Joseph Szala is a multitalented brand builder, creative designer and principal of Vigor. With a broad skillset rooted in design and brand leadership, Joseph brings a powerful blend of award-winning creative, strategy expertise, and an unyielding passion for realizing the potential of brands large and small. During stints at a handful of agencies in the New York City and Pennsylvania markets, he gained industry experience that fueled the desire to establish his own firm in 2003. Joseph built Vigor into a highly regarded restaurant branding powerhouse over the course of 12 years. During this time, it was his mission and primary focus to codify his own proprietary branding process for the restaurant industry. That process has since been leveraged to create new, innovative restaurant concepts from Honolulu to Boston, Miami to Seattle. Some more well known brands he has played a hand in developing include Steak n Shake, Zaxby's, Fresh To Order and Cutty Sark Whisky. 2010 saw the publication of his first book, Fire It Up: Building Restaurant Brands That Blaze. Joseph authored and curated the book in response to the need for a no-nonsense approach to developing restaurant brands. The book has been integral in helping clients and designers better understand the ins and outs of developing restaurant brands. Authoring the book lead to the creation of Grits X Grids (www.gritsandgrids.com) which has become a industry favorite for restaurant branding and thought leadership. His thought leadership has landed his articles on restaurant marketing related topics for Advertising Age, QSR Magazine, Restaurant Hospitality, FSR Magazine, Branding Magazine, LinkedIn, Intuit and various other well known publications. Joseph's work has been recognized by respected industry magazines such as Communication Arts, and has been published in multiple books on design excellence. He has spoken on the subject of branding and has been quoted throughout articles found on NBCNews.com, Today.com, Huffinton Post, SmartBlogs and various other publications. He served as Adjunct Professor of design at Art Institute of York, Pennsylvania and studied at Bradley Academy for the Visual Arts in York, Pennsylvania.
