Lee’s Famous Recipe Chicken reworked its visual identity in 2023 and unveiled a new restaurant
prototype at its annual Family Reunion brand conference. Design firm Chute Gerdeman led the
identity work.

Why this is filed as context

Plein Air is not credited in every account of the rebrand, and the identity work belongs to Chute
Gerdeman. This entry is here because the 2025 advertising campaign is unreadable without it, not
because it is Plein Air’s project — and the attribution should be treated carefully anywhere this
is republished.

Sequence, and why it is the right one

The order matters. Lee’s changed how it looked in 2023, then changed what it said in 2025. Doing it
the other way round is the more common mistake: a brand finds a sharp campaign idea, runs it
against dated packaging and interiors, and the work undercuts itself at the point of purchase.

A prototype restaurant is the expensive half of that sequencing and the half that takes longest to
propagate — identity can ship in a quarter, estate refits take years. Launching the campaign two
years later is roughly the interval it takes for enough remodels to land that the advertising is
describing something a guest will actually recognise.

Sources

Covered by Nation’s Restaurant News,
QSR Magazine,
RestaurantNews.com on the prototype
and WATT AgNet.