#yardbird

The skate artist who branded Hong Kong’s hottest restaurant

Matt Abergel got Evan Hecox to brand Yardbird - and learned an important lesson on how to approach your heroes.

When the Canadian chef Matt Abergel came to set up his Hong Kong restaurant, Yardbird, in 2011, with his business partner Lindsay Jang, he knew was creating something of a cultural hybrid: the food would be Japanese yakitori skewered chicken; the drinks menu – which features whisky and sake cocktails, - would combine the best of eastern and western bar ingredients; and the graphic identity and overall feel would pay tribute to Matt and Lindsay’s North American upbringing.

“Evan Hecox was the legendary artist responsible for the graphics of Chocolate, my favourite skateboard company growing up,” explains chef and Yardbird founder Matt Abergel in his new book Chicken and Charcoal: Yakitori, Yardbird, Hong Kong. “The artwork Evan created for each new series of boards was the reason I began to understand the connections between fine art and commercial art, and the importance of a consistent identity for a brand. In some way, skateboarding taught me the most valuable lessons, both in life and in business.”

This 48-year-old US artist is based in Colorado, and enjoys the state’s deserts and wildernesses, yet most of his art depicts urban settings. Working from his own photographs, and sometimes incorporating scraps of newsprint, he draws and paints dilapidated city streets on which trees, scaffolding and street vendor carts break up the built environment’s cleaner lines. When Abergel came to commission branding identity for his new Hong Kong restaurant, he knew exactly who to call. Other, more careful restaurateurs might shy away from commissioning their teenage heroes, yet Hecox proved to be a remarkably good fit for the brand, requiring very little guidance.

“I sent Evan a picture of a chicken, asked him to draw it, and told him the restaurant name,” the chef recalls. “He sent me two versions of the Yardbird name. One was lower case with very thin writing, and the other was what we have. That was it. The first chicken Evan sent was too detailed. I asked him to make it less detailed, so that it would work when we print it both large and small, but that was it.”

Abergel found this successful commission revelatory. “That’s when I kind of realized, too, that if you want something in life, you’ve just got to ask for it. You’ve just got to put yourself out there,” says Matt. “And also that these people, who I looked up to for so long in my life, are super-accessible human beings. These are the salt-of-the-earth kind of people who, if you just reach out to them, everyone’s down.”

Spring comes at last, and so do Doomsday and Yardbird's kittens - Anathema and Newt DeVice.

"We'll have to feed them more often, won't we? I wonder if Arden would like one."

Doomsday owns all the cat toys, but fortunately Anathema and Newt have each other to play with.

Stupid maid, leaving while they were stll eating…What do they pay him for, anyway? Well, it's his own fault if they're a nasty job to clean up tomorrow.

"You're going to be the very best kitty daddy and set the kittens a good example, aren't you?" "Mrp?"