Our logo is ready and obviously we are more than excited.
(If you stumbled upon this page and are a bit lost check out how we started and what the name means and our principles).
Sofia will update later on in the day with more details of the history but I couldn’t resist uploading this.
Let us know what you think.
Originally uploaded by J!mbo
Being in London matters to us. It is difficult to explain exactly how London can help with your creativity but for us it’s a city that just works in terms of being inspired and staying that way.
I tracked down the other day a marvellous discussion (the link points to an .mp3) hosted by the Design Museum and it helps explain why being here makes sense.
Hussein Chalayan talks about how London influences his work and why he bases his International fashion business in the vibrant and gritty East End. Chalayan is joined by other key design creatives who base themselves in the city, including writer and journalist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Foreign Office Architects partner Farshid Moussavi and acclaimed emerging writer Bola Agbaje.
(via)
The Chair starts by giving a quote to the panel, to start them off in discussing creativity and London: “Britain has been forged in the crucible of fusion of hybridity. London is that crucible that national forge the city where no one belongs is where I belong.”
I think the panel make a very good case about how London helps creative people.
My favourite part is when Hussein Chalayan explains that his own background (he is Turkish/Cypriot) enriched his London experience and how the city gave him the necessary distance to understand the richness of his cultural background.
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I would definitely recommend browsing Hussein Chalayan’s ‘Art Projects’ part of his website – my favourite remains Afterwords, even after all these years, it is a fascinating study/ mashup of fashion – architecture – design.
I knew it - even though there is nothing I could have done to avoid it.
We got some drafts from our designer and I remained unconvinced. I looked into it, I spoke with Lefteris (the designer), I spoke with Konstantina (the PR girl I can trust), I spoke with Manolis (the other half of SoMaFusion) and I couldn’t figure it out.
Until I went back to the writer’s drawing board (that is, my trusty notebook, yes, they still exist) and I started writing and doodling (very badly may I add) and it hit me.
What I had left out was a prioritisation of characteristics. In other words a list of our key characteristics informing the logo in order of importance.
Why do this? Well, there is always a good chance that fitting all of them in one logo is out of the question.
Doing the list helped me focus my mind on what is important for us and helps the designer focus his mind on what should be more prominent.
So here it is. As I’ve said before a logo is a journey, not a simple tick in a box.
I’ve worked with graphic artists in the past producing logos for clients and if it’s one thing that makes their lives miserable is a client that says ‘oh, just sketch something and we’ll talk about it‘. Usually good graphic artists reject projects which give them no guidance and rightly so. How can you do your job to a high standard if you don’t have the tools?
Here is what I’ve learned (so far) that you need to have before you even start talking to a graphic artist or even thinking about a logo.
What your company does
This is not as easy as it looks. We sat down and analysed what we’ve done in the past, our skillsets, what we could outsource, our contacts, our aims, our plans for the future.
What is your business plan
I know the phrase sounds scary – I left it up to Manolis to draft and then we sat down and discussed it, even though we still have some way to go. For the first few weeks I always think it’s neccessary to think about market position, gaps in current offerings and why it makes sense to work the way you intend to work.
The name of the company
Explain – this also helps focus your mind, let alone the designer, on what the name stands for, what it represents. For us it’s all about our skillset and our belief that the combination of content and code does wonders.
What sort of clients/ projects are you going for?
The audience shapes the message – I think I don’t have to analyse this more.
So, what have I left out?
Over the years I’ve drafted and helped with some business plans. You can find loads of advice out there, I wholeheartedly recommend the guide to preparing a business plan by Business Link. If you are in the South East (UK that is) also try to visit the Business and IP Centre at the British Library, they offer advice on planning and seeking funding.
From my experience though there are two things that most people tend to forget about before they start putting pen to paper. That’s function and audience and how these change over time.
Function
By that I mean what is the function of the business plan. Is it there to provide a road-map, to set-up processes, to measure success in the future, to secure external funding? By deciding on the function it is easier to draft but never forget that the function could change in the future.
Audience
Once you have deciced the current function then the current audience will also be clear. For example it could be just an internal audience, you and your partner or your employees. By all means make it relevant to them but remember that in the future things may change.
Changes in function and audience
You may not want to ask for funding now but you may want to do so in the future. Think about that from the outset and include it in your consideration of function and audience. This will help you find out if you have any weak arguments and address them from the outset.
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It’s a bit cheeky of me to be writing this post since Manolis is actually drafting our business plan, but I’ll do one better and send it to him as a ‘keep in mind when drafting’. It’s all fun over here at SoMaFusion.
We spent some time discussing the company name today – even though I’ve already noted it down in a previous post.
There are many theories out there about how you should choose your company name and what it should mean. Sure, we chatted about some of them and did the theory swapping.
By the way – check out the Business Link guide to naming a business and considering its structure and also see their very useful guide on branding.
At the end we agreed on one thing. We both know it’s a mistake to think about this on a personal level but we can’t help it. This is our project and we love it so the name needs to be personal and dear to us.
Naturally it also represents what we do.
As I’ve noted before, Sofia (yours truly) is good with content and Manolis is good with code. Hence SoMa.
However we feel that just the mere presence of these two elements (ahem, and people naturally) is not enough. We truly believe that only by combining code with good content will you be able to see results. Hence Fusion.
For us SoMaFusion does not just stand for two people getting together and pursuing some interesting projects (even though, if we didn’t think we could do the interesting projects we wouldn’t have started the company). It’s more than that.
It’s about a deeply ingrained belief that by fusing the content and code one can actually enhance online and offline presence.
So we spent about 4 hours brainstorming on SoMaFusion today.
Quite the evening this proved to be.
Here are some of the things we went over
By the way – we browsed online for some brainstorming tools and found out that XMind has now joined the open source community (quite cool we think). You can also embed an XMind map viewer into your blog (which definetely gives us ideas).
There is also bubbl.us – a free web application that lets you brainstorm online and it also allows you to embed content.
We also found some useful resources on brainstorming so read on:
Start Talking Nonsense on Blogging Innovation
To Be innovative or To Do Innovation on Innovate on Purpose
Confusing Information with the Form on Polaine – Uncommon Sense
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Written by: Manolis a.k.a. the Codesmith Comments