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.