The Scribble - Our first identity
How to identify a new design consultancy? After all, symbols, logotypes and visual identities are our stock in trade. Like the proverbial cobbler’s shoes, a mark for our own business was always going to be difficult compared to designing for clients. To start with we decided to set out what we didn’t stand for instead of for what we did, an anti-manifesto of sorts. We were (and still are) against formalism, lack of originality, kitsch, repetition and most of all – being boring.
Next came the Scribble, a hand-drawn gesture asserting Minale Tattersfield is first and foremost about ideas drawn with immediacy and strength of conviction. Not that it was straightforward back in 1964 agreeing which scribble should be the one as there were hundreds of versions, a layout pad full of scribbles. In the end Wendy the receptionist was asked to choose one of the many iterations, and that was it, decided. At a time when designers tended towards Swiss style typography and formal layouts, the Scribble was certainly different.
Over the years the Scribble has been interpreted in many ways from a snowy winter scene and mustachioed portrait of Marcello Minale to an ants nest. When we started using computers the Scribble was a natural for printing on a mouse mat, our hand movements endlessly replicating the original pencil markings while manipulating graphics on screen.
The Scribble has always been a liberating device inspiring us to do better work. A simple drawing, so easy and natural, the Scribble’s effortless form is what we aspire to achieve as designers. For us everything starts with a scribble, the germ of an idea, and that’s why our mark is still as relevant today as it has always been.
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