Design Notes: From Mosaic to Mark

When we started building the brand, one of the hardest things was actually coming up with a name. I’m honestly terrible at naming things, so it took a while.

Eventually I came across Cave Canem, which means “Beware of Dog” in Latin. The phrase comes from a famous mosaic in Pompeii — a chained dog with CAVE CANEM written beneath it at the entrance of the House of the Tragic Poet.

I loved it immediately. It felt timeless, a little mysterious, and still very clearly about dogs.

It also gave us a fun naming convention — many of our products now use Latin names too, like Ventus, Scotia, Gemina, Alinea, and Pastoris.

When it came to designing the logo, we started by looking at a lot of references: Roman mosaics, vintage dog illustrations, and graphic marks. Many of them had these really expressive dogs drawn with just a few simple lines.

One idea early on was to use Mece directly as the inspiration, but I realized I didn’t want the logo to represent a specific breed. I wanted something more universal — just a dog.

A dog that feels characterful, slightly imperfect, and a little unconventional.

Our first batch of logo ideas… didn’t work.

They were a bit too minimalist, and somehow the dog ended up looking more like an Egyptian cat than a dog. Not exactly the direction we wanted.

So we went back to the drawing board.

Eventually we started exploring a more sketch-like, hand-drawn style. Something that looked a little imperfect, like a drawing in a notebook rather than a polished icon.

We also played around with different color versions and even asked a few friends to vote on their favorites.

After a few rounds of iteration and refinement, we finally landed on the version that felt right.

And that’s the dog you see today. 

Not any specific breed but definitely a dog with personality.

And of course, my pup Mece has been our muse the whole time.