Taboo Tiki Rum??

Hello everyone

I know its been a long time since I've done anything Tiki. A lot has happened in my life that has kept me away from Tiki stuff. So... I'm working with a company right now to create a new product that I think you guys will like. It will be Von Franco Taboo Tiki Rum. It will come in a Dark Rum and a Coconut Rum. The product is 5 year aged Rum from the Island of Antigua. I've designed the bottles and artwork to fit the Tiki Kulture. Let me know what you guys think good or bad. This is still in the works... We are also working with Holden at Tiki Farm to do a limited edition Tiki Mug and stir stick. Here are the pictures of the samples. Fire Away....

Thanks so much
Von Franco

I think they look pretty good ! Id love to try the coconut rum !

lookin good - will match up with my / your tiki bike
send it!

nice work as always, but i don't like the layout of the type......i would like to see the words taboo and tiki a little larger so that they fill in the sides next to the tiki alittle more.....also, the word exotic looks small and lost floatin around.....perhaps it too should be vertical and on the neck of the bottle, so it reads top to bottom....when marketing a brand it seems that what you are selling should be the largest focal point, in this case, it's the name taboo tiki....but you have made the tiki drawing himself the largest element on the bottle and marginalized the actual product identity by making the name smaller along the sides......i guess in a nutshell - tiki smaller, words bigger.....and where the hell is your name on this??? that too is the purpose and a big selling point of this rum. If i'm buying von franco's rum, i wanna know it!!....say it loud my friend!!

..also, think about marketing in terms of the tiki idol you choose to represent the brand.....down the line you may want to make necklaces, tiki mugs and what not as incentives or give aways..having a cool looking tiki that looks unique will help you sell them.......i know your work and know you can draw a really mean bad ass tiki to be representative of your brand.....this one isn't quite up to snuff for me....it's not bad, but knowing your work for as many years it doesn't feel to me to be as strong an image as i think it should be....

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[ Edited by: Tipsy McStagger 2009-02-12 17:05 ]

Bottle looks great. What will the characteristics of the rum be?

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Over the years that I've worked with Von Franco, it's always been one of my favorite things to do at Tiki Farm. He's a great friend and now we have an opportunity to lend our hard work to a project near and dear to us... simply put - Rum!! I'm going to ask that the proprietor post up here more about the rum itself - that's very important. It's a very nice quality rum per Franco (I'm yet to sample it) but for now, I wanna share a coupla things...

First up is the bottle. I think a clearer indication of the type of rum and then a companion stir stick featuring Franco's Tiki portion of the art/sculpt as the handle would be cool...

Your thoughts?

Next up I wanna share a sneak peak of the sculpt of the mug...

I've always liked Von Franco's style. It more so then a lot of other styles takes me back to my childhood of the 1970's and most specifically to thumbing through Mad Magazine and when I didn't have enough dough, I'd still fold over the back cover and then re-shelf it to the horror & dismay of my mom!

This is a very rootsy project and we would appreciate any feedback on it to make it as successful as possible during these crazy times.

Holden, that connection to MAD magazine rings true. And I like the sculpt above. My two cents would be what I always say, and try to remind Tiki artists of today of: Remember why the moderns, Picasso and his contemporaries, were drawn to primitive art --because, for the first time, it showed them a non-naturalistic way of how to portray man. So as an artist I would try to look for elements in my Tiki that look too humanoid, and try to make them more cubist/primitive/blocky/out of proportion/stylized--NOT naturalistic.

A lot of the "cartoony" elements in this Tiki already do that, but when, as in the above rendering by Von, the roundness and organic-ness of the body leaves it still human, it is too reminiscent of a caricature of a person, and not enough a new take on tribal art. A lot of folks seem to like that kind of cutesy, troll-like look, but what strikes me as the prime quality of Tiki style is its fine balance between cartoon, modern and primitive style elements. As you all know. :)

On 2009-02-12 13:49, Patrick1313 wrote:
I think they look pretty good ! Id love to try the coconut rum !

Same here. Who will be distributing it in NorCal and how/where do I get a few bottles?

chiwito

Who's distributing and when will it be released?

so thats the MUG and 2 bottles of the rum with a set of swizle sticks ....where do we all send the moola and can ya get it here before happy hour ?
Looks super and I'm sure this is gonna take off for ya !
This is how it all grows up and gets its legs back!more ideas branching out in as many directions as possible , GOOD LUCK and HURRY! ( cant wait )

• crack open a bottle of CRUZAN coconut rum and take a good sniff! make it as good or better and yer on yer way to greatness!