When Lee Anderton and Rob Chapman decided to create their own guitar effects pedal, they had one advantage most brands don’t: they’d spent years watching the competition make extraordinary claims about ordinary products.

The name Snake Oil was born from a troll on Rob’s social channels who accused him of being a ‘snake oil salesman’. Rather than ignore it, they leaned in - hard! If the world was full of pedals making fantastical promises, why not build one that wore the joke on its sleeve while quietly being the best pedal they could possibly make?

That brief was a gift.

Research took me deep into the graphic archives of late Victorian patent medicines - Taylor’s Oil of Life, Hamlin’s Wizard Oil, Doc Mitchell’s Cure All Liniment among others. A world of extraordinary typography, ornate illustration and gloriously confident quackery. The perfect foundation for something genuinely unlike anything else on the guitar market.

The visual identity was only half the challenge. Most pedals are painted cast metal boxes with screen-printed graphics. Snake Oil deserved better. Taking inspiration from high-end whiskey brands, we sourced a manufacturer who could produce a precision embossed metal plate that was tactile, weighty, extraordinary to look at and to hold.

The reaction said it all. “I have never seen a better looking pedal.” “Those designs are incredible.” “Dunno how they sound, but they look amazing.”

Of course, they sound amazing too. But that was Lee and Rob’s department!

The project won a Drum Award for Physical Product Design.

BTW, did you know there was such a thing as a Fuzz pedal? A Hendrix favourite!