SNAKE LOGO

When I was a kid me and my brother cornered a snake with our bare hands in Kenya, stupid thing to do, but back in Wales my mum had always encouraged us to be close with nature and we’d go collecting tadpoles, frogs, newts and the best thing to catch was slow worms or grass snakes. But here we were in the hot, humid acacia woodland of the Maasai Mara, it was completely dark the only lighting was spotlights lighting walk ways. My mum had spotted a frog catching moths attracted to one of these lights, me and my brother watched. This was the days of film cameras so you could never be sure of the perfect shot, so patience and good reflexes were imperative. Fifteen minutes later, my mum thinking she got the shot in the can lifted her camera bag to reveal a coiled snake, similar size and colouring to the bigger slow worms we’d see at home. Immediately my brother crouched and cornered it, I came in to help, so both with bare hands facing the now alert snake. Luckily my mum said “I’m not sure about that one, they have poisonous snakes here”. So bringing back someone to check the brand of snake and make doubly sure we could carry it back to camp, the man immediately took a nearby mop and crushed the snake into the wall, twisting it 360 degrees to make sure. He eyeballed my brother and me and with his finger slid it across his own neck to show the universal sign of instant death. Snake eh.  In Kenya I’ve been chased by baboons, slept next to wild lions, swam with a sea snake, been in a storm at sea whilst riding a tree trunk, rode a tortoise, dipped my feet in crocodile infested waters, had elephants charge down our camp, rhinos enter our camp, mugged by monkeys, saved by Masai warriors. And we were only there a few weeks but had wild parents with adventure in their blood.

I always knew that the figure head of Concrete Junglists was going to be the snake.  Like Jungle music the snake has often been scapegoated with bad connotations of deception, deviousness and being untrustworthy, when its reality is completely different. Even a cursory look at different cultural interpretations of the snake you will find how venerated the snake is. The ancient Egyptians regarded the snake as embodying wisdom and protection (the Snake goddess Wadjet). In Hinduism the snake represents Kundalini energy which is at the forefront of their spiritual practices. In Norse mythology they symbolise the cycle of life and death (Midgard Serpent), In ancient Greece they are associated with the god of healing (Asclepius).  Snakes can also symbolise fertility and a creative life force, representing the energy of life itself. Mystics interpret dreams of snakes as messages of personal transformation, healing or potential dangers.

It took three years to come up with a logo that looks anything like the snake we have today, the early forms looked like a frog eating a donut (I wanted a vinyl record to be present, hence the donut). Slowly the image formed and the whole branding made sense. I knew I wanted a collection of marks that would all symbolise and embody the full logo, from abstract mark, word-mark, mascot. That at short glance would be immediately recognisable as Concrete Junglists.

The way the logo is presented makes designing the graphics for the tees easier, every tee has to embody the brand, so that even if the words ‘Concrete Junglists’ don’t appear, to the keen eyed spectator it is obviously a CJ tee. The snake always has the same eyes, no matter which angle you look at it, the eyes don’t change. Every animal we ever design also has the same eyes, so whether a panther, bear, bee, elephant, monkey the eyes never change. The snakes forked tongue will almost always appear too and variations of this lightning bolt tongue will also appear as highlights throughout the design. With these simple elements crossing over we can make almost every animal or design ‘Concrete Junglists’.