The story of our logo

Since 1999, many of our clients and partners have commented on our name and logo, asking where it came from and what it means. So, here’s the short version of the story…The distinctive Razor logo was designed by Razor MD Chris Woodcock when the business first established in 1999. The basic design has hardly changed, although variations in colour options and various derivative literature and presentation motifs have developed from the original.

Back in spring 1999, the Razor name was decided on first – it was dynamic, memorable and implied action and “cutting through” to the solution. Perfect for our needs and definitely unusual in the PR and consultancy market. It also translated pretty well to other languages.

To come up with the visual design, Chris doodled some ideas (helped by a glass of wine) and devised the current logo and colour scheme based on the following rationale:

• • The overall image is of a “talking head”, communicating – a face representing all nations (it looks slightly tribal) and not just the Western World, to symbolise our international client base and experience.
• • Either side of the mirror-image head is made up of two razorfish, representing some origins of our name.
• • The sharp cutting edge of the Razor `Z’ carries through the razor blade motif zig-zag down the centre of the face and on into the `Z’ of the RAZOR brand name below (in versions that carry the name under the design).
• • The colours represent the colours of a razorfish – spangly orange and silver. Modern, clean and classy, we felt. They were also far away, on the colour spectrum, from the colours of the previous agency where Razor founders had worked – which were navy blue and green. This was time for a change, in all respects.

Occam’s razor

The Razor name also carried some extra meaning that fell into our laps rather than being pre-planned…

As luck would have it, we discovered that “Occam’s razor” is the saying of a medieval monk philosopher, Occam, who advised, in his “razor”, that “the simplest solutions are always the best ones”. Again, a perfect piece of wisdom: Razor stands for direct results, fast - cutting through the complexity and avoiding over-engineered consultant solutions for their own sake.

This was just what we want our name to say about us!