Laura Shema makes
Design for Businesses

Squidwhale, also known as Elizabeth McTear, asked us to manage the process of rebranding her business — and all the paraphernalia which comes with it — to Honest Alchemy. Producing American made, handcrafted, environmentally conscious products for a discerning, worldwide audience is fundamental to HA; most of their products are hand dyed using eight-hundred year old techniques — vats of bacteria left for the right lengths of time produce the vibrant result instilled in each products’ fibres. It’s a simple strength based on an ancient process:

Take beautiful, natural, responsibly-sourced materials and change them over time using a genuinely organic process. Honest Alchemy are proud to be ‘of the earth’ and to bind the qualities of their craft into every one of their products.

We defined a strong, conceptual base for the new moniker and brand, instilling the core strengths of the brand into the identity: simplicity, craft, and time.

‘Process’ became the fulcrum of our work. ‘Time’ and ‘pressure’ led us to a geological comparison, we used that comparison to define the simple, iconic, and mysterious mark. It represents the natural process of material in two forms, marked by the slice through the iceberg/volcano; water into ice and magma into rock, respectively. It’s the mark we would have produced eight hundred years ago and it’s no less relevant today.