Veronica Roden is an Irish contemporary jewellery designer based in Aughavannagh, Co.Wicklow where she both lives and works. Having trained as a goldsmith and jewellery designer in Kilkenny under the auspices of the Design and Crafts Council of Ireland (DCCoI) Veronica now maintains a small design practice the output of which is focused on the creation of individual pieces of contemporary jewellery produced under commission for specific clients. All of the work is handmade by Veronica using precious and semi-precious metals and gemstones. The surrounding area and environment of the studio provides an underlying yet significant influence to the style and nature of her practice.
Our brief for Veronica was to create a strong logo (or stamp) and accompanying word mark. There were a number of important practical reasons that we needed to consider as part of the design solution. Veronica trades as a designer under her own name this is an important aspect for her business as she is dealing within an extremely small market place. Therefore the integration of any chosen typeface and mark was essential. Any mark created needed to work in a holistic manner with the name and in no way overpower its recognition. Fundamentally the mark itself had to be simplistic enough in its design that Veronica could implement it to her work herself directly. The mark is created using our chosen typeface (ITC Avant Garde) with the introduction of a diamond symbol being implemented in keeping with typographic glyphs or diacritical marks.
Our solution for Veronica was highly informed by the landscape and environment that surrounds her practice and everyday life and given the tangible value of her work and nature of her practice we were informed by the words used by Micheal Evamy when describing the history of logo design that in this case were the essence of what we were trying to achieve…
‘It is widely considered that branding, as a means of identifying an objects ownership, has its roots in the marking of cattle hides and horns by large estates and temples in Ancient Eygpt, and in the development by Greek and Roman craftsmen of ‘makers marks’, which allowed goods to be traded with confidence anywhere across an entire empire, regardless of their place of origin’.
