karak man

final illustration for karak house food truck . 2019

illustration application on karak house food truck . 2019 (image courtesy of karak house)

here's another project i worked on during the final quarter of 2019. i was approached by karak house to work on an illustration to be used on their food truck. if you've been a follower of my blog, you might be familiar with my previous collaborations with karak house (see here and here). it was great to hear from karak house and their interest to work together again.

the brief was pretty simple – they were looking for an illustration to apply onto their food truck which would make the rounds around town for certain events and activations. they weren't looking for pattern designs (which i did for their previous two projects), and wanted a bold illustration this time around.

with that in mind, i created 'karak man', in homage to all the tea boys serving us sweet cups of karak we've all encountered while living here. i tried to make him as welcoming and kind looking as possible. i think the final illustration is pretty cute.
i'm so happy to see an illustration of mine on a food truck. but the application of 'karak man' wasn't completely to my liking –  the illustration was slightly revised to meet 'brand guidelines'. and with the client's graphic additions ('yalla karak' arabic text and abstract patterned backgroud), i felt my 'karak man' gets a bit lost amongst it all. but this being my first project for a food truck, there's definitely a learning curve here, understanding how illustrations can be applied better for such a format.
if anyone's seen this around town, let me know – take a photo, send it over, let me know what you think!