I have always enjoyed looking at the way logo's develop from sketches on paper to a 'final product'. This post shows you the evolution of the toggle brand.
THE NAME
When we started thinking about our company name, we had pages and pages of brainstorming and ideas. Eventually we decided on the name 'toggle' for several reasons:
#1 A toggle is something that is simple and works perfectly.
#2 A toggle is defined as something that "Allows a user to switch back and forth between two modes". Originally there were two of us with two specialisms that we switch between.
#3 A toggle holds two items together.
#4 In computing terms to toggle is "To turn something on or off; make something, such as a command or toolbar button, active or inactive".
Some close runners up for names included: sumbit, ro:nine (which turned out to mean something rather rude in French!), and display none.
Logo development
This image is a small sample from our sketches. We thought about everything we possibly could: from switches, to binary, threads, features of a toggles including holes and curved edges etc. From this we were able to draw up a short list of the ideas we felt worked best.
It was around this point 'togle' became 'toggle'. Mike pointed out that if someone was to Google search our company after hearing it's name, most people would use the spelling with two g's: meaning that we wouldn't be found. It is also much easier than saying 'toggle with one g' everytime we tell someone the name of our company.
finalising the logo
Finding the P22 Johnston Underground typeface was a key point in creating our logo: it is a curvy, 'friendly' and distinctive font that we felt represented our company values.
The P22 has a vast number of uses on the London Underground including station signage, tube maps, name plates and posters. There were two main characteristics that attracted us to this typeface. The first being that the uppercase O is a perfect circle - very much like the thread holes on a toggle. The descenders on the lowercase g's linked together nicely reinforcing the idea of a toggle holding two items together. Above all we are a British company and liked the fact that we are using a typeface that has so much history in Britain including:
Johnston's former student Eric Gill also worked on the development of the typeface, and the design was later to influence his Gill Sans typeface, produced 1928-1932 (Source: Wikipedia).
We took a trip to the London Transport Museum to look at the typeface and it's uses in more detail. You can see the photos in our brand set on our Flickr account.
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