Fan Tang Asian Cafe is now open for both lunch and dinner, eat in dining, in a corner space at the Houghton Center in Kirkland, Washington. A large Metropolitan Market is the anchor tenant in the neighborhood shopping area.

For the logo design, I drew custom slab letter shapes with a few subtle nods to the Asian origins of the restaurant concept. The owners, Sheng Zhao and Ling Liu, are serving their take on traditional Hunan cuisine with very quality ingredients and authentic preparation methods, some of which relies on spicy red peppers, kurobuta pork belly, and wood ear mushrooms .

The abstract shape was born of my wish to have an visual shape to occasionally accompany the logotype. I looked at bringing in some traditional calligraphy but scuttled those directions when they looked too ethnic. The shape, which I’ve since dubbed the ‘Cosmic Egg’, brings in some calligraphic-type mark making while still staying abstract and graphically modern, hopefully.

For an earlier post that features some photos of the mural that runs up onto the entry ceiling, follow this link.