A mark that works stamped into wet clay

Clayhouse runs evening classes and sells pots made by its three resident potters. Its old logo was a detailed drawing of a kiln that worked on a sign and nowhere else, least of all on the base of a pot.

Twelve stamps

The smallest place the mark has to work is the base of an espresso cup: a circle about 9 mm across, pressed into clay that shrinks by a tenth in the kiln. We drew twelve candidate marks, had test stamps cut, and pressed them into the three clay bodies the studio uses.

Seven of them filled with glaze and disappeared. Of the five that survived, the potters chose a single open letterform with no counters smaller than 1.5 mm, which is now cut in brass at three sizes.

The rest of the system

Everything else follows the stamp: a heavy type for headings, a plain one for timetables, and colours taken from the studio’s glazes. The class timetable is a template the studio edits each term; it lists 14 weekly classes on one A3 sheet.

A website for classes

Most visitors to the website want one thing: the next class with a free place. The new site puts the timetable on the home page and links each class to the studio’s existing booking tool. Jonah tested the prototype with three regular students before handover.