Grand Trunk Brand Guidelines: A Souvenir From a Thai Island

Grand Trunk is the travel hammock brand two backpackers brought home from Thailand in 2001 — now owned by a Utah entrepreneur group.

Grand Trunk follows Hennessy as the round’s travel node — an American brand that began as a souvenir, when two backpackers brought the packable parachute-nylon hammock home from a Thai island, and that has since changed hands to a Utah entrepreneur group. Its answer to a round about who owns the hammocks and where they are made is a travel-import one: a founder-started brand, now under new owners, mostly imported from Asia.

Its identity is a souvenir from a Thai island. The travel origin, the 2020 ownership change and the mostly-imported making are the story here. Brought home, scaled up. A souvenir from a Thai island.

(Honest notes, so the founding, the ownership and the making are framed accurately, and one location corrected. Grand Trunk sells travel and camping hammocks and travel gear as its heroes — the Double Deluxe and Double Parachute, the ultralight Nano and the proprietary TrunkTech weave, plus straps and accessories; we report its language as the brand’s own. On origin: Grand Trunk was founded in 2001 as The Travel Hammock, Inc. and rebranded to Grand Trunk in 2010, its name honouring the ancient Grand Trunk Road, by co-founders Kevin Kaiser and Jon Neff, who met and backpacked on a small island in Thailand, discovered packable parachute-nylon hammocks and began importing and selling them. On location, corrected: its headquarters was in Skokie, Illinois, in the Chicago area, not St. Louis, and after a 2020 acquisition it relocated to the Salt Lake City area of Utah. On ownership: Grand Trunk was acquired in 2020 by a group of Utah entrepreneurs, Andy Stroman, the founder of CampSaver, and brothers Bruce and Dale Majors, who built Bikewagon, with co-founder Kevin Kaiser staying on. On where it is made: most of its products are made in China and Vietnam, with a limited US-made ONEMADE collection as the exception, so we say designed in the US, mostly imported from China and Vietnam, with limited US-made ONEMADE editions. Its designs and the Grand Trunk name are IP we describe but do not reproduce; there is no official brand hex; these tones are an unofficial interpretation.)

Grand Trunk lives in a travel orange. Click a swatch to copy the hex.

Grand Trunk’s identity is travel-born, acquired and mostly-imported — a travel orange, an ink, a pale amber, a deep amber, and a paper. The palette leans travel orange and pale amber: a warm, wanderlust register that nods to backpacking and a road across Asia rather than a loud logo colour. It signals a souvenir from a Thai island — travel-born, acquired and mostly-imported. The honest caveat: with no official brand hex, and the brand’s iconic blue-and-orange parachute nylon, these values are a wanderlust, unofficial interpretation, not first-party colours.

The lesson is a warm orange signals a travel, wanderlust identity. Grand Trunk’s world is the hammock brought home from a trip. For designers, it is a reminder that a warm orange and a soft amber can carry a travel, wanderlust brand — an energetic tone held as an accent, not a product shot. Because a bright hue can fail as small text, keep type dark and let the colour live in the accents, palette and band. The takeaways: credit the 2001 Thai-island origin and Kaiser and Neff; correct the location to Skokie then Utah; name the 2020 acquisition; and describe the making as mostly China and Vietnam with US-made ONEMADE.

The register is a travel sans — travel-born, acquired, mostly-imported.

Grand Trunk’s identity carries a travel-born, acquired, mostly-imported spirit — a souvenir turned brand under new owners. A travel sans captures the mood: clean, friendly and easygoing, the register of a travel label. Set in a travel-orange palette, the travel sans feels warm and wanderlust — exactly the personality Grand Trunk carries. It behaves like a made, everyday thing rather than a loud logo, mirroring a suspension-line and a hang-curve. (Grand Trunk’s real products and the name are things we describe but do not reproduce, and the exact typeface is not ours to use.) Because it is not ours to use, the honest description is “a travel-sans brand,” shown here in a stand-in. The type behaves like the brand: travel-born, acquired and mostly-imported.

Grand Trunk stands for a souvenir from a Thai island.

Grand Trunk sits fourth in the round as its travel node. A travel-orange palette, a travel sans and a Thai-island origin make one thing — a souvenir from a Thai island — the whole identity: travel-born, acquired and mostly-imported. The travel origin is the pitch, the 2020 ownership change is the turn, and the mostly-imported making is the honest detail. The point is a souvenir turned brand under new owners, in a round about who owns the hammocks and where they are made.

Put to work, the identity is the brand told straight, the location corrected and the ownership named. A brand in this spirit would credit the 2001 Thai-island origin and Kaiser and Neff, correct the location to Skokie then Utah, name the 2020 acquisition, and describe the making as mostly China and Vietnam with US-made ONEMADE. A reader in this spirit would keep the facts right: Grand Trunk sells the Double Deluxe, Nano and TrunkTech hammocks as its heroes; it was founded in 2001 as The Travel Hammock by Kevin Kaiser and Jon Neff, who found the hammock on a Thai island, and rebranded in 2010; it was headquartered in Skokie, Illinois and moved to Utah after a 2020 acquisition by Andy Stroman and the Majors brothers; and most of its products are made in China and Vietnam, with a limited US-made ONEMADE collection. Grand Trunk sits after Hennessy and before Dutchware. The honest editorial moves are to credit the origin, to correct the location, to name the acquisition, and to describe the making.

For designers and brand-builders, Grand Trunk carries the hammock node: correct a headquarters — and name an acquisition and the making honestly. The lessons: a brand can begin as a souvenir, here a hammock brought home from Thailand; a founding is credited to Kaiser and Neff in 2001 as The Travel Hammock; a location is corrected to Skokie, Illinois and then Utah; an ownership is named as the 2020 Utah entrepreneur group; and a making is described as mostly China and Vietnam with a limited US-made ONEMADE line. It is also a reminder to stay precise: Grand Trunk is the travel-born brand now under a Utah group, mostly imported — with the palette here an unofficial interpretation. The hook is that souvenir: Grand Trunk began as a literal souvenir, two backpackers who met on a Thai island in 2001 brought home the packable parachute-nylon hammock and turned it into an American brand, the name borrowed from the ancient Grand Trunk Road that shaded travellers across Asia. Read that way, Grand Trunk is less a single hammock than a souvenir from a Thai island: travel-born, acquired, mostly-imported. The lesson for a brand is that correcting the location and naming the acquisition reinforce each other, and crediting the origin keeps the story earned. Grand Trunk made a-souvenir-from-a-Thai-island the identity — proof that a travel origin can anchor a node.

Keep Grand Trunk’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.