Kini Studios has been promoting brands through comics and comic merchandise for quite some time now. Having worked with various food chains, the studio’s merchandise is no more only targeting the Indian audiences, but has grabbed attention of comic enthusiasts worldwide.
Considering the popularity and love for the cute merchandise, many brands approach the studio for commissioned work. Rajan Khorana of Honest restaurant, USA approached Kini Studios for commissioned work on the food chain, overseas.
This food chain is currently based out of Schaumburg and Naperville, Illinois Chicago and McKinney, Texas. Started in 2018, Honest will have its fourth restaurant opening in February 2020.
Khorana wanted to do something Indian. “He wanted to promote Indian street food through cartoons and comics, so Abhijeet and I got in touch with him and discussed how we can use different products to put up the comic content,” mentioned Kini Studios co-founder Diksha Kini.
Honest serves a well-curated Indian menu including pav bhaji, vadapav and other street food, which is loved worldwide. Kini Studios created coasters, rubik’s cubes and pop sockets, to showcase the menu and make it interesting for the customers. The studio also created few frames to bring out comic Indian vibe at the restaurant.
“We are happy to use the medium of comics and merchandise to reach out to more audiences and get brands on board. The response for such projects has been very positive since people can relate more to it. Once people get their hands on these, the merchandise becomes extremely sharable on social media as well,” added Kini.
Kini Studios recently added a line of hand-sculpted terracotta cartoon figurines to its merchandise collection. In 2020, the studio is looking forward to creating more fun merchandise not just for other brands but also for their own characters such as Angry Maushi, Fanboys and Rhyme Fighters to name a few.