The Rebrand, part III: The Name
This is part III of our Rebrand Series. Haven’t read part II yet? Read it here.
Remember how we thought we could really put things into action now? (You don’t? Quickly, read our previous blog post.) Well, little did we know the hardest part was still to come: how were we going to name ourselves?
People often expect to hear a name and to immediately feel if it’s right or not. A bit like falling in love; it has to feel right from the moment you meet. But that’s not how it works in most cases. Of course, a catchy name is nice to have, but it won’t make or break your company. What we associate with a company name comes from what they offer to their clients. After all, who would’ve thought that the name Apple would work for a company specialized in innovative technology? But we have to admit that that doesn’t mean that our name-picking process went as easy as we thought, even when we knew that the name was only the first step of the process. After all, as a team, it’s important that all of us felt a connection with the name. Okay, so here goes nothing!
The entire process begins and ends with the strategy: what exactly do you want your brand to convey, what is your personality? With keeping the strategy in mind, you can create a checklist based on the different aspects from the strategy and the brainstorming process can begin. You’ll probably end up with a long long list of potential names — we sure did (but the more, the merrier, right?). Once you feel like you’ve summed up all the potential names you can come up with, the filtering process can begin. Since this is mostly a team effort and you’ll probably end up with only 3 or 4 names that everyone kind of likes. Now the real digging can begin — trying out the name to see if it works, doing a URL check (pro-tip: this website comes in very handy!), looking it up on the internet…
After racking our brains for weeks, we found a name that matched our strategy: Ollie. The ollie is a skating trick that you learn when you start out. Once you know how to ollie, you can start trying out all the other tricks. And that kind of represents what we’re trying to pass on to our clients. Strategy and design are crucial for a brand to work. You need to figure out a strong strategy and matching design before thinking about other things. It’s one of the hardest parts of the process, but it’s also the basis on which you’ll build the rest of your brand. See the comparison? Doesn’t sound as far-fetched now, does it? And since there are two skaters in our team, the name is very suitable. Besides the skating aspect, the name Ollie just sounds right. It’s short, fun and easy to pronounce.
Next week will be the final part of the Rebrand Series. Expect a lot of cool visuals in the making of our identity!
