Having previously worked with Mark Rose and Andy Williams we were approached by the former Capita Lovejoy directors to give their new venture an identity. In our first workshop we developed a name for the new planning and design practice; assessing their skills, background, target audience and brainstorming their key values as a company.

Design, development, delivery, derive, detail, depth were a few of the key words we came across – all beginning with De. We found the prefix De is often used to indicate removal or separation that we felt was quite appropriate to this new company - branching off from Capita. We explored various visual directions and felt that hyphenating the De could be a strong asset to the visual identity, following with some of the above key words across various media. During development we were drawn towards the name Define: “To determine with precision; to mark out with distinctness to ascertain or exhibit clearly”. We explored the colon mark as it often follows the word Define preceding a definition, set as two equal circles it lent itself to an interesting abstract element that could be implemented across the identity in a bold yet simple visual way.

As a new company we believe it’s important to invest time in all the small details, in this case - embossing, foiling, fluro ink and a subtle animated background on the site. We are currently working on the full website and introductory brochure.

When anyone goes on a trip for more than a few days, it's customary upon return, to say things like "this time last week..." Well, this time last week, Andy and I were busy packing for our flight back to Blighty.

_{Photo by Robbie Beak}

And where were we? South by South West, of course! Along with a contingent from the West Midlands, Andy and I repped Substrakt at the SXSW Interactive festival in Austin, attending panels and keynotes, making great new contacts and of course attending the many parties that help make SXSW the legendary event it is.

Ryan Carson, in the most recent Think Vitamin Radio podcast, described the panel-based content at SXSW as "stupid", suggesting that, at least some panels are cobbled together at the last minute. Now naturally this has nothing to do with Carsonified (the company for which Think Vitamin is a popular blog) organising potentially competing events ;) But in fairness, Ryan isn't that far off the mark in some cases. Some panels, like the Accessibility for the Visually Impaired talk that I attended, was pretty poorly put together and presented by Creative Director Genevieve Wilkins, but was redeemed in part by Michael Cooper of the W3C. The HTML5 panel Andy and I sat in on also felt woefully mistitled and had only one redeeming speaker, the refreshingly sensible Emily Lewis.

Sunday's keynote by Christopher Poole of 4chan also fell flat, and also entertaining, Bruce Sterling's closing speech was a tad bizarre. However what many of the people I spoke to thought to be a valuable presentation (which to my mind should have been a keynote), was Gary Vaynerchuk's. Feulled with energy, fierce rhetoric and a mouth that would make a sailor blush, his talk on the "thank you economy" (which, by complete coincidence also forms the title of his latest book) was engaging, fun, and peppered with more than a few sensible and applicable ideas. We also checked out some useful presentations on geotemporal visualisation, personal data in the cloud, product design and more.

The Trade Show shone some light on a few UK and US startups like DAD and Twonky, which both provide media streaming for the home, and Solvate, a website that matches freelancers with potential clients (think Jobplot US, but not as cool ;)). The parties also brought new faces and new business cards to exchange, but any attempt at listing the people I shook hands with would end in me inevitably missing someone out.

I would however like to thank everyone from the West Mids who flew out with us, shared a house with us or joined us at periodic moments, for making my and Andy's first SX a massive blast.

And if you want to see some of the notes and images we gathered, they're still available on our Substrakt @ SxSWi blog.