Design Kompany is a brand design studio. We do: corporate identity, brand identity, branding, logo design, corporate communications, creative marketing.

Design Kompany gets along superbly with software developers. That’s because they understand that great design is about starting broad, and thinking things out clearly at the start. The bulk of the work happens at the start: you have to establish the parameters and scope of what it is you’re doing. In other words, what problem do you want to solve? Even though this company came to us for a simple Web site refresh, they soon learned that what we could deliver was a lot more robust. In the end, we helped them identify the core strength and talent: “Setting your mobile vision alight.” The name Matchbox came to DK in a late-night conversation at our studio, as is so often the case when you’re a husband-and-wife team working together on creative stuff. Everything else—the business card design, the new website, and even the attitude of new hires Matchbox brought in—was directly inspired by this clear nugget of understanding what their greatest value as a company really is. We were honored to work with such a fantastic team, which included the late Richard Stott, whom we miss terribly.

Here is how we got there, in the original post.

Rename and rebrand for a mobile software developer

Coming up with the name Matchbox was the first part of Design Kompany’s total rebrand for a mobile software development company. Matchbox’s offices are in Seattle and Brighton, U.K.

Above is the new logo we made to go with the new name.

And below is the new website for Matchbox Mobile we designed and built.

Matchboxmobile.com launched last week.

Owning your new brand

Design Kompany loves it when our clients can talk about their new brand with conviction, passion and clarity.

So we were excited to read Matchbox’s Richard Stott put it thus in his announcement email:

We’re proud to announce Research Creations is now Matchbox Mobile!

We have a new name, a new brand, and a brand new website. We’re still the same company, same people, and same focus on mobile software development. 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.

Check out our redesigned website with all new content, our recent success stories and what makes us special. Why the name Matchbox?

We’re an agile team of bright developers ready to set your mobile ideas on fire.
[emphasis mine]

We’ll share more soon about the rest of the process, including how DK Skyped across time zones to feel we were right there in Brighton.

UPDATE: January 2009

It’s cool. Matchbox is hiring.

UPDATE: February 2009

More about the process…

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.

Photos by Victor Ng.

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.

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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