Leaders lead. Vultures, as one of our favorite designs puts it, feed. The Vulture Collection is a flock of hunched, beady-eyed birds in red neckties, perched and waiting for whatever is left on the table after everyone else has done the hard part. They all share the same unruly orange crest, and they all share the same patient, hungry expression.
The ones who wait
Don the Con is the elder statesman of the flock, a big brown vulture with a bald red head, a ruff of white feathers at his neck and a tie tucked neatly beneath it. He sits perfectly still with his talons planted and his eyes narrowed, the look of a bird who has sat through a great many deals and walked away from each one heavier. Leaders Lead But Vultures Feed puts a fluffier fellow front and center, his spiky orange crest standing straight up, his hooked beak turned to the side and his round glowing eyes fixed on something just out of frame. The caption says everything he will not.
The ones who talk
Not every vulture here is the quiet type. One lanky bird leans forward in a brown coat and tie, beak wide open in a squawk, wisps of orange sticking up off his bald head like he has just been interrupted and would like to speak to the manager. Another stands knee deep in his own golden feathers, beak agape, with a caption crowning him the world's biggest bird-brain in big arched letters. And Just One Little Sip gives us the most unsettling face in the flock: a vulture peeking up from the bottom of the design with enormous rainbow spiral eyes, one talon raised in a polite little wave, and the air of a bird who has promised that this glass is the last one.
For the woman with the long view
This collection is for the person who has watched the same flock circle the same field for years and can call the landing before it happens. She is patient, she is observant, and she has a dry wit that lands better than any lecture ever could. At the airport gate she reads quietly in Don the Con while a stranger across the aisle works out the joke and grins at her over his coffee. That is the conversation she likes: one knowing look, no argument required. Up in the sky, the vultures are still circling. Down here, she has already finished her lunch.
Written by James. Thanks for reading.
