Garry Young is a leathersmith and blacksmith living in Taichung, Taiwan. He was born and raised in South Africa where he picked up these skills, but it was after his move to Taiwan where he really honed them. In his free time he would ride out to his isolated little 'studio' in the sticks where he had, incredibly, built a forge and all the equipment he needed to hammer out some steel. He soon had a portfolio of knives, bottle openers, wind chimes, keyrings, and all kinds of artistic knick-knacks to his name, each with their own character and story as only a genuine handmade product could. Consequently, those that came across his craft started to put in requests for these one-of-a-kind pieces. He was already fairly familiar with making goods out of leather, and started to bring a stronger focus to this hobby. As most of us know, the word 'handmade' is thrown around too easily when it comes to leather products. Garry Young however does not take this lightly and his leatherworks are not only made entirely by his hands (right down to the painful stitching) but even some of the tools he uses are handmade by himself. That's right, handmade products by handmade tools. It's really refreshing in this day and age. And the outcome is stunning! His leatherworks thus far include beautiful shoulder bags, phone and tablet pouches, belts, accessories, keyrings, dog collars, knife sheaths, and the list goes on. Each one crafted with the utmost care and overwhelming attention to detail. No two products are alike but each one has his trademark look of authenticity and quality. As he says, he makes his products with the intention that they can be passed down to the next generation and so on. His products are not only handmade but so beautifully designed Despite promising himself that this would always remain just a hobby for the love of it (and it still is) he could not avoid the requests he got for bespoke leather or steel goods. A belt here, a bag there, a knife or two… soon he realised it was time to start branding his work with a neat little logo. Through common connections he called upon us, Dymantic Design, and we were honoured to create a logo that would appear on his exquisite products. The logo needed to be made of simple shapes, with clean corners and lines for the best results on leather and steel The request was that it included a giraffe (a nod to his tall appearance and South African roots), had a stamp-like composition, and included the words you see below. New considerations were met in our process, such as the materials it would be put on and how it would be put on them. In most cases it would involve a steel stamp that would need to be heated and plunged into hot steel or leather. Therefore, the logo needed to involve simple shapes and minimal detail so that the logo was clear once engrained in the work. The outcome is something sturdy, elegant and reasoned. The giraffe is cleverly broken down to function well as a stamp and the shapes even bring out a little more of that African heritage. We've seen it on a few products now and love the outcome. We hope it can live on as long as Garry's goods do!
