The client's business would involve fishing trips on the ocean with the potential to do overnight stays on the boat. The theming is based on The Rat Pack. 

The client had a clear vision of anthropomorphic rats that had the features of the members of the Rat Pack, dressed up in fishing gear with fishing rods and fishing spears.

The Challenge: The amount of detail the client wanted for the logo just wouldn't work as a simple and effective mark. The ideas were much better suited to other marketing materials.

The Solution: To create a clear message of what the business will offer, I created a logo that focused on the boat and styled the mark to resemble design that was popular during the height of the Rat Pack's fame.

Mood Boards​​​​​​​

I created this mood board with illustrations of anthropomorphic rats I found. I also had the idea of mixing in pop art and ink illustration into the design. The colors of the Rat Pack's photos were inspiration for the color palette along with the other illustrations I found.

The fonts I selected were Aliando Rocky, King Richard, and RiotSquadNF. They are in that order on the top left of the mood board.

The client liked the Riot Squad font the best out of the three and the left color palette. 

The boat was a necessary element to the mark as the company name doesn't imply fishing. I liked the circle idea to represent the sun setting on the ocean.

Even though I have experience in illustration (cartoons), it was my first time drawing anthropomorphic rats. The client envisioned full body illustrations of each of the Rat Pack members as rats. I sketched them out and used men's fashion ads from the 60s as reference.

After narrowing down the Rat Pack members from five to three, I used a more ink illustrative style for the rats that resembled illustration of the time.

I kept the illustrative styling for the boat and manipulated the font to stretch and connect. The little stars were added for that 50s-60s throwback and to represent the five members of the Rat Pack.

I presented the client with these designs and put them on a couple mockups.

Ultimately, the client didn't feel the rats resembled their human counterparts enough with my limited experience in drawing anthropomorphic rats. I took them out of the final design.

I fixed the boat to look more like a fishing boat with the little antennae and wire-like framing which presented another challenge. I had to simplify it so it wouldn't look too busy on the color logo.

These are the final designs I shipped to the client.