SmokyCow

There is something disarmingly honest about naming a steakhouse after the cow. Much of the trade prefers softer words: prime, cut, chop, ranch. SmokyCow skips the polite language and tells the whole story in two words, the animal and the fire. It has the plain humour of cattle country, where nobody pretends dinner came from anywhere else.

The logo puts that story on one head. A Texas longhorn is drawn in charcoal grey, horns spread wide, and a flame rises from between them in orange and red, as if the animal had wandered through the smokehouse and kept a little of it. Below, the wordmark is set in rough, sun-faded capitals that would look at home burned into a wooden sign.

One concept image puts the mark on a black leather menu card in the middle of a crowded table. Around it a tomahawk steak rests on a board with rosemary, a ribeye is sliced pink, glazed skewers of beef and peppers glisten beside a skillet of baked beans, and a dark beer waits by the window. The table looks as though it belongs to a party of six who have stopped talking.

Texas cooking is slow and the name is quick, a useful balance. Eight letters, simple shapes and a picture anyone can draw: it could be branded into a serving board or stitched on an apron and still read from across the room.