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Holt & Sons
client:
Holt & Sons Ceramics
Services:
Brand Identity
Packaging
Digital Experience
year
2024
live preview:
Holt & Sons is a third-generation ceramics workshop in Derbyshire producing hand-thrown tableware for restaurants and private collectors. With a new generation taking the lead and a growing waitlist for their work, the family decided it was time to move beyond the word-of-mouth-only model. They wanted a brand that could hold their history without being trapped in it.
Challenge
Heritage craft brands tend to fall into one of two traps: either they lean so far into provenance that they become a living museum, or they modernise so aggressively that they lose the thing that made them interesting. Holt's work is genuinely old — the same throwing techniques, the same local clay, the same kiln — but their sensibility is contemporary. The brand needed to carry both without contradiction.
Approach
We started with an audit of the archive: order books going back to 1961, kiln firing logs, correspondence with early restaurant clients. The visual identity is built from this material — specifically, from the handwritten logbook entries that recorded every piece fired. The wordmark is drawn loosely from the founder's handwriting: not a literal transcription, but something that carries its quality.
The packaging system uses uncoated kraft stock with a single-colour stamp — a format that mirrors how the workshop has always wrapped pieces for delivery. The e-commerce site is structured around the ceramics themselves: full-page photography, long descriptions written by the family, a small number of pieces available at any time, and a waitlist system for pieces not yet available.
Outcome
The first online drop sold out in 11 minutes. Within three months of launch, Holt & Sons had received enquiries from 34 restaurants across the UK and Europe. The rebrand was covered in Kinfolk, The World of Interiors, and Oak the Journal.
Key results
First drop sold out in 11 minutes
34 restaurant enquiries in 3 months
Coverage: Kinfolk, World of Interiors, Oak
Waitlist: 400+ for next collection
