Founded by wife and husband Brad and Jenna Holdgrafer, Woset is envisioned as an alternative children’s brand that leaves things up to the imagination.
Woset sells clothing, toys, accessories and more and its core is about creating imaginative things for children. The aim is to spark storytelling, enable open play and have multiple uses.
As well as its founders, animator Zac Wax, digital studio Mouthwash, toy designer Waka Waka and illustrator Jay Cover are all helping bring the brand to life.
Woset creates garments and toys that aren’t overly specific, so that children can imagine what the toys do, rather than them having a specific function, like a set of trucks or dinosaurs. It’s about opening up the parameters of play, much more like taking a cardboard box and turning it into something, a blank piece of paper in the form of a set of wooden shapes.
Cover’s role in the brand evolved into creating its visual side and filling it with characters that reflect its principles. The names of the characters are inspired by Cover’s home on the Isle of Man, while aesthetically they are mostly the illustrator’s interpretations of different emotions.
The owner’s aim was for the characters to be ordinary, not being particularly special or ambitious. The characters are subversive to traditional children’s storytelling in that they lack competition and ferocity and focus on inner peace, usually just doing or trying to do something that makes them feel content, rather than trying to conquer a mountain or a monster.
After populating Woset’s world, Cover also created a logo that would feel consistent with the rest of the brand, although the end result is more of a placeholder motif that is intended to evolve over time.
A refreshing approach to children’s storytelling, we appreciate the calm nature of Woset.
