I’ve been working on Webknit for around three years now and during that time I’ve had dozens of different logos. Designing branding for yourself is perhaps one of the most challenging tasks I’ve encountered. I’ve now managed to obtain a decent reputation and online presence so I decided to do things ‘properly’ and  I set out to find a skilled branding person to design my new logo.

Finding a designer

I had been looking around at logo designers for a while and I knew exactly what I wanted. Tim Boelaars is a designer I’ve admired for a few years now, his style is right up my street. Unfortunately he’s incredibly expensive for a business of my size. I set about finding someone with a similar style to Tim and eventually  shortlisted and contacted three designers that caught my eye. The aim was not only to obtain a quote, but also to find out the procedures they undertake when designing a logo.

They were all very helpful but I eventually decided on Jonathan Wängström, a designer based in Sweden. I chose Jonathan because I was a keen admirer of his work and he also seemed friendly, forthcoming and quite persistent – something I really liked.

Brief

I will be the first to admit that my brief was absolutely mental. I felt sorry for poor Jonathon who was hit with an absolute load of dribble. The brief consisted of dozens of my favorite designs, many of which were completely opposite styles. He knew the styles I like but didn’t really have a clue what I wanted.

We started thinking about what I want the actual logomark to be. My initial idea was to make use of the words ‘web and ‘knit, with web being the web and knit being the crafted work which I create. This is, admittedly, the most obvious and boring concept that I came up with and we set out exploring some other avenues.

Whilst exploring Jon came up with the idea of a sheep, which related to the wool from the word knit. It also closely realted to my countryside roots in North Yorkshire, England. Ironically Webknit was also formed in mid April 2011, which falls into the Aries zodiac sign.

I was a little sceptical at first but I liked the ideas behind the sheep and also the idea of a mascot type logo. The more I thought about this sheep the more I liked the sound of it.

I started looking at sheep on the internet and came to the impression that they were timid, fearful and dumb animals. However a Ram (male sheep) is quite different, they are powerful, fearless and often tactical animals with a “never say die” attitude. I felt that all these qualities strongly resembled Webknit apart from the aggressiveness. I came up with the idea of making the Ram smile or wink in order to omit a quirky, friendly and – most importantly – smart impression.

I did some research and – quite understandably – some people couldn’t find the link between Webknit and the Ram. When I told them to think about the ‘knit’ aspect of the word around 50% of the people immediately pinned it to the wool on the sheep, I then continued to tell them about the personal decisions behind the Ram.  This little investigation made me love the winking ram even more, like it’s hinting they might be able to tie it to the name if they think about it.

The mark

Jon set about making the mark and as soon as I seen it I knew it was absolutely what I wanted to represent Webknit. The changes we made to the original concept were very minimal, making slight changes to the eye and the wink. Jon had included some delightful shapes in the illustration that made me “love” the icon even more (can you figure that out).

The type was another challenge, we initially went for a custom made script, then changed for a custom serif font. Since the handover I’ve swapped the type for a solid sans serif font with a large amount of letter spacing. I felt that this typography balances the logo better, making it look more professional.

Overall I’m really happy with the logo, I’m chuffed that I chose Jon to design my logo and I now feel so much more prouder of Webknit. There’s just the small task of making a new site which needs to be addressed.

Thanks for Jon for designing my logo. I would highly recommend him. You can view his work/get in touch with him here.

• Branding
• Personal
• WebKnit