Verylike

THE PROblem

For any design team, name recognition and awareness can be hard to gain. As more design-only clients approached Gupta Media for their web design and video production needs, it was clear that the team needed a new face to separate themselves from the media-buying side of Gupta Media.

Progress on and enthusiasm for this undertaking waxed and waned for the better part of two years, where it languished under a different proposed name. Eventually, I decided to flip the proverbial table on previously made brand decisions, and present something completely new to the company’s leadership. That concept was Verylike.

THE PROCESS

After deciding to go rogue on this project, I found myself thinking a lot about thinking, and thinking about what makes good or bad creative problem solvers. I needed a name for this new agency that had a deeper meaning, and showed the depth of thought our team was capable of.

I vaguely remembered a story about six blind men describing an elephant, and after reading about the history and meaning of the parable, found a poem by John Godfrey Saxe that summed it up well.

THE PARABLE

Six blind men are given the task of describing an elephant. They all approach a different part of the elephant - one man bumps into the side of the elephant and feels how large and immovable it is, and comes to the conclusion that an elephant is very like a wall. Another man feels the end of a tusk, and feeling how sharp and smooth it is, says an elephant is very like a spear.

It goes like this for the other four men as well, and in the end, the six men have all come to different conclusions about what an elephant must be. They're totally confident in their own experience and assertion, but are also all wrong and have failed to see the elephant as more than a sum of its parts. 

The takeaway, from a position of creative problem solving, is that you can't have truly creative solutions when you have a shallow understanding of your problem. Your solutions need to address the details, but you can't lose sight of the big picture of the problem you’re trying to solve.

THE BRAND

So how does that apply to Gupta Media’s design team? They are a team of creative problem solvers who haven't lost touch with reality. They're a capable and skilled team, but also are very humble and open minded. Their versatility in skillsets means they can approach a project from all directions, without losing sight of the big picture.

So where the elephant in the parable was very like a spear; very like a wall; very like a rope; they are Verylike. A creative agency.

The concept for Verylike, along with the logotype, was approved on the spot. About my surprise presentation of an entirely new and meaningful concept, Gogi Gupta, the founder of Gupta Media, said, “Thank you for the creativity, passion and bravery.  I appreciate that you didn't give me faster horses.” (A reference to a quote often attributed to Henry Ford - “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”)

LAUNCHING THE AGENCY

A website, along with custom embroidered bomber jackets, t-shirts, water bottles, and business cards, were created to solidify the brand’s presence within Boston and Gupta Media. See the brand in action and follow the team’s work at verylikecreative.com.