mort's meat mafia

I am still not sure of the person I designed this for but it has to do with someone who knows my wife's best friend (his name might be Mort). He wanted a cow, pig and chicken designed into a logo for his new venture, Mort's Meat Mafia. I googled this idea and found that it had been done about a billion different ways. Three animals and the concept of meat, well done! It has been tweaked and twisted and designed over and over. The problem is that it is kinda necessary. You can't just show one of these animals or it gives the audience a much different perception about the product(s). I really didn't know how to bring my own spin on this universal concept. I decided to lead the design toward a more simple end by just giving a cleaver some type. 

I used some inked Styrofoam to get the cleaver and chopped out the hand drawn lettering via Photoshop. Love the natural texture that ya get from Styrofoam. Never gets old!!! 
This design was liked but still the client wanted those darn animals. "Less is more" was thrown out the window. I drew up some suited animals wearing shades and merged it all together and.....

As individual characters....I kind of like them. That chicken looks like a real killer!...an unflappable dude! I think I would still prefer the cleaver with about 40 variations of lettering to the one with the animals. It seems like a bit much. Then again, anything that takes away from type is something to rethink in my book. To be honest, I have not had time to ingest it all. Maybe weeks from now I might come around on the whole thing. Sure do like the chicken.