Introducing our Murtle Market branding, a new charity (Charity Number SC052574 & Company Number SC770560).

What is Murtle Market?

Murtle Market is our new sustainable social enterprise charity where children and young people will support the delivery of an organic store, takeaway café and Heritage Hub. Local and seasonal produce will be offered, as well as refilling schemes for dried food and environmentally friendly cleaning products. This store will also be a place where products and services created at the craft, land-based, training kitchen and the bicycle maintenance workshop can be found.

This public-facing venture is part of phase one of our Building Futures, Transforming Lives campaign.

At the heart of Murtle Market is the provision of vital skills and work experience opportunities for young adults with learning disabilities and complex additional support needs. We want to create an inclusive space that offers meaningful work opportunities, celebrates our heritage, and reflects our mutual respect for each other and the environment. From creating the arts and crafts that will be sold to tending to the gardens the seasonal organic produce is grown in and serving customers in the shop, the young people will be involved in every part of Murtle Market.

Murtle Market will also support additional STARS Awards – innovatively developed by CSA, these wider achievement awards are unique and enable even the most disadvantaged young people, who are unable to access mainstream awards and qualifications, the opportunity to have their achievements recognised and celebrated.

Developing the Murtle Market logo

Emma Laing, our Art Room Workshop Leader, worked with our children and young people to develop the logo for the sustainable social enterprise. As the main purpose of Murtle Market is to provide work experience opportunities for the young people, it was important that they were involved in the process of designing the logo.  The young people’s involvement helps them to form a connection to Murtle Market, creating ownership and responsibility. The logo will be used on the sign above our door, on all packaging, on social media, on our website and even on a Murtle Market delivery van!

Initial research sheets for the development of the Murtle Market logo.

 

After creating a number of research sheets and speaking to the young people, it was agreed that a letterpress printing of Murtle Market with a circle around it was the best reflection of what we want to achieve with the hub. It reflects the importance of arts and crafts within our range of therapies while the circle symbolises a circular economy, sustainability, and the importance of the seasons to everyone at Camphill.

It was important to have a logo that was easy for young people and Camphill to replicate and print onto items such as coffee cups. Having repetitive tasks such as printing is part of the therapeutic process for many students here on campus and embeds vital skills development and learning opportunities.

It was also important to fully involve students in the development of the logo. We experimented with screen printing and backgrounds made by the students and then with letterpress printing which were kindly lent to us by Gray’s School of Art. The process was such a success that Emma has now managed to source our own wooden printing letters for the art workshop!

Students using the letter press.

 

Letterpress printing is an art form that fits in well with the other arts and crafts we do at Camphill School Aberdeen. It is also an inclusive process for our young people to be involved in, from selecting the letters to rolling out the ink and making the prints. Using the letterpress is also something that we can hopefully develop into other things for Murtle Market and become a continuous project for students in the art room workshop. 

Once the logo design and medium were selected, a digital version was created. This allowed us to experiment with different colours and see how the logo would look on different papers and products. We added ‘By Camphill School Aberdeen’ and created a grey and red tying it into the overarching Camphill School Aberdeen logo. Four colour variations of the logo were selected to tie into the seasonality of Murtle Market.

The seasonal colourways of Murtle Market's logo. From left to right: winter, autumn, spring, summer.

 

Murtle Market’s branding will be seen across the zero waste shop, refillery and heritage hub when it opens as well as stamped on takeaway coffee cups, food containers and other merchandise that can be purchased onsite.

 

Let us know what you think!