Choosing a name for your new company is a big deal, so how do you go about it?

Well, as designers you apply the same principles you would to any new design project…

Understand your ‘product’, think about your audience, what is your message and can you add some personality into the way you present it that is uniquely yours. And maybe consider the competition, if appropriate. So did we do that when we came up with Flow for our design practice back at the turn of the millennium? 

Our company was founded by 2 partners, both graphic designers but with different backgrounds, having worked in smaller design houses and larger corporate in-house design studios for multi-nationals. Our skills were varied but complimentary covering Corporate Identity, Branding, Art Direction, Packaging Design, Marketing promotions and point-of-sale… the list goes on.

But one thing we’d both learned in our design careers was that you follow your design or style instincts and ‘go with the flow’. In smaller companies you can quickly become used to the same routine and after time long for a change and fresh challenge. In larger organisations the structures around you change to bring fresh opportunities and challenges but you can become frustrated with design limitations – how do you cope in these environments? Learn to ‘go with the flow’.

As designers we learn that obstacles and limitations can become opportunities to break through and produce great results – it’s not a bad life lesson either. 

Apparently the Dr Seuss children’s book ‘Green Eggs & Ham’ was written following a bet that the author couldn’t write a children’s book with 50 or fewer distinct words. Now there’s a design limitation, or is it a creative challenge? He successfully did and it went on to become his best-selling book. It’s all about how you look at a situation… do you see a glass that’s half empty or half full?

We’ve had an exciting and varied ride so far with our design business, now in its 16th year, but by learning to ‘go with the flow’ and rise to various challenges and opportunities we’ve realised what an accurate and appropriate name FLOW has turned out to be… it also helps that the letters come from our surname FOWLER – you might even think we designed it that way!