A'hoy

RAIN OR SHINE.

Located just across the water from Vancouver BC in beautiful Deep Cove, A’hoy opened in the summer of 2013. The brand is made manifest primarily through the retail experience, but it is designed to live beyond it’s physical borders. The primary function of the A’hoy Department Store is to provide all the objects and equipment one would need to enjoy all the Cove has to offer. Nested in that experience are various A’hoy Goods which carry the more universal, but related, promise of providing anything you would need to escape the daily grind. The brand was strategically crafted to be simultaneously relevant to our immediate local customer base, while ensuring our products could be relevant to emerging audiences down the road. 

A’hoy is a partnership comprised of my wife & I and two other local entrepreneurs. We all live in the Cove so we wanted to create a brand that would enhance everyone’s Deep Cove experience and create a sense of pride for other locals. On the branding side of this project our partners came up with the great name, from there I designed the logotype & brand graphic elements, T-shirts, exterior signage, business cards and other collateral. It also provided the opportunity to design and build some three dimensional pieces for the shop, most notably the A’hoy grand tables, benches and cash-wrap. Being a bit of neophyte, as well as a perfectionist, these projects took quite a few hours to complete, but the results were extremely rewarding. I also “had” to buy some boss power tools that were absolutely critical to complete the work. 

(2013. All photos taken by Megan Curren.)