Frankman… who, what where, when… and WHY??
Where did the name ‘Frankman’ come from?
The name came from an old nickname I accidentally gave myself on the first day of College. I was very quiet and shy, so when I was asked what my name was by one of the pupils, I tried to disguise my awkwardness/shyness (and hoping to raise a smile), replied by saying… ‘Hi, my name is Frankenstein, but you can call me Frank!’
Why I don’t know, but that’s what came out of my mouth.
To which the recipient said. Hi Frank, I’m Pete… wanna play football at break?…
The name stuck and for the rest of my college life, I was known as Frank.
Years later when I wanted to build my first website I was looking for a domain name… www.frank.co.uk (Remember the Talk to Frank campaign?) was already taken but an alternative suggestion displayed back was www.frankman.co.uk
An instant hit! Frankman was born… The rest is history!
The History of the Frankman Logo...
2005 – it was all a bit of a rush really and didn’t even have a logo!…
Had a conversation about creating some illustrations for a company in Newton Abbot and before long found myself creating my first ever official quotation for the work. Wasn’t sure I knew what I was doing and I didn’t even have a logo to put on my paperwork, so I decided to just type out the new company name I was always going to roll with ‘Frankman Design’ at the top of the page in Helvetica. There was even a note below it in brackets saying (this design of this logo is currently under construction).
2006 – I needed something a bit more professional, and fast. I was doing a few more projects for my first ever client, and gaining new interest and enquiries for design and website works, so I decided to create a letterhead that was a little more professional. I went for something just type based with a simple stylised segment of a lowercase ‘d’ just showing the top of the curve and back and the name below. By this time I had registered a full domain of www.frankmandesign.co.uk (and held the frankman.co.uk in the wings for a later date!)
2007 – Time to create the first proper logo for the new business. I wanted a logo design that was simple and stylish, and definitely didn’t want an obvious pencil, computer or other design related icon in the design as I thought that was just too tacky and obvious. I decide to make the ‘f’ look like a stylised face. The curved top of the f character was the top of a head, moving into the straight down character was to suggest the face and nose. The two circles representing eyes. That was it… the Frankman ‘f’ was born and the starting character of the full Frankman Design logo name.
2009 – Not a major change, but just enough to condense the design a little. I was quite happy with this design for the next few years!
2012 – It was around this time that I wanted to take massive steps to grow the business and was looking to get another team member. I was concerned that the name might be limiting its potential growth, mainly because the name ‘Frankman’ didn’t really say what I did. I had conversations with a number of people and thought of a whole load of different alternatives I could imagine, but I was keen to keep the name ‘frank’ in it, because the name had been with me from the very start! Frank By Design, Frankindesign… and more came and went. After some time and some discussions with other professionals it was decided to keep the name and just look at the design again.
2013 – 36 pages of designs later…. (Frankman Design Ltd registered as a limited company)
I felt the Frankman ‘f’ and face design was strong and starting to get recognised, so I just wanted to look at revisions of this format with a new style…. something a little more confident, bold but still friendly and fun… after all that’s what Frankman is all about!
And the new look Frankman had finally arrived. The team had grown and the focus was to try and move away from just the design element of what we did… we were doing more web, signage, print and advertising based projects. The new design was yellow and blue, nice and colourful and to help ‘remove’ the obviousness of the ‘design’ from the main name a tagline was created to disguise it ‘creative design and thinking for your business.
2016 – All change again… but this time mainly the colour and tagline. Still loved the boldness and strength of the main name.
2019 – Massive changes at Frankman! Team members came and went and our new Marketing services were increased… so a new tagline was needed.
Many Donald Miller / Story Brand inspired meetings later and ‘Design and Marketing that succeeds’ was created! The decision to drop design from the website url was taken and my originally purchased www.frankman.co.uk was to become our new web address. We’re not just about design, we’re ‘Design and Marketing that Succeeds’
2020 – 15 Years since the birth of Frankman and our ’15th year mini logo’ – Happy Birthday to us!!
