Brand designs

It’s been 10 years since Christopher Ward began its partnership with Hello®, the west country design agency responsible for the look of the brand: from the twin-flags logo on its watches to the magazine you’re currently reading.

But who are Hello® and how did Christopher Ward get together with them? We brought CEO Mike France together with Hello®’s Jamie Gallagher and Sam Burn to discuss logo controversies, the importance of the right typeface and why Loupe is a must-read for customers and non-customers alike.

Hi guys! How did Hello® and Christopher Ward become partners?

Mike France: A friend of mine had a children’s accessory business called Tink. I liked its customer communications, and asked him who’d done it. He said an agency in Somerset called ‘Hello®’. So we added them to a pitch-list of creative agencies.

Jamie Gallagher: Mike and [then marketing manager] Helen McCall came round to the studio. We had a chat, hit it off – and then we won the pitch.

Mike, were you unhappy with your branding at the time?

MF: It was OK, but didn’t capture the forward-looking nature of the company. The ‘Chr. Ward’ logo had a touch of false heritage and faux-luxury about it that wasn’t us at all. Shortening the name was a mistake – we assumed people would realise it was a shortened version of ‘Christopher’. We were astonished just how many people didn’t!

What did you think, Jamie?

JG: It had an Edwardian vibe to it, but also it had ‘London’ written underneath it in spaced-out letters like it was a fashion brand. It didn’t represent who they were. We wanted to get something that was more straightforward, much more about the people behind the brand and of the brand itself. We wanted to strip everything back. We used a typeface inspired by Edward Johnston’s original design for Harry Beck’s Tube map, drawn to its inherent clarity. Sam [Burn] then re-cut elements of the letterforms, introducing ink traps to improve legibility, and print, at very small sizes — vital on watch dials.

“It’s a bloody interesting read, beautifully presented!”

What about placing the ‘Christopher Ward’ logo at 9 o’clock?

Sam Burn: That was slightly controversial! The left alignment was intentional — a designed friction. It subtly broke with watchmaking convention and positioned Christopher Ward as a brand willing to take its own line. Centring it at 12 created an imbalance, particularly against the Trident’s date at 3. At launch, we weren’t yet using the twin-flags mark.

JG: The twin-flags logo was in our branding, but we couldn’t use it on products because we risked being sued by various other Swiss watch companies. If we’d put the twin-flags logo on the dial from the off, I don’t think we'd have had the same reaction we had from existing customers. I could be wrong, but I think they’d have warmed faster to it.

Some were very unhappy…

JF: I’d gone to a conference for a few days and Sam sent me a screenshot of the CW forum and there was a comment that said, “The new logo’s out. Looks like Stevie Wonder’s had his Etch-a-Sketch out.” Which is the finest review I think we’ve ever had! Throughout, Mike stayed incredibly calm.

MF: You’d prefer it if everyone went, “Oh that's fantastic, they’re geniuses,” but that rarely happens. There was an incredible ownership of the brand, but most people are not comfortable with change. Whatever you do, you’re always going to get a reaction. But we were confident, and assumed that the noise would abate, because we believed it to be thoughtfully conceived, beautifully executed and, most importantly, true to us.

Back to the twin-flags logo…

MF: It won a D&D ‘yellow pencil’ award – one of the top prizes in design. And the reason I think it won is that it meant something – we’re English and Swiss, and we had an identity that was integral to that. One of the frustrations was that we couldn’t lock the twin-flags and name together to begin with. We were advised by our lawyers that the notoriously litigious watch industry might feel using the Swiss flag was an infringement of some of their copyrights (one brand in particular comes to mind!). And, that while we would almost certainly win such a case, the cost and energy consumed could be ruinous. After five years without objection, we would be free to go with the original plan. So we waited, and as soon as the five years was up, we introduced the twin-flags alongside the name.

Along with the rebranding came a new customer magazine, Loupe…

MF: We already had a successful Christopher Ward magazine. The content was great, but the design felt dated and didn’t fit with the new branding. We needed Hello® to bring it together so everything was cohesive. With the new magazine, the design, the stock, even the size was critical. Ten years later it looks as fresh today as it did then.

SB: It’s also the typeface. We’ve done four issues a year for 10 years – covering every subject and every sort of layout, and the typeface has remained the same.

Sam, you’re Loupe’s designer. What was your original idea?

SB: It came from the bottom up: changing the size was a big thing because that meant we could be more flexible with our layouts. It was to a different proportion. So it didn’t sit at that sort of awkward corporate A4 level. Its size gives it stature. We were always inspired by the people who revolutionised magazine design, like when Neville Brody redid The Face and David Carson took on Ray Gun magazine.

What’s the process of creating the magazine?

SB: We all get together, discuss the contents and what watches are launching. Then we’ll tailor the contents to a loose theme. That will impact things like typographic choices, colour palette and spreads. And then we’ll go away, work on the flatplan, sent through by Tony, the editor, and get going!

JG: One of the nice things about the way that Sam approaches the design, is that he bothers to read the articles. The best moments in Loupe are where the content, design and photography all click. And we show it to Mike and he goes, “Oh, that’s great.” There are other brands that have publications, but they’re not distributed in the volume Loupe is, which makes all of that brilliant content so accessible for free. It wouldn’t have the same weight if we did it as a blog.

Mike, do you agree?

MF: Loupe is, in my view, the purest  expression of our brand. We are unafraid to mention and praise other brands and we cover an eclectic mix of subjects beyond watches. If we’re interested in a subject, we believe our customers will also be interested. We have some heavyweight contributors like Ken Kessler, Laura McCreddie-Doak and Rob Corder who have strong opinions, and give them licence to air them, even if we don’t necessarily agree with them. I hope the net result of this is that people can smell the authenticity of Loupe. It’s genuinely a labour (and, believe me, it’s a lot of hard graft) of love with the same standards as any high-quality commercial magazine. That a small, independent, watch brand produces such a unique quarterly publication is remarkable.

Do you think customers like it?

MF: It’s become a must-have read for a lot of our fans, but also for people who’ll never buy a watch from us. It’s a bloody interesting read, beautifully presented. And it’s a testament to the brand’s willingness to have an opinion because you can't produce a publication like that and just sit on the fence for 10 years.

Finally,  why does the relationship between Hello® and Christopher Ward still work?

JG: I think it’s probably because nothing just gets the nod. There’s always a new challenge, and that keeps us on our toes – makes it fresh, interesting and exciting.

MF: It’s down to talented people who work hard. There are no egos, only the work matters, We’re trying to produce good stuff. We might not always get it right, but we always try to get it right.