During my time in the drinks industry I worked work on a substantial number of brand identities with many different designers, and the process had always followed the same pattern. Give the designer a picture of the proposed product, an understanding of the brand and a detailed description of the drinker - then let the graphic design gods decide your fate.

The first set of sketches or concepts would come back in a week or two. You’d proudly, or not so proudly, show them to friends and family who would invariably like (or hate) different logos for different reasons. You’d eventually decide on a direction and a few weeks later would be sent some refined versions. It was not uncommon, even months later, to still be agonising over the shape of certain letters, font style, sizing and colour options.

Creating the Bennett Winch logo was refreshingly different. In the summer of 2014 we brought Rupert Shreeve, a childhood friend and brilliant product designer into the fold to help refine our early designs for, ‘The Weekender’ and the results had been superb. We knew immediately that Rupert understood what we were about and asked if he could design us a logo.

A week before this, Robin Bennett had been visiting his Mother 'up North' and updating her on our new venture, when she said, “You and Winch both happen to be called Robin, given that's a fairly rare name surely the logo should be a Robin?”. Bennett half-jokingly floated the idea to Ru, who immediately sided with Mrs Bennett and hit the sketch book that evening, most probably with a customary glass of something strong to aid the creative process.

Less than 24 hours later, Ru sent over his design and for the first time ever there was a unanimous yes - not only from the three of us - but from everyone we showed it to. The font was perfect, the two crossed robin birds to represent the 'Bennett' and the 'Winch' sides of the business had a bold, recognisable charm and the spirit of a pirate-made flag. He’d also created a B.W monogram which could be placed on every bag as our stamp of quality if you will.

We didn’t make a single amend and the logo hasn’t changed since it was created that evening, yet somehow it still looks just as good to me as it did nearly 10 years ago. Given creating timeless product not led by trends or fashion is in our DNA, it’s reassuring that our logo seems to have the same longevity.

If you saw the logo for the first time and didn’t know anything about the brand, or that the Co-Founders are both called Robin, you’d of course most likely see two birds and just think it looks the part. What is interesting though is the number of times people we’ve been working with for years suddenly realise the connection, inevitably telling us: “Oh wait, I’ve just realised why there are two robins in the logo!”. 

It’s these type of conversations with friends and customers of the brand that remind us that it’s always nice to explain the backstory and shed a little light on how the brand came to be - and we thought it was time we shared it with you too. If you also had no idea about what the logo was or why it was two birds, don't worry you're in good company...

Making your brand instantly recognisable through a logo isn’t easy but I hope if you ever find yourself in a similar situation, the process goes as well for you as it did for us at Bennett Winch. Remember, if you happen to get lucky and nail it first time, don’t tweak a thing - just let it fly!