Driven by design. Inspired by Japan.
Whenever we sit down to create a new graphic piece, we start by looking for inspiration. We can spend hours, days even, trawling through design blogs before even putting pen to paper. This is because as a brand, we feel it’s important to put something out there that has meaning and a concept behind it - not just a pretty graphic.
It could just be something simple like a play on words (like our King Carp graphic) or bringing 2 concepts together in an unexpected way that really makes people stop scrolling on their Instagram feed. That’s the reaction we’re always looking for with everything we produce and what we feel is the ‘thing’ that makes us different and break through the noise in an ever competitive market.
Obviously you guys normally just see the finished piece, but we feel it’s a shame that you don’t really get to see the thought processes and ideas that go into creating it. It can often be a very drawn-out process with countless versions and tweaks, before we feel happy that we have created something on which we cannot improve. We thought you may like to see some of the inspiration that we’ve looked at along the way to create some of the pieces from this latest range.
We’ve always loved Japanese art and culture - from the bold use of colour, to their use of typography, so for this range, we thought we’d use this as a base to create 2 new graphic pieces. Our new ‘Rising Sun’ is graphic is heavily inspired by the Japanese flag. The red circle, symbolising the sun, is an image used regularly in Japan. It is known as the ‘hinomaru’ in Japanese, meaning ‘circle of the sun.’ The Japanese used to call their country Nihon or Nippon, literally meaning ‘source of the sun’ and often translated into English as ‘land of the rising sun.’ The colour red is also significant - it is often used to represent peace, and as anglers, we know there is no more peaceful time than to be sat watching the sunrise whilst looking for signs of carp. We felt this image was one that we can all relate to and what formed the basis for this design.
As a brand, we feel it’s important to put something out there that has meaning and a concept behind it - not just a pretty graphic.
Our Orient graphic is heavily inspired by traditional Japanese typography and street signeage. Throughout its’ creation, we studied repeat patterns found in traditional Japanese fabric, known as ‘Wagara’. The ‘Wave Crest’ or ‘Seigaiha’ is made of rows of ocean waves forming a fan-shaped pattern. It symbolizes the desire for continued peaceful living, like the tranquil waves. Again we felt that this resonated with us as anglers and used this idea (simply flipping the wave pattern to represent carp scales) to create a piece which celebrates the Japanese aesthetic, whilst maintaining an obvious nod to carp angling.