Tools: Adobe Illustrator / Adobe Photoshop / Pencil / Marker
For Chipotle’s rebrand, I illustrated key pieces of the new identity, including the pepper mark locked up with the wordmark, a set of Food With Integrity icons, the original water cup, and a range of packaging doodles.
Fast food usually asks you not to think about where it comes from. Chipotle’s answer was to be open about it, with a commitment to ethical sourcing and sustainability. The brand had to feel as honest as that promise, and as personal as a favorite place.
I started with the pepper, drawing round after round of smoky jalapeño studies and simplifying one into a single continuous line spiraling within an outline. I used that same technique for the Food With Integrity icons. For the packaging, I worked under Anna Tou’s design direction, drawing doodles that read like an everyday Chipotle lover rambling about how much they love it.
I drew the pepper through several rounds of exploration, starting from more literal, smoky pepper studies and gradually simplifying into the clean, spiraling linework used in the final mark.
I worked with the Design Director at Sequence, LLC to refine the typography, rounding the letter corners to make the typeface a bit more approachable. The result was a symbol representing both the smoke-dried jalapeño the chain is named for and the brand's Food With Integrity commitment to ethical sourcing and sustainability.
I created the original water cup design, which was shaped like a water droplet, with "H2O, Water, Agua" hand-lettered inside. It kept the same playful, personal voice as the rest of the rebrand, treating something as simple as a water cup as another small opportunity for the brand's warmth to come through.
The Food With Integrity icon set carried the same single-line, spiraling technique as the pepper, visually tying each ingredient back to the brand's broader commitment to ethical sourcing. The repeated linework style across all the icons helped reinforce that these weren't just illustrations of ingredients, but a visual shorthand for where Chipotle's food actually comes from.
Under Anna Tou’s design direction, I illustrated this box and other packaging doodles in a loose, personal style, as if an everyday Chipotle lover were rambling about how much they love it, extending the warmth of the logo and icons across the packaging.
My hand-drawn love note to barbacoa was printed on the back of Chipotle staff T-shirts.
