A Brand for a Friend.

In the previous posts under the Beauty brand the East label, I showed samples about how the foreign brand names be translated in Chinese. How about the reverse? I have a sample which is also my own project. I have a best friend from Hong Kong asked me If I can come up with an English name and logo for his new business.

12:30 am I received a call from Hong Kong.
BEST FRIEND: "Is it too late to talk? I need your help"

ME: "We are talking already, what's up?"

BEST FRIEND: "I need a name."

ME: "Oh man, congratulation, baby? when?"

BEST FRIEND: "Kind of, I need an English name for my new business, I have a Chinese name already, which is "智信", mean wisdom and trust, our service focus on Financial Advisory and Debt Recovery"

ME: "Oh, it is a good name, I will work on it, stay tuned"

We knew each other since kindergarten. We grow up together and we shared underwear, this is how close we are. So I am very excited and happy when I learned that he started his own business. I was so sleepy that night but I still jumped back to my seat and started the brainstorming right after I hung up.

2:00am
ME: "Hey, cannot wait for another day, here you go, KeyStone, key of wisdom "智慧的鑰匙", stone is a solid foundation, building blocks for trust and believe. It builds roads, it builds towers and it builds the future "誠信的基石. The pronunciations are close as well, "Key" for "Ji" and Stone for "Seun". For architecture term, KeyStone is a very important piece of block for the structure of a door/gate at any entrance......"




BEST FRIEND: "Cool, ok I will head back to meet my lawyer"

ME: "Nonono, let me work on more concepts and do more research first."

BEST FRIEND: "It's ok, we are not in the design industry, we don't need a super pretty one because nobody will care, just use 70% of your brain juice. That's 100% for us already"

ME: "70%? I think using 70% is harder than using 100%...I also think you are insulting my professional for asking me to do something which nobody care...what an interesting request."


Next day, I received his call again.

BEST FRIEND: "I registered the English name already, I need a logo now, can you draw one for me and send it to me, I need to print some business card, I need to meet a client tomorrow and I need one asap"

ME: "Slow down, my friend, I need time to work on it, do it in the right way."

BEST FRIEND: "Whatever, send it to me when it is ready."

I end up sending him the logo a week later because of my tight schedule.

He is a typical Hong Kong businessman, full speed jogging instead of walking. He is not going to slow it down, but when he needs a break, I hope he will bump into my blog and find out the meaning behind his company's logo and English name. Yes, I bet he forget about it already or I got a feeling he has never know the meanings behind them since day 1.

Anyway, you are my best man, I wish you the best and hope you enjoy the 100% pure brain juice which I blended for you, cheers.