Held Design

25.01.2010

TCK, the concept behind the design




Since the success of The Constant Knitter and with a little advice from a friend in the know, I decided I would add a bit of usefulness to my blog. Give back some info instead of using this as a space to randomly rant or throw up some unexplained work, so here it goes…

A little insight behind the thinking that went into The Constant Knitter.

I always start with a concept and this concept was brilliant. Rosemary wanted something a little quirky, maybe slightly off the wall, a bit out there, basically something different. She was totally and completely open to ideas and I LOVE THIS. The more open the better.

First things first, I took my influences from Rosemary, she loves colour, wears a lot of it and always looks bright, point in my notebook.

Secondly, wool!

The site is all about wool and knitting. The underground culture of knitting is mad, actually absolutely mental. With so many groups and hidden societies out there it’s like an underground rebellion, so of course I had to investigate that. I took wool samples and played with them endlessly, making the letters, scanning the wools, basically having fun. It’s fun with a purpose though and I found that the material itself combined with all the different types of stitches created really intriguing patterns upclose. I ran with this idea, asked Rosemary for some of her favourite pieces, took them home and put my scanner to work.

Thirdly, I took a selection of different typefaces or fonts (there seems to be an argument in the design world about what to call these so I’ll call them letters) each letter was a different font (ah there I go again. Just confused myself!) as a wanted to create a zanny feel to the logo, to show the diversity of knitting and knitters. I placed the scanned wool pieces behind the letters and cut them out…the end result is the logo you see now plus a few little tweaks.

The images above are some of the research stages I went through, this is what I love about design. It’s an open process, you may think your going one way with a piece and then a little bit of exploration leads you down a totally different path!

Hope you enjoyed this post, I may do more of these…um.

A Little Prudence for The Constant Knitter

The Constant Knitter gets a great mention in prudence magazine! After picking up Rosemary’s leaflet in Cafe Notte, a journalist from Prudence asked her to take part in an article on entrepreneurial women. A full day of photos ensued and Rosemary and The Constant Knitter got great coverage in the recent Jan/Feb edition.

I’m delighted for Rosemary and (whispering) for myself.

18.01.2010

A Little Recognition…

Just got a nice little present for a Monday morning. Have, this past hour, been informed that “The Constant Knitter” has made it onto the Irish House and Homes magazines top 100 list of funky design start ups. Held design did the full branding and web design and we are delighted that Rosemary has got some recognition. (A little happy for myself as well, just reaching around now and patting my back!).

Ruairi at Kro Solutions did an excellent job building the site and you can read his blog here. As you can see we’re all pretty happy!

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