grommies kids surf: Grommies - Creating the brand

There were two things we were focusing on 1) what kids surf clothing product to launch with, and 2) the Brand. On the back-burner was getting the Grommies name as a registered trademark, which was working its way through trademark attorneys.
Design wise we were advised to contact Design Wales as a starting point for the Brand, who gave us some pointers about creating brand values. This was something we were aware about and to be honest we both had a very strong vision about where we wanted to go with this, but it was good to know that we were on the right track. Our core Brand values were based on:

Surf Inspired
Beach culture
Aspirational
Chilled vibe
Fun and functional
young and carefree
International feel.

Sarah put together a 'mood board' which provided a tangible focus to what we wanted to achieve. We also liked logos from Billabong, Ripcurl and Quicksilver. They all have a symbol and text, over time the symbol itself does the job - in time we hope ours will do similar!

Design Wales took on board our limited budget and found some designers to interview. They were all nice people, and had some idea of where we wanted to go, but we didn't feel that they had that surf / street feel to their portfolios. I knew a guy from back in uni days - Carl and I had one or two disagreements over the years (all under the influence of alcohol!), but once Sarah saw his My space page she was keen to see if he wanted the job. To be honest I was a little hesitant, but in all fairness he has delivered in spades - everything design-wise from our Logo, fliers, business stationary, and the banner for this blog - all original work by Carl. We can definitely see Carl's influence in our future products - and currently pester him at short notice for all sorts of jobs!

Carl got cracking and provided us with a number of draft ideas - one immediately stood out and when both agreed that was the image we wanted to take forward ( I think you can work out which one we went with!).