21/07/2025
Keen eyed llama watchers may have noticed a new llama creeping around over the past year. This is Sara the Suri Llama, who became our official logo and mascot in 2024. Literally a decade in the making, we really took our time getting a company logo sorted out. Some of this was just down to being rather busy folk: running a business, farm, charity, and living with over 100 animals plus raising a son tends to leave little in the way for spare time, but the main obstacle was our director Matt’s very clear view on what the logo should be - fun, happy, simple - not a fancy graphic logo but a simple black and white line art sketch - a smiling llama who (just to complicate matters further) also happened to have our favourite suri (long haired) fleece type - which we have since been advised by numerous people is no fun to draw and difficult to portray in a logo.
We approached multiple professional designers to help us manifest this vision, but it never felt quite right. Most people would offer their own interpretation of our requirements. Many designs were too professional or too ‘logo-y’ (yep that’s a word now). Many would try to portray the traditional short haired ccara llama - and whilst we absolutely love ccara llamas and live with many of them here - for a logo they don’t float our boat - pretty much every llama organisation in the world uses one: because it is the sensible thing to do and is readily identifiable as a llama. We however are not sensible, nor inclined to follow custom. Hence our strong belief in going with a suri llama - despite the fact that this opens us up to criticism and misinterpretations of ‘it’s a sheep’, ‘it’s not very marketable’, ‘it looks like a dog’ (HOW DARE YOU).
The years rolled by, and so did the graphic designers. We had almost given up on ever having a logo that sung to our values of fun, happiness, and simplicity. Then a few years ago we realised that one of our volunteers Emma was rather good at art. Her other talents include shearing llamas and balancing chickens on her head. After many moons of nagging and bullying, we finally managed to corner her between Fintan the maremma guardian dog and Aleks the Sanctuary Manager, and didn’t let her move until she had come up with a design that ticked all of our boxes. After several tense days she had cracked it, and we allowed her to finally leave the sofa. Out of these historic sessions Sara was born, and promptly set forth colonising our websites and signage. In the second half of 2025, she will be going much, much further - so keep your eyes peeled to see where she pops up next!
Diolch Emma for all your help, you true llama legend!
Photo 1: Sara the Suri
Photo 2: Our new(ish) sign
Photo 3: The creative process designing Sara
Photo 4: CEO Macsen testing the sign
Photo 5: Sara sunbathing after the rain
Photo 6: CEO Macsen testing out the Welsh version for our llama rehoming charity.
Photo 7: Who needs fence posts.
Photo 8: Emma with her favourite llama Albie, who she will probably marry at some point.
Photo 9: Get a room guys.
Photo 10: Matt’s original vision. His natural artistic flare is obvious.
Photo 11: Just in case there was ever any doubt.
