Our brand story – Oddny & Harrison
Sometimes the most powerful stories arise from unexpected encounters. This is how the friendship between Oddny and Harrison begins, two creatures, a bear and a bird, who seem to be opposites but together form something new.
Harrison is a wren: small, curious, lively, and stubborn. He travels with a furniture maker and inventor of the same name, who is working on a special clock for shipping. At a time when sailors can determine their latitude but not their longitude, ships are lost and lives are at stake. Harrison flies out to sea to test the invention, a quest for precision, direction, and trust.
During a voyage, he ends up in the far north. Lost, exhausted, and overcome by the cold, he seeks shelter and finds warmth in the winter den of a sleeping bear. That bear is called Oddny: powerful, calm, and protective. Oddny is a Norwegian girl's name with a double meaning: new place and combative. When she awakens, a conversation begins that never ends.
Oddny and Harrison turn out to share the same hunger for knowledge. They talk about art, music, science, stories, and life itself. Harrison tells her about the inventor John Harrison, the man who, despite doubt and opposition, developed clocks that were accurate enough to guide ships safely across the oceans. Not through power or status, but through perseverance, imagination, craftsmanship, and above all, by thinking differently and therefore acting differently. Just like in the old fable of the birds who want to choose a king: whoever flies the highest becomes king. The eagle naturally flies the highest, but a small wren has quietly hidden itself in its feathers. Only at the highest point does it rise even further, a reminder that cleverness, timing, and courage sometimes carry you further than pure strength.
The meeting between Oddny and Harrison becomes more than a story. It becomes a way of looking at creativity. Because creation rarely starts out easy. It begins in uncertainty, in an empty space where everything is possible and nothing is certain. An idea emerges, grows, and collides with the limits of money, systems, time, and doubt. What at first seems self-evident suddenly requires perseverance and choices. And when the work finally enters the world, hope and fear come together: will it touch people, be understood, continue to exist?
Yet it never ends there. Every creation marks the beginning of a new cycle. The bar shifts, the questions return, and the need to create again remains. Not only out of ambition, but out of something deeply human: the urge to give meaning to one's own existence. To create means to say: I am here and this is how I see the world.
Oddny stands for protection and strength of action. Harrison stands for curiosity, movement, and the courage to find new paths.
Together, they form the philosophical foundation of Oddy: a place where creativity and resilience reinforce each other. From a place of calm and movement, protection and discovery, Oddy helps creative people to stand firm, make the most of their talents, and contribute meaningfully to the challenges of the world.
Because when everything is reduced to one core value, one word remains: meaning.