Behind every great logo....
...you'll often find an even greater story; for example the famous Nike ‘Swoosh,’ designed by graphic design student Carolyn Davidson back in 1971, for a whopping $35. Now one of the most recognisable and most valuable logos on the planet, the Nike logo is estimated to be worth a staggering $26 billion dollars. Miss Davidson didn’t profit at the time but she has long since been celebrated by the company and given a generous amount of shares as a thank you, some say upwards of $1,000,000
Without delving to deeply into the creative process, Davidson’s tick shaped ’Swoosh’ was basically designed to indicate movement and speed and was definitely influenced by the ancient world incorporating elements that resembled a wing; a hint towards the brand's name ‘Nike’- named after the winged Greek goddess of victory.
The Creation Of The Pasha Living Logo
The brief; create a visually elegant but simplistic graphic device that could be used across all branded media, both on and off-line, this device would need to convey an instant feeling of luxury and communicate our Ottoman heritage and mediterranean influences.
With a passion for couture, our first go-to influences were the visual design language used by luxury fashion houses; for example the Louis Vuitton repeating ‘LV’ pattern and the GUCCI interlocking ‘G’ chain wallpaper, now synonymous with global luxury brands.
Our brief was to create a logo that fused this iconic design style with elements of decoration and calligraphy taken from the ancient world.
Designed by British Art director David Kerrigan who with over 25 years of experience has worked with numerous luxury brands such as Bentley Motors, Bugatti and De Beers was well versed in the language of luxury and would create the Pasha living logo.
The biggest influence by far came from Pasha Living founder Serra’s Özsoy Kerrigan’s own family heritage; the name being inspired by her 19th Century ancestor Mustafa Reşid Pasha who was an Ottoman statesman.
Pashas were renowned for their rich and sumptuous lifestyles often involving overseas travel and access to an exclusive world of wealth and luxury.
With the end of the Ottoman empire in 1922 the position of Pasha was soon to be consigned to the pages of history, but the name Pasha with its long established links to opulence, travel and exoticism felt like the perfect place to explore to influence our logo.
The first creative task was to view everything through a fashion lens, we knew a Pasha occupied a unique position within court life, this exclusive world being texturally rich and filled with influences from as far away as China (via the silk road) to the court of Louis XIV of France, these influences fused together can still be seen in the palatial residences of the Ottoman Sultans.
The name Pasha is what designers call a creative gift and capable of reinvention. By focussing on the softer and more exotic elements of a Pasha’s lifestyle we could elevate all the luxurious fabrics, skilled embroidery and gold-work, as well as the rich colours synonymous with their attire.
The second task was to find a way to fuse together all the other wonfderful influences we love, ranging across the world of the ancient Greeks, through to the colourful Byzantines and of course the empire building Ottomans, after exploring their overlapping cultural influences we discovered that there were artistic elements that ran through all these cultures, like the decorative meandering patterns and use of geometry to decorate and embellish every area of their lives.
The Pasha Living logo is a modern day reimagining of what is often referred to as a Greek fret or Greek key, these key’s with their iconic interlocking repeating patterns were widely used throughout the ancient world, commonly used as decorative motifs to adorn Greek art, architecture, pottery and friezes, they’d later be employed to decorate gilded chairs and tables across the courts of europe.
The origins of the Greek key and its meandering pattern have long been lost to the mists of time but its iconic design has for millenia been used by numerous Mediterranean and near eastern cultures, the symbolic meaning behind the meandering pattern has many colourful sources, which include the famous Minotaur of Crete (the story of Theseus navigating the labyrinth) but it’s commonly agreed today amongst academics that the Maeander river in modern day Turkey (Asia Minor) is the true source of this iconic pattern.
By fusing the iconic meander with the geometric calligraphy used by the Ottomans we soon discovered that we could create simple letter forms from which we would create our logo. The Pasha Living logo is formed of a single letter ‘P’ interlocked with a letter ‘L‘ to create a single integrated icon; when repeated this icon can be sit alone or repeated to create a continuous key or pattern similar to a modern luxury fashion brand.
