Founder of Shrewsbury-based design studio &Something Tony Clarkson explains the thinking behind our town’s most exciting brands – for the wine bar & shop GlouGlou on Castle Gates.
‘Iconic’ is hideously over-exploited in the field of logo design. We’re not about to argue that Tony Clarkson’s viticulture-inspired logo for GlouGlou is worthy of actual veneration – but for business branding to translate this effortlessly into merch (desirable t-shirts and tote bags), there’s got to be something pretty cherishable about it.
It’s no accident.
“People see logo design as something quick and easy,” Tony says. “When the reality is you’re putting your head against the wall, thrashing things out. It’s hard work, but that’s obviously also the enjoyable thing about it.”
Tony got tired of ‘churning things out’ in his old job and is delighted to roam free in his Shrewsbury-based studio ‘&Something’ cooking up fresh ideas.
The GlouGlou logo is the epitome of a well-crafted concept.
“Now, I have to have a meaning behind stuff – a reason for things to be there,” Tony explains. “It depends how your client operates. Ideally, you want a client who will let you get on with it, whilst obviously bearing in mind what they might want or not.
“Robin Nugent (director at GlouGlou wine bar on Shrewsbury’s Castle Gates, PetitGlou wine bar and Iron & Rose wine shop in the Market Hall), is great to work with. He was great at explaining the kind of products he sells – they are all locally and traditionally made, so I got the idea that I would like to hand draw it to fit in with the idea of traditional ways of working, to avoid using modern technology wherever possible.
“We came up with the idea of the curvy balloon-like words to add a bit of fun to the branding, but Robin also wanted them to have some kind of reference to wine within the logo.
“Initially, I thought – ‘how the hell do I do that?’”
Tony’s masterstroke was to invent what he and Robin now refer to as ‘The Splat’ as an integral part, as he explains: “It isn’t anything specific; it could represent the splashing of wine being poured into a glass, or wine gushing from the bottle, or it could be a nod to the translation of ‘GlouGlou’ which is an informal term for the enjoyment of drinking wine – suggesting a glugging sound you hear when pouring. Most of the time, Robin just lets us get on with it and trusts we’ll do a great job.”
Robin adds, “My experience of working with many designers is that they have a particular style and mindset that they bring to every project—you can tell it’s by them—but Tony approaches each one with fresh eyes and an open mind. This means each one has its own strong identity and individuality, which sets them apart from each other and from the competition. His creativity and understanding of what is needed to shine through.”
&Something also created the branding identity for Commonwood Vineyard near Wem, for which graphic designer Tony picked up a Creativepool Annual 2022 Silver Award.
The vineyard, planted by Corinne and Alan Goddard, is sited two miles outside Wem in Shropshire; its vines, planted in 2002, have been organically farmed from the getgo – Tony and his family even helped with the harvest to get a ‘feel’ for the tiny operation, which encompasses around a hectare of vines and makes all of its still wine on site.
Working with Robin again, who also helps support production at Commonwood, Tony wanted to capture the principle of ‘minimal manipulation’ in the branding, eschewing technology in favour of linocut characters based on the Platelet typeface.
“The vineyard had been using a watercolour dragonfly as their emblem and they wanted to keep a reference to it in the new branding, which was tricky. We didn’t want a Victorian anatomy drawing, or a dissection!
“Instead, we simplified it right down to just three lines in the linocut.”
Once again, &Something fuses ultra-modern branding with historical techniques, as a nod to Commonwood’s over two decades of production history.
The understated tagline ‘somewhere in the middle of f*cking nowhere’ adds a comic note – the now almost requisite addenda ‘we don’t take ourselves too seriously here’.
