...the shortlist was culled down to a final three; The Nine Bob Hog, The Railway Collective and Crooked Howlet Designs. I was fairly fond of the 'Nine Bob Hog' - a little rendition on the phrase "nine bob note". I had always wanted an animal or a creature or the sort, in the company name, for logo and branding reasons. So we brought "Hog" into the phrase and slung that name into the running. Railway Collective was a front runner at the time, with some backing among the lads, but I am proper stoked I didn't run with this option - I'll happily palm this off to the Sunday arvo blogger, critiquing different hostels in Prague.
So the logo design would be the deciding factor. Howlet was added to the original inspiration for a name, The Crooked Billet (a pub in the UK which was our local watering hole during a trip prior to the conception). Needing an animal for the brands logo, I swapped out Billet for Howlet, which is a poetic term for an Owl. It had been a while since the last 'school folder Stussy logo', but I somewhat new my way around a Feber Castell and wanted the original artwork to be mine. So I got to work sketching the design, feeding off I guess you could call it 'neo-traditional' tattoo style of bold black work, pronounced lines and symmetry - as I felt this would best translate to a lot of marketing forms we'd use, as it would be easily simplified and recognised.
Once the Owl was born, that nudged Crooked Howlet Designs into the lead.
It would have been a short 3-4mins after the name was born, when the mispronunciations started dribbling out... shit. It was as if, the second I gave the word a capital letter and put it in among logo, people forgot the other uses for the word,"that crooked pipe....a crooked cop...", instead it would be "Crock'd Designs...Crook Designs...Crucked Designs". That Nine Bob Hog brand name started sounding real good, but was too late. That being said, once branded, good chance it would have been pronounced "The Nine Bob Hug".
To pay homage to the close second-runner, this weekly rambling has been named The Nine Bob Blog newsletter.
Since the conception of the name, we've never really settle on a Howlet ring. Plenty of design ideas have been lobbed around, but nothing has stuck. 'Bout time, we right this. Over the coming weeks, the Howlet ring, will be in design production. Feel free to send us your thoughts on the piece, how'd you like to see this ring come to life and we'll keep that in mind!
- Ryan