During 2009, I have met a lot of people/businesses and regularly get asked what does it mean and where does it come from… so I thought it’s about time I told you.

Most of my life I have had something to do with drawing or painting. I won my first drawing competition when I was 6. It was of a horse in a field, eating.

I did GSCE Art and Design, Textiles and then went onto to do “A” Level Art, an “A” Art Enrichment and History and “A” Level Pottery in 6th form. In the summer months, I attended Art college and went onto do a Repro-Graphics course.

In my 3rd year in college, I changed my last year of Foundation Art to Graphic Design. Most people on this course wanted to be artists or sculptors, who wanted to flick paint like Jackson Pollock or create something out of cardboard to save the earth. I, on the other hand wanted to see my work on billboards for brands and record sleeves for famous bands.

My inspiration came from architecture. People like Antoni Gaudi and Victor Horta, the first graphic designer I got to know was French artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and his famous “Chat Noir“.
If you know me you will know I’m a cat person and I love anything feline.

From Withens Lane we (as students) where moved to Borough Road in Birkenhead, where I went onto do a HND in Graphic Design (pre Computers) and this was where the name “Koogar” was born.

I was given a design brief which was to create:

  • Shoe box for mountain shoes
  • Out of cardboard
  • No more than 2 colours (Remembering black and white are not colours)
  • Paint
  • Cardboard
  • Glue

The cougar is a mountain lion which is generally based in America. It has a nice design on its face, which is where the idea for the logo came from. The Koogar logo was designed when I was 18-19 yrs, and has stuck ever since and sometimes people call me Koogar instead of Amanda.

The only thing that has changed in the font.

So, now you know…