The smell of hot oil, crushed cedar, and iron-red clay hung thick in the cab as the transfer case groaned over a jagged sandstone ledge. Miles deep into the jagged tracks of the Keweenaw, surrounded by endless boreal spruce and the cold mist rising off Superior, the sparks hit with the rhythm of the suspension.
First came North Cut Co., born from the sight of stripped birch bark and sharp logging ruts—a brutalist emblem featuring a stylized crosscut saw blending seamlessly into topographical contour lines, stripped down to raw pine green and ochre.
Dropping hard into a rocky wash, the winch plate scraped granite, and another concept locked in: Iron Drift Supply, a weathered, high-contrast woodcut mark where negative space carved an old locking hub out of a breaking freshwater wave.
By the time I hit the asphalt on US-41, the ideas were violently overcrowding my head. I didn't stop for coffee or wash the caked muck from the rocker panels. I left the truck ticking hot in the driveway, sprinted inside, and threw open the desk. The vector artboard was live before my boots even touched the floor, and the ink started flying.
