Logo – Builders of Quality Living Spaces & Fine Cabinetry
Backstory
John Koskela – the artisan in Carhartts. His respect and love for old houses seems to be unique in his line of work. It is far easier to tear down an old beater and start from scratch. But he loves the quality, the wood that you can’t replace, the hand-hewn log that some person, some time ago touched. Why would you destroy that when you could find a way to steward it along to the next craftsperson?
He doesn’t really need a logo because he never has to advertise. There aren’t enough hours to keep up with the folks who repeatedly call him to work on their homes.
Regardless, he asked me to do a logo and cards for his business. I believe his existing logo was a rough drawing of a house.
I played around with architectural shapes, triangles, squares, circles but I always came back to the house. Which house?
I started with the 300-year-old house I live in. I sketched and rendered it in Adobe Illustrator then placed it on a slice of land. For the font, I wanted to use Trajan, by Carol Twombly, my colleague in art school and Adobe. The Trajan letter designs are modeled on the Roman square capitals inscribed at the base of Roman emperor Trajan’s Column. Some person, some time ago, hand-carved those letters on stone. Carol loved all that and chose to shepherd them into the 20th century with her font. It was a perfect fit.
What could go wrong?
It’s a detailed representation of a very specific house. It’s not manly, tough, and construction-like. The font wasn’t san-serif like you might expect. It has a lot of detail.
I also created a scalable drawing from a wood plane photo to be used at the bottom of his letterhead.
What went right
John put the logo on his warm grey Ford transit – large. It looks incredible. He says he constantly gets comments from people. It isn’t like any other construction company truck – or really any other truck.
He said it has a dream-like quality about it. Perhaps it represents the promise of something classic, something timeless – something only a craftsperson like John would create.
I added more detail when the logo was scaled up for the van. The detail really added dimension.
Note to self
So much operates below the surface – trust and translate the sentiment.