Hasta La Ideas

Tom Hingston Studio was recently commissioned to create a more vibrant version of the traditional Woolmark and also design a logo for a new campaign to promote wool, which launched this week at several events in London designed to focus passers by attention on wool – such as this flock of yellow sheep spotted outside Selfridges…

Anyone who’s owned a nice wool sweater will recognise the Woolmark (shown above with other logos in the Woolmark family). It provides consumers with an assurance of quality, in much the same way that the Soil Association’s seal of approval gives shoppers a visual thumbs-up to bone fide, approved organic produce.

The Campaign for Wool is a new initiative by Woolmark that aims to increase consumer demand for wool and wool products which has, we’re told, been declining in recent years. “The whole thing is about the promotion of wool as a sustainable, viable fibre,” explains Tom Hingston about the project. “And it’s not just aimed at fashion, it’s about interiors, product design, built environment. Wool impacts all of those things as a fibre, as a material.”

Hingston’s studio, in collaboration with creative consultancy Keep, has created a new colourful version of the Woolmark (above), specifically for use in communication relating to the campaign. “The original Woolmark was designed in the 60s,” says Hingston. “But there’s a perception that it is tied to an older era – you’d only ever see it in black and white. It’s such a beautiful and iconic mark and we’ve grown up with it, so we looked at expressing it in different ways. Woolmark wanted us to infuse the original with a new vibrancy – which is why we introduced colour, layering and transparency.”

As well as creating the colourful redrawn Woolmark logo for use in the campaign, Tom Hingston Studio, again in collaboration with Keep, also created a logo for the campaign, featuring an illustrated sheep drawn in a calligraphic swashy style:

The campaign kicked off this week with in a series of events. Besides Selfridges’ yellow sheep, yet more sheep were in town this week. On Savile Row, no less…

Yes, that’s right, London’s Savile Row, famous for it’s bespoke tailoring, was closed to normal traffic for the day on Monday in order for the street to host Savile Row Field Day. To mark the occasion of the launch of the Campaign for Wool at the event, a flock of Exmoor Horn sheep were allowed to graze on specially laid turf along the road. Farmer Harry Parker (owner of the Exmoor Horn sheep – he’s the chap in the flat cap in the picture above) is, appropriately, dressed in a bespoke suit made of West of England tweed cloth which combines the wool of British Exmoor Horns (like his own) with merino wool to create super nice tweed.

Find out more about the Campaign for Wool at campaignforwool.org