Behind our brand logo

I recently worked with some students on brand development. The first question I asked was “what does our logo say about us”.

The top five adjectives returned were: quality, simple, clean, pure, honest

I can’t tell you what a relief it was to hear those words, because just over a year ago many hours and sketches went into encapsulating those words in our brand image.

We have been very fortunate to work with a fabulous design studio up in Newcastle. Before pen went to paper we had a day with them to help define ‘our voice’. To consolidate key messages and values that would engage our potential customers.

To make life difficult I started by admitting that I actually have an issue with the word t-shirt. The word t-shirt has many derogatory connotations “we’re classic wardrobe staples” “we’re quality basics” “we’re not t-shirts” I stressed. But we are a t-shirt company and that was the challenge of the afternoon - to convey our difference.

At the end of the afternoon we had our brief: As a company quality and ethics are at the heart of what we do. And no matter what your age or gender our organic cotton t-shirts are about you and your values. “Designed & made with sustainability in mind. We don’t believe in throwaway fashion.”

If you’ve not been involved in brand development you’ve probably not stopped to consider what a typeface, a colour or a flourish of line can say about a brand. So it may be interesting for you to see how the team worked our values into our logo.

We liked the idea of an icon, an everyday symbol that was instantly recognised. We wanted to keep it simple. We wanted to be understated so that the beauty of our cotton and the craftsmanship of our organic t-shirts spoke for themselves and our wearers.

And the final result...

So our logo is simple. It clearly states who we are and what we do. I hope it also conveys the care behind our brand. We do have other symbols which are important to us. Our GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standard) certification for example and our own marque of quality. These have their own stories which I'll leave for another day!