Interview with designer of the new Mum Poem Press brand identity, Emma Dakeyne

Tell us a bit about yourself and how you found the Mum Poet Press?

Emma Dakeyne and daughter, Avalon

I’m Emma (@blue_mumday). I started faffing around with words in May 2020, once my daughter generously gave me the gift of hour-long chunks of time to myself. I made the weird decision to spend this precious me-time writing poems about her.

I soon discovered that like all new parents definitely spend their first date night post-baby scrolling through photos of their beloved little ones, there was a whole community of mums on Instagram doing the exact same thing with nap-time poetry!

One of these fabulous mum poets was Katharine. We liked, liked and loved each other’s posts, and quickly started chatting about her idea to put a poetry zine together.

I offered to help with the design side of things, and two zines and a website later, here we are.

What’s the idea behind the logo?

Mum Poem Press logo

Becoming a mum for the first time is a lot about finding your way through unchartered waters.

You start to work out what kind of parent you want to be through asking other mums who are going through or have been through the same stormy baptism, ‘What’s the deal with this bloody dream sheep? What if I hate singing nursery rhymes? Is it ok that we watch Frasier instead of Baby Club?’

Each response is like a little lighthouse, throwing a glow onto your course, guiding you over the crashing waves of early motherhood madness to safety.

In this way, our lighthouse/pen is a beacon connecting mothers and others feeling a bit lost at sea.

We all know that writing helps us deal with difficult emotions and feeling alone, so the Mum Poet Club is here to light the way for anyone who needs it.



What was your process for the Mum Poem Press rebrand?

Like every madcap adventure of 2020, Katharine and I zoomed the hell out of the rebrand project. I’d put together moodboards during my daughter’s naps and send them over to Katharine, who would eagerly devour them once her babies were asleep. We both have regular day jobs as well, so everything Mum Poem Press has a sort of midnight meeting vibe about it!

Once we agreed a route, I’d experiment with fonts, styles and colours to match the values of the Mum Poem Press. We’re warm, welcoming, extremely kind, excessively lovely and absolutely accessible to all, so every design decision was made in order to reflect these things.

Our wordmark is gently rounded, bouncy and buoyant. Our colours are stylish, yet straightforward. And our little pen nib even has a tiny heart in it because we are just honestly that blimmin’ lovely.

Measuring each element of the new identity against our brand values was the only way to objectively decide what floated. If we each individually had our own way, we’d have created a cute but hardcore death metal black-pink-dark blue illustration of a cat. That would have been cool, but we knew we wanted people to look at our logo and immediately catch our drift. Once we got to that point, we knew the logo was finished.

Since then, we’ve developed a whole brand identity for the Mum Poem Press. We have styles set for our social posts, corporate stationery, book covers, business cards and merch. We’ve got big plans for 2021 and I can’t wait to nag Katharine to use them all!

What influences you as a designer? What inspires you?

I like design that makes me laugh. I love the work of Wilfred Wood (‘Plasticine Daddy’), Mr Bingo’s Hate Mail and Stefan Sagmeister’s Happy Show.

I value art and experiences that make people feel good, and wanted to bring this vibe to the Mum Poem Press identity – Come visit our lighthouse for a hot cup of tea and a big bowl of poetry!

What other projects are you working on?

From 9-5 I am Lead Designer for the Affordable Art Fair. I create all of their ad campaigns, online assets and event graphics around the world.

From 5-9 I am a poet, mother, wife, Twin Peaks fanatic, birthday rememberer, happy shopper and handbag lover. But not a cook, that’s a blue job in our house 💁‍♀️


Follow Emma, @blue_mumday on Instagram

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