Horsefeather Holidays
Vintage Americana holiday programming that kept the brand intact.
Overview
Most bars do Christmas pop-ups the same way: maximum coverage, minimum restraint. Lights everywhere, nonspecific festivity, the holiday as spectacle. It works for some brands. It wasn’t right for Horsefeather.
Horsefeather’s identity draws from American Arts and Crafts — warm materials, considered design, nothing gratuitous. Doing the holidays meant finding a version of Christmas that fit that register rather than overriding it. The answer was to go back further: vintage Americana, mid-century catalogs, mid-century music, the kind of Christmas that felt classic before it became kitsch. Nostalgic enough to be festive, restrained enough to stay on-brand.
The goal was a holiday that felt like it belonged to Horsefeather rather than temporarily displacing it.
MY ROLE
Creative Direction · Brand Strategy · Graphic Design · Menu Design · Food & Beverage Photography · Art Direction
TOOLS USED
Illustrator · InDesign · Photoshop · Lightroom · Canon M50 · 50mm f/1.8 lens · Cross Screen Starburst Lens Filter · Black diffusion lens filter · Godox AD100Pro II Pocket Flash
Artifacts
Photography
The photography brief followed the same logic. Warm, practical light. Rich textures. Nothing that read as generic holiday stock. The food and beverage program was shot to feel like it could have come from a well-designed catalog from another era — specific, unhurried, a little romantic.
MARKETING ASSETS
The collateral system extended the same vocabulary across print and digital: the Holiday at the Horse sub-brand identity, seasonal menu updates, Instagram Story Highlights, and social graphics across both locations. Festive without being loud. Recognizably Horsefeather throughout.
CAN-O-YAMS
The Horsefeather bar manager had a cocktail concept: Can-O-Yams, served directly from a Bruce’s Yams can. The only problem was practical — the cans couldn’t be washed and reused with the paper label intact. He asked me if I could come up with a solution.
I scanned the original Bruce’s Yams packaging, rebuilt it as a spoof at exact dimensions, and had it printed as a waterproof bumper sticker. Bare cans got the new label. “Horsefeather’s Yams.” Distributed by Horsefeather, San Francisco, CA 94117. Ingredients: Jack Daniel’s Triple Mash whiskey, candied yams, falernum, toasted marshmallows. The nutrition facts track Cheer, Naughty, Bah Humbug, Drunk Uncle Energy, Spite, Rebound, and Nostalgia. The Heart-Check Certification is prominently rejected. Stovetop heating instructions advise placing the unopened can directly on a burner at high heat — “You’ll know when they’re done.”
The cocktail has come back every holiday season since. So has the can.
