I was approached by Landon, an innovation chef in Minneapolis, to help him with his new restaurant concept. I’d been working together for years on his other place, Haute Dish, known for its modern take on classic midwestern cuisine. Like Haute Dish, there’s always a twist. This one would be a modern take on a classic New York diner.

Nothing says classic diner like a cast iron skillet. It immediately says home cooked. I used that as the base and added a modern script that I customized and balanced it with a san serif typeface above and below. What I quickly realized is that the skillet wouldn’t work in every situation. Thus the type on its own.

We came up with a bunch of clever taglines but finally landed on, Adventures in Griddling, which perfectly describes the food and Landon.

Again, I wanted to modernize the classic steak house & diner menu design so a mix of script, slab serif, condensed and sans serif typeface were used.

After a few months, Landon opened Birdie in the kitchen of Nighthawks that was a veggie centric, locally sourced tasting room concept. I used the silhouette of a Nighthawk that had been drawn for one of the other concepts presented.