(Brand) names have baggage

When creating a new name or identity for something there’s always the challenge of seconding guessing due to current associations. But by knowing you’re following a plan, backing yourself and a little patience it can all work out.

Names are an important thing in our house, my wife has synesthesia with names and colours. She hears and name and automagically it gets a colour and a sensation (good or bad) associated with it. So the births announcements are a weekly ritual. Scanned through commented on and stored as colour and sensation until these sensations are eclipsed by personality, that is when she meets and gets to know someone then the name just means them. The colour and sensation fade and the real person replaces the association. Naturally this made picking names for our daughter an interesting challenge, how do you argue with ‘No that name is too yellow’?  Luckily by the time our daughter was born we had some names we we’re both happy with and when we met her we agreed she would be called Maebh. We both liked the name and it has loads of history and meaning behind it. All of which, now over four years later, mean nothing, for us Maebh has one meaning; our daughter.

It is the same with brands. It can be the name or the logo the same thing happens. On presentation the new solutions can have associations either deliberate or accidental that can colour our feeling towards it. But as with the child a year later as the brand continues to mature and develop the layers of personality it grows into the new expression of itself. I look back at brands we have created identities for, sometimes names, mostly logos and it how they seem so right. Partially because we’re damn good at what we do, but also because they’ve had the chance to become what they should be.

Here’s some of the brands that we’ve named. Let us know what you think!

Derek Carroll
Creative Partner