Hand-carved logos · Chicago, IL

A Yearly  Halloween   hyper-focus

Custom restaurant and brand logos, real and foam, carved by hand into pumpkins — then lit from within.  

See the work
The studio

Carved by candlelight...or amazon lamp...

take a logo — every serif, star and flourish — cut by hand, reads clean in daylight and burns bright at night.

What starts as a printed stencil pinned to a carvable pumpkin becomes a back-lit sign you can set on a host stand, a bar top, or a sidewalk. No two are alike, and every one is built to glow.

On location · Wrigley Building

Terrace 16

A hand-drawn Chicago skyline, carved window by window — then set on the rooftop so the glowing carve lines up with the real towers behind it.

Open the shot ⤢
How it's made

Stencil. Cut. Glow.

Printed stencil pinned to pumpkin Carved pumpkin lit from within Stencil Lit
↔
1

Print & pin

The logo is sized, printed, and pinned to a carvable foam pumpkin — fringe-cut so it hugs the curve without distorting a single letter.

2

Score & carve

Every line is poked through, then carved by hand. Some shapes are cut clean through; others are shaved thin so they glow softer than the rest.

3

Light it up

A light drops inside and the logo wakes up — crisp by day, radiant by night. Drag the slider to watch a stencil become a sign.

Tools & materials

What it takes.

The two things in every carve

Dremel cordless rotary hand carver
The tool

Dremel cordless rotary

Every line you see is cut with a Dremel hand carver — a cordless rotary tool that spins fine bits fast enough to shave a foam pumpkin like butter. It's what lets a serif stay a serif: thin enough to glow, deep enough to read, with control a knife can't touch.

  • Variable speed for fine micro-type
  • Cuts clean-through and shallow relief
  • Cordless — no cable dragging across the carve
Hide & Eeek carvable foam pumpkins on a Target shelf
The canvas

Hide & Eeek carvable pumpkins

The blanks are Hide & Eeek faux carvable pumpkins — Target's seasonal foam pumpkins. They take a Dremel without rotting, hold a crisp edge for weeks, and glow an even amber when lit from within. Stocked in-store only through the season, so the carving calendar runs on Target's.

Brand · Hide & Eeek Stocked at · Target In season · Sept–Oct
PUMPKIN REQUEST AREA

Put your logo
in the window.

Restaurant, pub, brand or bar — send me your logo. 

✉ [email protected] ◎ @mrcakebread4 ⌂ marklenington.com ⌖ Chicago, IL