Branding
I’ve named pets, kids & companies. Our cat is Luka. Our kids are Zara & Noah. Some of the companies are Blockstar, Ultra Mobile, Primo & Mint Mobile. Here’s a bit about my approach & a few examples of my branding work.
Branding & identity are an extension of my product design process. I find the personality of a brand emerges from inside itself in harmony with the underlying values & function of the product. A creation doesn’t feel complete until the world has a name to call it by & that name should encapsulate the true core of what’s been built.
I do names, taglines, personalities & values. I can’t do graphics, but I love to collaborate with talented designers to create vibrant visual identities that grow with you.
Wireless Carrier
Mint Mobile uses a buy in bulk sales approach to lower your monthly mobile bill to just $15. It’s a millennial-focused, online-only value brand designed for digital natives with a cord cutting attitude.
A lot of products exist in telecom, so finding an available name to represent our offer was the biggest challenge. After searching high & low, I came up with Mint & loved it immediately because it’s a short catchy name with three positive meanings:
- Fresh – Representing a new way of buying wireless
- Green – The color of growth & vitality
- Value – A mint is where money is made
With the name set, I worked with our creative director on the development of a mascot. We knew we wanted a cartoon animal & chose the fox because it embodies the cleverness of our target customer, the online value shopper. We combined mint elements into a fox and our spokes-animal, the Mint Fox was born.
I stepped away shortly after the Mint Mobile launch, but the brand has grown & evolved in magical ways since then, having run a Super Bowl commercial & taken on A list actor, endorser & owner Ryan Reynolds as part of the team.
Wireless Carrier
Ultra was a much different branding challenge than Mint. It has a very diverse target market, first generation immigrants from over 200 countries. Many of its subscribers either speak English as a second language or not at all.
The US wireless market operates nearly opposite than the rest of the world. Overseas, there are no contracts & people bring their own phones. Ultra was designed to emulate that model & we needed a brand that felt familiar to our globe-spanning customer base. It had to show that we understood & respected them. Most of all, they needed to know that we would keep them connected to home with international talk & text in all our plans.
To that end, I designed a brand with a short, easy to pronounce name that has a universal meaning. Ultra is ultra everywhere. I also collaborated with a UK-based design firm to create a visual identity that could work in any global market & across multiple languages. The brand voice has always focused on clarity, connection to home & giving our subscribers honest value.
Customers responded to this approach as Ultra grew from an unknown startup to the fastest growing company in America (#1 Inc. 5000) in just 3 years. We’re proud that people trust us to stay connected to the world as their mobile provider.
