June 15, 2011 at 1:13 am · Filed under Artwork, Case Study, Design Industry, Logo & Corporate Identity, Personal, Print, Projects, Redhu
I completely forgot to show off my business cards! This is taking-off from the personal calling cards post I had done earlier.
The letterpress company is @themandatepress with their website at http://www.themandatepress.com/.
I think I chose their cheapest option – believe me – letterpress goodies are expensive – with a gold edge, which, in retrospect, to my cheap-Indian brain – could have been better spent – it shows nicely in the images below – after I’ve told you – but when I hand out a card to someone, it’s not evident at all. Also, the embossing / the letterpress wasn’t as “impressive” / deeply embossed as I had imagined – which is probably my bad – I had all these ideas built up in my head about how the cards would look. I was thinking that the main “n” on the card would really stand out – be depressed deep into the card.
This was my first brush with letterpress and while I was a little disappointed with the result, and I will not be giving it another spin anytime soon, I definitely want to do it again.
I also got a call from someone today who wanted me to design their logo. They got in touch with me after one of their colleagues showed them this business card of mine. So I guess, it probably did have some effect after all. Disclaimer : I am not very big on the giving out of business cards and only ever hand them out when someone specifically asks me for one. After all, once you’ve met me, you don’t forget me, hence making the card redundant. I am also very easy to get in touch with, as my mobile number and email id are on the web for all to see / use.
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June 11, 2011 at 3:29 pm · Filed under Case Study, Design Industry, Logo & Corporate Identity, Projects
This brand naming engagement was for a real-estate client. The business was identified as “The brand’s business is to provide world class consolidated real estate services under one umbrella to the customers. The mission is to be the world’s leading company in real estate services of investment advisory, brokerage service, Engineering (building) consulting and then foray into marketing of products in green housing, medical equipment, and technology from abroad. Also Villa development.”
The company will operate in India and will expand further to South East Asia. The name needed to be conceptual and with an international feel because the target audience would be individuals as well as corporate companies. During the engagement, we also learned that names with two words are impossible to register / trademark in India. I had never created two-worded brand names earlier, but I was not aware of this technicality either.
The inspiration of the brand name came from the Greek “Colossus”. The client identified with the mythology personally and wanted to represent the same in the brand name to some extent.
I started with a mindmap and there were close to 300 permutations and combinations in it.
The words used were related to land, earth, scale, size, large, wealth, build, etc.
The second step was to check for availability of domain names and condense the permutations and combinations to a list of five names that represent the brand’s tone and voice best.
Since all other names presented to the client are unique, I am not able to share them on the blog. But the final name that was chosen, “Sigante”, came from the suggestion of “Xigante”. My notes to client were, “Literally “giant”. I can see that spelling might be an issue but it can also be used as a unique identifier. The only “competition” I can see is from a European consulting firm that calls itself Zigante.” Due to the spelling, we chose to go with “Sigante”. The moment the brand name is finalized, I book the domain on my own and transfer it to the client.
We were also discussing the logo design engagement and further branding story notes were : “A “giant wealth creator”, we could use that to build a logo with a character in it – like a mythological god and keep the identifying keywords specific to strength, posture, foundation, etc. Or we could tie it in with elements related to the earth / land, etc.”
The logo is currently being finalized and tied-in with the brand name, it works beautifully for the brand and it’s prospective target audience.
The biggest challenge in a brand naming engagement, in my opinion, is coming up with a relevant brand name that also has a .com domain available without a squatter on it. Since this is becoming more and more difficult, the art of naming a brand is also becoming tougher with an increased investment in hours spent on the engagement.
Also keep in mind that if you have to check the availability of a particular domain, the best way to do so is to do it from within your dashboard with whichever hosting company you use. I have never had trouble with Dreamhost but I have heard that if you search for the availability of the particular domain using GoDaddy, and if the domain is available, if you don’t book it immediately, there is a high probability that the domain will no longer be available.
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