Burger King King: A Disappointment in Reality

Exiting Burger King, I noticed a red sticker on the door. I didn't have time to study it carefully, but I remembered that it had something like a "See you soon" inscription and a vector image of the king - white on a red background. I didn't stop to look at it any further and quickly drove home to devour my still-hot Spicy Whopper Jr.

The burger was eaten, my stomach was full, but my mind was still not satisfied. This sticker with the king hooked my designer mind.

My rich imagination painted me an ideal vector illustration: a good job with curves, conveying volume and lighting. Wavy hair fell beautifully onto the ermine collar. Gracefully curled mustache and a neat beard completed the image of the king of all burgers. A concise, professional work that evokes pleasant associations with monarchy, tyranny, and the smell of grilled meat.

Just like I did it. But I didn't.

I started looking for this drawing on the internet. The Burger King brand book didn't have the image I was looking for. I looked at the portfolios of the designers who worked on the 2020 rebranding. Nothing there either. Along the way, I got stuck on the websites of the cool guys who created the new style. In short, I couldn't find this picture on the net at that time.

Deciding that I could always go to the cafe and take a closer look at the king, I sat down to draw to visualize the image that had stuck in my head and compare it to the real one.

Additional options came up during the sketching process, but I settled on one that was almost exactly as I had imagined it. Carefully placing the Bezier curves, achieving smooth and light lines, I recreated the virtual image, 89.8% percent.

A few days later, I ran into Burger King just to finally look at the image that was causing me brain itch. I was disappointed... I didn't see any volume, any lighting, or any ermine collar. And the work with the curves was pretty crooked.

The banal idea that imagination is always brighter than reality is still relevant. I didn't get a burger that time.