Logo marathon

This is a story of one such job.

Back in the 80’s, Rob de Castella, (affectionately known as ‘Deek’), was a world champion marathon runner. Today, he’s a bit of a sporting, healthy-living icon in Australia. When it came time to launch a chain of grain-free bakery/cafes and food products, Rob needed a brand for Deeks.

For this project, I was lucky enough to get the help of a friend, fellow designer and illustrator, William Butt. Together we surely could knock this thing off in no time right?

Challenge

There were quite a few challenges involved with getting this logo right. Firstly, it needed to communicate the venture’s core themes of quality and wellbeing.

It also needed to be applicable to a variety of media and contexts including food and beverage packaging, cafe signage & fittings, promotional material, and clothing.

Lastly, while the name ‘Deeks’ would leverage Rob de Castella’s current public profile and his connection to health, achievement, and the community, ideally, the logo wouldn’t be overtly related to Rob and his sporting past.

When we first talked with Rob and his partners, they were quite open to ideas on where to take this. So our first round of concepts actually happened before our first the meeting. Now this might seem a little overzealous on our behalf, but given that they really weren’t sure what they did or didn’t want, having a first round of concepts allowed us a starting point.

They quickly concluded that a sans-serif typeface was preferred to a handwritten script to provide a stronger, more sophisticated and modern look. A lowercase ‘d’ was also apparently the way to go. Given its variety of applications, its form had to ideally have a certain level of simplicity and flexibility. We interpreted that to mean something iconic enough to be dusted on the top of coffees.

Solution

In our meetings we got each person involved to clearly describe the Deeks brand. Words like goodness, wellness, healthiness, quality, natural, wholesome, responsibility, stability, simplicity, longevity, achievement, organic seemed to pop up the most.

So back to the drawing board. In talks with Will and throwing round ideas, it became pretty clear that a simple way to communicate concepts like goodness, wholesomeness, longevity, organic, was to incorporate nature into our designs. Here was the first step to our solution.

Given that we’d now been briefed and had some idea of how to tackle the job, the next round of concepts were a lot closer to the mark. But we still hadn’t quite knocked it on the head. Because the bakery dealt with grain-free products, we really had to avoid the whole wheat imagery. Looking back in it, this was probably a blessing in disguise given the prevalence of wheat in bakery branding. Funny that.

So, on to the third round of concepts. This time we tried to hone things even further focusing solely on a branch/leaf form. In our research for ideas we found a particular shot of Rob after one of his marathons wearing a wreath. While being careful not to overdo it, the standout concept emerged which subtly referenced this form as it extended around the brand name.

“Just sensational. Rob and Will were easy to work with and really listened to what we wanted and needed. They then took it that other step adding their own creative flare.”
(name) Robert de Castella
(caption) Owner, Deeks

The next stage involved cleaning things up. The end leaf was changed to be pointing upward rather than down, to give the logo a more ‘positive’ feel.

Results

Deeks has been a major success. Since their launch they’ve opened another store and are also selling directly to retail grocery stores.

What lessons can we learn from this? Well, firstly it’s really important that the client try to stay detached throughout the process. Remind them that ‘love at first sight’ is a rare thing indeed.

Also, I found mocking up some concepts before things kicked off was really helpful. Sometimes you can’t ask the right questions until you’ve gotten your hands just a little dirty. So sketching down a few ideas, if only for yourself, before you meet for the first time is a great way to very quickly bring yourself up to speed on some of the questions you should probably be asking in that meeting.