On renaming + rebranding
I got my first hint that we might have to rename our organization when I told my wife that we had decided on “Magnazine.” She squinted the way she does when she’s thinking through a difficult repair on our engine’s campervan, which was designed so that everything is a hassle to reach, and then changed the subject.
A few months later, Alex was gearing up to work on a pitch deck, which had him thinking broadly about the organization’s branding and design style. By then, “Magnazine” had stumped enough other people, like grant application reviewers and accelerator colleagues, that it seemed like we should consider other options before proceeding to design anything around it. I thought it might take a week to decide on something new.
Not quite.
As I was drafting this post, my 1½-year-old started poking at the laptop keys, turning the generic working title “Renaming and Rebranding” into “Renaming and Rebrandingddddddddddddwxw ddz.” Her revision was perfect: “ddddddddddddwxw ddz” is the sound my brain started making after many weeks of eyeing each noun and verb I encountered, wondering if it might in fact be The Perfect Name, or at least a key ingredient for The Perfect Name. I felt like the duckling from Are You My Mother?.
In search of The Perfect Name, I ping-ponged among many, many answers to many, many questions. Here is a brief excerpt of what I considered:
- What should it say about what we do?
- Should it convey who we are? In what sense?
- Or should it convey who we do it for?
- What if that conflicts with the real or imagined preferences of the people and organizations we are trying to obtain funding from?
- How should it make you feel? (Extra many answers to this one)
- What bad puns or naughty rhymes is it in danger of? What clichés does it evoke?
And, of course:
- Is it available as a URL and Twitter handle?
What finally moved us along was listening to our communities. Alex whipped up a quick survey that showed a few top options and captured both the one people preferred and the one they remembered best after reading some facts about the impact of GEDs on hiring and earning prospects. We sent it out to fellow designers and educators and entrepreneurs, to friends and family, and, most importantly, to former students.
Level up, level best, on the level: welcome to our new name, Level.
(by Kate Mullan @ Level)
