Our story

A small figure can hold something big

iconkind began with a simple idea: that a friendly face can carry a trait, a feeling or a moment worth marking.

Every kind is needed. That's the whole idea.

Made in Cornwall

The watchman of Foye

iconkind is made in Cornwall, where the river Fowey meets the sea. In older spellings the town was Foye, and in Tudor times the mouth of its harbour was guarded by blockhouses on either bank.

They say that when the ships came home to Foye at dusk, a watchman walked the narrow streets with a lantern, from below the church tower down to the quay, and counted them in by the stars above the water.

One clear night the stars did something he had never seen. They drew a face: a round head, two ears, and two bright eyes looking down on the harbour. He wrote it in his book and told no one but the tide.

We call him Beacon. He still keeps the watch, and the face in the stars is the shape of every kind.

A legend, as iconkind tells it. Foye and its Tudor harbour are real; the watchman and his stars are ours.

Measured

So we built a family: twelve kinds, each measured in energy, heart, mind, courage and roots, each with a code on its back and a place in the register.

Mysterious

Science gives them their measure. The stars give them their mystery.

Yours

The person who finds one gives it its meaning.