Maximus Knives is a direct-to-consumer kitchen knife brand geared towards professional chefs and advanced-level home cooks. The knives are meant to be highly customizable for those who use knives for many hours every day. A few ounces added or taken away from certain areas of the knives can really make a difference for professionals. The professional kitchen is demanding and they cannot compromise when it comes to the tools they use. It is something I learned both in culinary school and in the previous chef positions I filled at various restaurants over the years.

Creating a brand that has a style and product that appeals to the professional chefs’ wants and needs was a challenge. I was heavily inspired by my wants and needs from when I was a professional chef. The hand-lettered custom logo is inspired by the precision knife cutting skills chefs have. The dark sleek branding and packaging design creates a premium look and feel. Adding to the premium experience is the custom packaging for the customized knife.

This project began as an advanced type hand-lettered logo. It became a fictitious branded direct-to-consumer knife company. I enjoyed learning how to create black letter using a parallel pen. I also enjoyed bringing a bit of my background as a professional chef to my new graphic design career. One of the biggest challenges was creating a custom sliding box for the knives. I created it with illustration board book cloth and a strip of gray nylon lanyard. Overall this is one of my favorite projects I completed for my portfolio.