Why the Fakawi?

The Fakawi logo is based on the Mayan symbol of a Quetzal bird. The symbol is similar to those found in the murals of the ancient Mayan city of Teotihuacan, Mexico. The Quetzal bird is depicted with a sun-disk shield on the front of its body. The Quetzal itself symbolized the movement of Creation and the will of the Creator come to Earth. The meanings of 'Creation' and 'Creator' appealed to us as the 'creative' people of a 'creative' new brand and we did not look any deeper into the religious meaning of the Quetzal. We were also attracted to the symbol because of its simplicity - compared to the other Mayan symbols. Originally, we intended to use the exact image of the Quetzal bird. We later, however, decided to 'redo' the symbol to move away from any religious elements of the Quetzal, and to re-design the symbol to our own preferences, as well as give it a more modern look.

The name Fakawi is taken from the lyrics of a song called "The Wild West Show" which seems to have originated in the U.S./British Navy. These are some of the lyrics:

We're off to see the Wild West Show
The elephant and the kangaroo
We'll stick together
In all kinds of weather
We're off to see the Wild West Show

In this corner we have the GI raffe
The GI Raffe? What the f*ck is that?
The only animal that can stand in the bar
Any say 'The High Balls are on me"

We're off to see...

And in this corner we have the
OOMEGOOLIE Bird
The OOMEGOOLIE Bird? What the f*ck is that?
This is a very large bird which has very
short legs
And when it comes in to land it is heard to
scream OOMEGOOLIES!

We're off to see...

And in the corner we have the FAKAWI Tribe
the FAKAWI tribe? what the f*ck is that?
This is a tribe of three-foot pygmies who
hunt in the six-foot elephant grass and if
they ever get lost they jump up in the air
and shout "Where the FAKAWI"

The lyrics are endless as more mythical creatures with boardy humour is added. Somewhere between the passing on of the song between various armies and countries the lyrics interchanged and different animals were made up. I was aware of the 'Fakawi' bird of the South African version, and not the three foot pygmies as int the U.S./British version.

The reason we decided to use 'Fakawi' as our brand name, was because we already had a symbol of a bird, and more importantly, 'Where the fakawi' could be adapted to fit a clothing brand perfectly - changing the 'where' to 'wear'. This resulted in a rather catchy slogan of 'Wear the fakawi' (co-incidentally rhyming with 'Where the f*ck are we?' - also making this slogan harder to forget for those who caught on)