Nick Adam
Naming and visual brand identity for Hot Chi
Span
Hot Chi
Restaurant
Branding, Naming, Print, Illustration, Packaging
Nick Adam
Design Direction, Design
Avery Branen
Design
Span named the restaurant Hot Chi, a play on their specialty, hot chicken, while at the same time embracing Chicago’s nick-name Chi-Town. Hot Chi is simple, memorable, and screams Chicago-style Hot Chicken. Made up of two 3-letter words, the name itself is intentionally embedded with a graphic strategy making the two terms to perfectly stack.
Span drew the custom lettering of the Hot Chi logo to embrace the aesthetics of homestyle cooking and the urban landscape with sign-painter lettering styles. Each letter was drawn with equal widths centering the ‘O’ in the word ‘Hot’ and igniting it with an iconic flame treatment. Our visual approach transformed the typographic to iconographic. We created a mascot to emphasize a fun and approachable personality. The mascot is often seen eating an ice cream cone, a direct rendering of the restaurant’s offerings — Chicken and Cones.
STA 100 2021
Nick Adam, Design Director
and Associate Partner at Span.Studio
New business inquiries
Nick(at)Span.Studio
Chicago, South Side
Kenwood Neighborhood
Copyright © 2024
Enjoy the day.
Social
IG@NickAdam
Nick Adam’s Complete CV