The story behind the Woods & Waters logo.

There's a lot going on in this little logo.

Woods & Waters has been part of the Les Cheneaux community since 2001 — more than two decades of guided adventures on Lake Huron. When I took over the business in late 2018, I knew a rebrand was coming. Not because anything was broken, but because a new chapter deserved a new mark. And because I'm a graphic designer, and the opportunity to build a brand identity from scratch for a place and a business I genuinely love was not something I was going to pass up.

The process took months. Pondering, doodling, concepting, asking for input, refining. I developed four solid concepts, each reflecting something essential about the Les Cheneaux — the water, the trees, the birds. Some were modern. Some were representational. But when the winning design emerged it was unanimous. It captured exactly what I was trying to say.

Here's what it's saying.

The name. The previous business was called Woods & Water Ecotours. We made two changes. We made "waters" plural because the waters we paddle are genuinely plural — the protected channels between the islands, the open bays, the shorelines that each behave differently depending on the wind and the season. Lake Huron is not one thing. Neither is the eastern UP shoreline. The name should reflect that. We dropped "ecotours" not because we stopped being one, but because simpler is better and easier to remember. The eco is still there in our domain — woodsandwaters.eco — which quietly signals our commitment to the places where we live and work.

The shape. The LCI sits on the edge of the Hiawatha National Forest, and Government Island is actually part of it. I've always loved the shape of US Forest Service signs — most people attribute that routed wood aesthetic to the National Park Service, but it's actually the USFS that has the distinctive ones. That's the inspiration behind the top of the logo. The lower portion ties into the waters of Lake Huron where we spend so much of our time. The inverted wave captures what Lake Huron looks like on a spicy day — and I'm looking out at little whitecaps on Hessel Bay as I write this.

The colors. Deep marine blue and goldenrod yellow. Take your pick: the water and the tamaracks in fall, or a Lake Huron sunset. Both work.

The typefaces. This is where it gets specific — and intentional. The word "woods" is set in a tall, upright font that evokes the tall white pines, the surrounding cedar stands, and the hardwood forests along the Niagara Escarpment. The word "waters" is set in a hand-lettered style that's a direct nod to the names painted on the transoms of the wooden boats that have run these island channels for over a century — full of stories themselves, and ones we get to see up close as we paddle past boathouses on tour.

Our new logo still feels exactly right. Which, for a designer, is saying something.