For quite sometime now ive been getting emails from people with many questions, generally asking how I got started, asking for advice or tips and hints on how to get started with their own brands. The most common question that seems to pop up quite alot is how did the logo come about? and how does the final logo today reflect your original idea?
With those questions in mind, I figured I would dig out my original sketches and sit down to write something up just to explain my thoughts on where Edward came from and how he developed to what you see today as the trademarked logo of the brand.
When I first started fleshing out ideas for the brand the name was already there and as many people know it was a nickname that has stuck with me since University, but what I didnt have straight away was a logo. I had alot of design ideas, doodles and sketches, notes, product ideas, packaging ideas, an actual teashop idea, but no logo!
A logo is one of the most important parts that you need to nail when starting any business, whether its going to be a symbol or a simple typography logo in a particular font style, it needs to fit with your brand direction and ideas perfectly, it needs to be memorable and appealing right off the bat because for the most part, it will be the first thing people will see when they come across your brand.
While I was playing with ideas I found myself looking at packaging for Tea products aswel as other brand logo’s, especially in streetwear and clothing. This really helped me to work out what I felt would or wouldnt work for my brand, which then was just an idea and a note book of design concepts! I wasnt sure on which way to go, should I have a simple or fancy font logo? Should I use some sort of symbol logo like a teapot or something? The more I thought about it, the more ideas I had. I saw Edward Teabelly as the alter ego of myself so I had the idea of creating an actual character that could represent the name and the brand as the logo itself and as the mascot. Why not have an actual person/character BE the logo!
The more I thought about it the more it got me excited and made me think of how different it would be. I saw alot and I mean alot of brands with great font logos but that was it, some had no symbols or anything and I wanted to change that. I wanted to add some character to my brands logo.
The moment I sat down with a tracing pad, I pictured what Edward would look like straight away. A jolly looking English gent with a teacup top hat, moustache and monocle was my first mental description. For some reason, I kept sketching out his top hat with a handle, very much like a cup/mug but after many revisions I wasn’t feeling it so that quickly got removed and replaced with an actual teapot symbol on the front of his hat. Its kind of strange because working with an illustrator at the time as I was, we sent back and forth variations of Edward, my original sketches, his revisions, my revisions and so forth but in the end, the final logo which you see today is pretty much close to what I originally sketched up in the begining. I had a vision in my head of what Edward would look like and pretty much stuck with it, minus a few slight changes ofcourse.
The whole decision behind using a character as the logo/mascot was a pretty easy one for me. It opened the door to many ways of using him in designs, in products and so forth to make the brand fun and cool yet be unique and still remain a streetwear brand. So much has been done before so its all about reinventing and using your inspirations and loves as a base for your own ideas to come up with something that feels fresh and I felt the Edward logo and more importantly, Edward as a character did that!
There is alot bubbling for the future with more Edward designs, the Edward Classic possibly coming in new colourways. There is alot planned and alot I want to achieve with the brand with plenty of fresh designs, new products and so forth.
Pinkys Up!
