Chayan Yuese Is Letting Customers Redraw Its Logo — And Printing the Weirdest Ones

Most brands guard their logo like a crown jewel. Chayan Yuese (茶颜悦色) just handed the jewel box to its fans and said: go wild.

The Changsha-based tea chain recently wrapped the latest edition of its "Little Master Works Official Wall" campaign — a recurring open call where customers are invited to redraw the brand's signature classical court lady mascot, any way they like. The only brief: unlock your brain and "整活" (a Chinese internet term that roughly means mess around creatively for the bit). Winners would see their art printed on actual cups, packaging, and merch.

Hundreds of entries poured in. About 40 made the final cut — and they are gloriously unhinged. Think Picasso-esque cubist deconstructions of a Tang dynasty beauty. Crudely minimalist line drawings that look like someone drew them with their non-dominant hand on a bumpy bus. One submission was literally a stick figure in a dress. Netizens dubbed the whole affair a "Logo Dictation Contest" — draw the mascot from memory, no peeking, and the more abstract the better.

This is not a one-off. Chayan Yuese first tested the format back in 2022, printing fan-made logos on a limited "Little Noble Cup." In 2024, entries like "Matchstick Court Lady" and "Skeleton Court Lady" made it onto packaging. What started as an experiment has calcified into an annual, unspoken pact between the brand and its community. Fans know the drill. The brand knows fans will deliver chaos. Everyone wins.

The mechanics are deceptively low-effort — anyone can doodle — but the payoff is real: a surge of genuine UGC that no agency could brief, paired with the quiet signal that this brand doesn't take itself too seriously. Every cup becomes a tiny exhibition. Every shopping bag, a flex.

In an era of meticulously staged rebrands and six-figure design retainers, there's something disarmingly refreshing about a tea brand that's happy to print a Cubist stick figure on its product — and call it the new logo.