About the bird

People often ask about the bird.

The Topaz bird logo was hand drawn by Company Founder, Rory Atkins, from a children's book when he was endeavouring to find a suitable company name associated with image/logo which could develop into a brand.

The bird image is of a Paraguayan humming bird called Topaz of which there are two types - Topaz Pella and Topaz Pyra. It is known to be a beautiful humming bird, predominantly in the colours of yellow and green, hence the colours used for the image block.

The humming bird is an excellent representation of Topaz because it is the only bird which can not only hover but fly backwards as well as up and down, proving to be very adaptable and skilled, exactly like Topaz. Back in 1990, Rory considered these skills represented the values on which he wanted to base Topaz, both short and long term.

When Rory decided to set up his own copier company (after 7 years working for global and small copier companies) he had a time-frame of 4 weeks in which to set up the entire company structure, including registering the name and creating stationery sets with image and branding. Anyone who has done this will know it is a tricky task because, once one has made a decision about name and logo, it will forever be associated with one’s future and will be expensive to change.

In 1990 when this was all taking place, one option was to use a design consultancy to develop the bird logo. However, the quotes for this were £5,000 which, at that time, was a lot of money and it was considered that these monies should be invested in the customer support side of the business. Rory did the design himself and passed it to a printer to be converted into stationery sets and marketing documents. The same logo is used today.

Now approaching our third decade, Topaz is pleased to be associated with an image which reflects and represents the core values of its people, those of consistency and stability, meeting and exceeding the needs and expectations of our customers.