The name game

I'm running my own company where I develop brands for different companies. Up until now I've been using my own name (Ida Alfredsson) and added "brand & design consultant". It's worked fairly well, but recently I started a branding process for my own company (I decided to pay someone else to do it for good sports). And needless to say, I was thrown into the name game. So now I'm consulting everybody around me and getting all sorts of suggestions (with varying quality, I might add) as to what the name of my company should be.

The challenge is this: I work with both strategy/analysis AND creativity/design. I work with developing brand strategies, analyzing the souls of brands, visualizing brand cores and personas, helping companies implement brand strategy internally and externally, creating brand identities, and even doing campaigns (advertising if you will). Sometimes alone and sometimes with other specialists. And sometimes in bigger agency teams. I also do brand seminars and workshops. I sometimes teach /visual/ communication to university students and I occasionally write about brands in design magazines. Oh, and I wrote a book about the communication between creatives and their clients. I'm based in Sweden but occasionally do work for companies in other countries.

So if you have any ideas for a name, they are more than welcome!

A brand new decade.

Over the past months (it's been almost nine months since my last brand confession) I've gone through a brand crisis, asking myself what good brands really do in the greater scheme of things. Can brands make the world a better place? Can they help stop climate change? My questions led me to take an indefinite break in writing.

During this time the world has continued on its own. Social media exploded. The climate debate is getting louder. I don't think there are really clear answers to my questions, but I've decided to break the brand break. Below are five brands that are doing their bit in changing the world.

1) Avaaz is a "global web movement with a simple democratic mission: to close the gap between the world we have, and the world most people want".

2) TOMS shoes is saving the world by giving a way one pair of shoes for every pair sold.

3) Aspen design summit gathered top executives in search for solving global challenges.

4) Cop 15 (15th United Nations Climate Change Conference) failed to create a world wide contract of CO2 emission decrease, but succeeded in raising climate awareness among people all over the world.

5) Creatables is a small Swedish design firm started by an engineer. They design products from industrial waste materials.

6) In November this year, AIGA and Winterhouse Institute organized the Aspen Design Summit, who brought together some 60 top executives (Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO was one of them) with the aim of solving large social problems by applying design thinking.

I wish you all a brand new decade!