Large Flightless Birds is an online community that celebrates absurd humor. The client wanted an identity that visualized not only the name but also the humorous nature of the content shared in the community.

We knew from the outset that we wanted some representation of a bird and did a broad exploratory of different visual imagery including photorealism, engraving, graphic and abstract. We settled on the idea of an absurdly literal image of an ostrich whose wings, being useless, had fallen off. Going with a more graphic approach to the illustration allowed us to express this idea without getting bogged down in too much detail. It also insured that the identity would be easily reproduced. The client wanted a slightly retro look to the type so we did a wide exploratory there as well and found a combination of a heavy serif and a script complemented the style of the illustration.

We conducted informal focus groups where several ideas were presented and the wingless bird direction was universally well received, with nearly all the participants expressing that they both understood and appreciated the humor in the design. The client and design team already loved the finished result of this design but our strong feelings were affirmed by the reaction of the focus group.