a low-fi, non-contrived feeling—while at the same time build things in a way that will allow business growth, just as the guys have always wanted?”
The core thought of ‘Handmade, hand-delivered’ was established early on, and has always been central ingredient to the Yard Sale Pizza identity we created.
“Handmade is a phrase often bandied around within the world of branding. To be fair, quite authentically so, as lots of brands are created organically and built up by the hands of the founders. But the essence of handmade was so inherent in everything that happened in the early days at YSP, it was impossible to ignore it. The very first oven was literally hand-built by Johnnie and his dad. By the time they got the keys to the very first shop in Clapton, many family members and friends armed themselves with brushes and screwdrivers to help get the shop ready for the opening night. The love and care you get from the hands of a founder is something so priceless, we wanted the spirit of this to always shine through and be present in all that they do.
Taking the core thought and applying it to every brand touchpoint has allowed the brand to find cohesion across a wide range of outputs. From hand-painted pepperoni spots on the low-fi, hand-built hoardings, to the copious illustration collaborations that sit at the heart of the marketing efforts, the brand manages to feel wildly expressive and independent while still retaining a recognisable identity.
Land of Plenty Co-Founder, Jonny Rowe, comments:
“Building the Yard Sale Pizza brand from the ground up has been a collaborative effort involving the founders, their brilliant in-house marketing team, local suppliers, builders, creatives, and ourselves. This internal community understands what “feels” Yard Sale—whether on merchandise, packaging, products, or signage—and what doesn’t. As the business grows and new challenges arise, we all realise the importance of keeping things loose and spirit-led to maintain the brand’s core essence.”
As Yard Sale Pizza enters its second decade, the brand remains committed to its original values while embracing the challenges of growth. The decentralised approach and emphasis on collaboration, community, and creativity ensure that YSP continues to stand out in a crowded market. Jonny concludes:
“It has always been a joy working on YSP. It’s one of those brands where we chuck out our brand-building rule book and see what comes of it. We can’t wait to see where this partnership takes us for the next 10 years.”