The Project: Avanceos was a brand new company. They were founded to advance innovations and inventions for small businesses and individual inventors in the Eastern Ontario region. By helping clients navigate patent and registration processes, Avanceos could help their clients save money in obtaining IP rights. Avanceos offered a suite of intellectual property consulting services alongside more personal services such as advising and educating clients on how to protect and promote their ideas.
Avanceos had a name in mind but had no corporate identity or materials to go along with it. “We wanted to grow and build the company” said Jocelyn Yurick, an Intellectual Property Consultant with Avanceos “we knew that we could move forward with a good name and strong graphics.”
Avanceos’ request for a corporate identity quickly turned into a naming project as well. The team at BmDodo knew right away that Avanceos’ proposed name wouldn’t work if they wanted to stand out in their industry.
Starting from scratch, BmDodo Strategic Design set out to create a name and corporate identity that would propel Avanceos forward.
The Challenge: The name and corporate identity had to achieve two goals:
First, Avanceos needed to clearly distinguish the company and services from their competition, and establish a strong, distinctive, memorable and lasting corporate identity. The identity needed to reflect their experience, and highlight the personal services that would set them apart from the rest of the industry.
It was important that Avanceos be perceived as a boutique firm with custom services “IP is a confusing field and a lot of people don’t know what to do” said Juergen Fuchs, an Intellectual Property Consultant with Avanceos “we wanted to highlight the fact that all of our services could be tailored to meet the individual needs of every client.” Avanceos’ special, dedicated attention to clients would present the company as a new alternative to standard IP services and get them noticed by their target clientele.
It was also critical that Avanceos be regarded favourably as a local business working to promote and advance other businesses and entrepreneurs in the region.
Second, the company needed to look highly professional, corporate and sleek. While they did not aspire to be a large multi‐national, they would need to maintain the same sense of professionalism as larger firms.
The Solution: BmDodo Strategic Design began with developing a new name. Avanceos originally came to BmDodo as ‘Innovation Advancement Consulting Inc.’ “We knew from the get‐go that the name wasn’t going to work” said Brian Dodo, Principle and Strategic Designer at BmDodo “it was too similar to other names in the industry. Every other firm was using ‘innovation’ in their name and all of their target customers used innovation as well. We wanted them to stand out.” The new name needed to say ‘innovative’ and ‘forward thinking’ without using these words.
The solution was a coined word combining ‘avance’ and ‘neos’. “Avance is French for ‘move forward’ and ‘neos’ is Greek for ‘new’” said Brian “so Avanceos means ‘advance the new’.” BmDodo perfectly captured the company’s main goal, to advance innovations and inventions for small businesses and individual inventors in the Eastern Ontario region, and they did it in a way that would differentiate Avanceos from all its competitors.
For the visual identity, BmDodo decided to create a stylized type called a word mark. “Because the name "Avanceos" is a made‐up word combining "avance" and "neos" — meaning new, we decided that the text treatment should be original, but legible enough that viewers can clearly read the name” said Jen Cameron, Strategic Designer at BmDodo.
The word mark was designed in grey and orange. Grey was chosen because of its sophistication as well as a reference to grey matter, the brain and thinking. Orange represents enthusiasm, fascination, creativity, determination, attraction, success, and stimulation. It was chosen to add excitement.
The end result was sleek, professional, elegant, corporate and unique – everything Avanceos had been looking for.
The Results: Avanceos has had positive feedback and an excellent initial response to the new name and identity “we have been doing some networking and proudly handing out materials with the new identity” said Jocelyn. Juergen added that “people have been showing interest in the name and in our business, there has been wonderful feedback.”
The company was especially pleased with the new name “we were surprised at first when Brian said our name wouldn’t work” said Juergen “but we went for Avanceos right away. We loved the explanation of how it came together and how it said innovation in a different way.” Avanceos has also applied to register the company name as a trademark “It was so good, we wanted to register it.”
Both partners were impressed with the process and how it affected the end result “the creative brief was fascinating” said Jocelyn “it was interesting to see how all the questions translated into the company name and graphic.”
Avanceos has not yet launched their new website and knows this will be important for the growth of the company “we are looking forward to launching the website because it will add to our presence and reinforce all of BmDodo’s work. We expect great things” said Jocelyn.
Avanceos had a thoroughly positive experience working with BmDodo and will be moving full steam ahead with the new identity.
