The chicken was very important to this eccentric and exciting client. It was the first thing that they brought up when discussing what their logo should look like. It comes from a story between best friends that they have both promised to take to their grave. Yet, the chicken stands as a symbol of their friendship and the eclectic and unexpected adventures in life.

When approaching making a tiki chicken, I wanted to create intentional texture and carved lines. This led me to a favorite of mine - linocut. The hope was that this medium would create the texture that is so often present in tiki design - that of carved wood and clay. Since carving is so integral to tiki, it seemed an ideal method.

The carve was made on two plates, one for outline and one for fill color. I chose not to clean up the textural imperfections on Photoshop and instead traced the scans in Illustrator to even the color and make the design scalable. You can see the final scans of each in the gallery below.

From there, I took typographic inspiration from old Tiki Bar menus and matchbooks and used isolated elements of the cut, like the bamboo bird ring, to create a cohesive yet quirky brand look.

I then worked with a tiny umbrella printer, The Tiny Umbrella Co, to create custom umbrellas from my designs and some prototypes of a few swizzle stick options.

I was incredibly pleased with the look of these designs in the Tiki Barn and it remains one of my favorite logo designs I have created.