Summary:

A company formerly known as Research Creations came to Design Kompany in search of a website update. To increase “stickiness” in the minds of customers, we suggested a name change and a rebrand, too. And that’s exactly what we did. Below are some pictures and a description of how we managed to work with a team with three people in Brighton, U.K., and one in Seattle to liase with us. Best project to date for DK in terms of excitement, engagement, and a chance to shine.

Business card designSketching a logoBusiness card design
Photos by Victor Ng.

Making of a brand: focus, good questions, patience

The story of a brand

Not long after this company came to us for a renaming and total overhaul of their branding, they started winning pretty exciting contracts and even hiring new staff.

That’s because they were able to focus right in on what their niche market would be thanks to DK’s special FOCUS session. We zoomed right in to look deep into what the company’s history and talents said about its strengths. Together we set a direction for the personality the company wanted to become. We built an identity design through a series of sessions we call BRAND.

The company, which used to be called Research Creations, was open to a renaming, recognizing the importance of a more memorable, “sticky” name. Through DK’s interviews, which involved Skype videoconferencing with Matchbox’s key staff in Brighton, U.K., we could narrow down the key ideas that Matchbox’s team wanted to convey.

“You guys really helped us with finding our niche,” says Richard Stott of Matchbox Mobile.

Making of a brand: focus, good questions, patience
Design Kompany’s Akira Morita Skypes with Matchbox in the U.K.

Agility and dynamism topped the list. So we zoomed in on a list of names that would drive the point home. This involved checking out a bunch of urls for availability, too! And “Matchbox” fit. Once the name was solid and correct, designing the look and feel fell neatly into place.

Kudos for DK

  • “It was a great experience working with you both, not only did we end up with a great end product but I felt the whole process really helped us grow as a team and a company, Design Kompany did a great job, I’m really happy we chose to work with you.”
    —Andrew Farrell, Operations Director, Matchbox Mobile
  • “Our new name and brand reflects how we’ve grown over the past 3 years from a research focused company to what we’re all about today—creating truly unique custom mobile solutions for our clients.”
    —Richard Stott, Sales Director, Matchbox Mobile

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DK in 20 seconds



Welcome to Design Kompany.

We exist to help you realize your fullest potential as a small business, using dialogue as a key tool to discern your clear, authentic brand message.

If you value thoughtful conversation, accuracy, and exquisite solutions arrived upon through solid design thinking, you might like DK.

We've done naming, branding design, and message design to help people express a strong core identity. But it has to be based on passion. Smaller companies are a great match for DK, because we love talking marketing and strategy with those owners, whose values and affinities often set the company culture's tone.

We work remotely with people anywhere in the world who are: aware, awake, curious, and respectful of the design process, which we think sets the stage for great design when done well. Talk to us! We're listening. -Dipika


Things we like to write about? Travel, art, architecture, museums, and cafes. Design, materials, design thinking, but more than anything else, process. We like to say, "Trust the process." It really makes a big difference if you start with a fresh page, and think together with us on where and what you can become.

Trains are good, too. Small comments on parenting, or what other people are doing, and what other people are saying about creativity, and the creative process, and a shift from the industrial way of thinking towards more free-form association that jogs new waves of thought --- all of that is DK's beat.

Plus we'll write about people we meet, things we learn, and all the cross-cultural and multiple dimensions of interpretations. We have another blog getting going just to consider dialogue design.

But to make this blog easier to sift, here are the topics we're slotting our blog posts within:

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CONTACT DK

Design Kompany is in Durham, NC.

PO Box 1512
Durham, NC 27702
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