For Real
Miu and I have been coming up with all these great ideas to set Haven Street up as a community, but I problem emerged and sent us baffled : How are we going to get the funds to accomplish all these? The ideae for a website itself can already cost us a minimum of $20K HKD. Miu had the idea of collecting a regular $2k from all shop owners that are willing to join the cause, a membership fee to keep things running so to say.
I have turned this riddle in my head for the longest time, thinking that no matter how good these ideas are, to ask for a financial commitment will turn off many of these shop owners, and I think in the case of persuation this will become a big bump to our plans.
So I started thinking about sustainability. We need something that is able to generate money in the long run; and that is when I thought of Henry.
UM99 (also the result of the Haven Street community), is a group consisting of the members of 3 brands (3.9 CBD honey, Bak Tee Jai tshirts and OCBD beer), and out of the 4,5 DJ streaming and live recording events we have done so far, OCBD beer’s income has almost single-handedly maintained our spendings. There is no ignoring the power of an alcohol beverage.
So my idea was to come up with a beer for Haven After 9, it has the potential to bring all shop owners together, and Miu and myself have witnessed the profit margin of a beer. Exactly right when I came up with the word “beer”, the word “crowd funding” followed, I was so excited about this I called Miu straight away : “we will head this thing with a beer, crowd fund it with the network of all the shops + the community!”.
The usual Miu is a very calm and composed person, who is known to take his time and think carefully about ideas and development, but this time he was like “Ho Argh! Jiang Argh!”, we now have a solid plan to make all these brainstormed ideas in to reality.
So Miu and I met up with Henry Leung, close friend and owner of OCBD, told him about the idea of a community, the sharing and launching all plans with a beer, and Henry loved it! He shared to us the amount of money it would take to brew a barrel, and is even willing to bring in his brewer to discuss the flavor of the final product itself!
Development and Design
My initial idea for the Haven After 9 logo was to go Art Deco and create a moody, stylised design.
I thought the idea of creating a silhouette of the street was a great idea, so I went on and made pages of sketches based on the idea.
I was not happy with the results, there’s a difference between concepts seemingly working well on paper but not translating well in to an actual logo, I think there is no avoiding this 100%, but then to accept it as a part of development I suppost, ideas never really gets wasted.
I really want something that would work great on a beer can or bottle, but is able to stand on it’s own and become a symbol for the street.
Grand
I don’t want to end up with one of those gradient, geometric matte black cans we see everywhere now a days, I want to replicate the grand, detailed beer labels. This will make Haven After 9 feel more trust worthy and accepted by a wider range of an audience. A grand looking, instant classic.
Rats and pigeons are the most commonly seen animals on the street, I thought of this jokingly when trying to come up witha replacement for the usual lion and unicorn but did worry about the negativity this might be attached with.
I went and showed the first concept (on the left) to Miu and Henry, they reacted with much laughter and thought that for us to present ourselves and act boldly is part of our characteristic, although Henry suggested to make the animals more human, resulting in the final on the far right. American Tail (animated movie directed by Don Bluth) to quote Henry exactly.
Final Logo
I think I have reached what I am looking for, the right amount of complexity and with meaningful elements hidden within the logo to make people think and to spend more time looking at the logo itself.
The animals are obvious choices to those who come to this street enough times, and the way they are dressed is an exact reference of the retro, Eastern mixed European industrial style many of the Haven group would dress. The pencil signifying craftsmanship, and the T-ruler precision and attention to detail. Finally I want to pay homage of the odd time we are experincing by stating it on the bottom of our logo.
So overall I think there’s enough meaning and humour that would click with the vibe of the many shop owners of Haven After 9.
ANDY WAS HERE
ANDY was here 🤓 