‘How it was named’ is a series where I explore the creation of brand names that have caught my interest. This edition features yours truly, the originator of the series, Sleight of Brand

 

1] Tell us about Sleight of Brand; what do you do?

 

Sleight of Brand is a one-woman consultancy offering full-spectrum brand building for businesses intent on making a name for themselves; I work on brand strategy, brand naming, visual identity, tone of voice, copywriting, website design and builds.

 

2] And why do you do it?

 

My path to working in brand was both organic and eclectic; I started out in journalism, moved into publishing, then graphic design / creative services and a stint in proposal/RFP management before finally landing in Brand. It felt like I’d ‘come home’.

 

Because of my career path, I’ve developed the skills and an eye that allows me to consider a brand holistically… I’m not ‘just’ looking at the visual design elements, or comms and messaging and so forth. I’m able to consider each individual aspect AND the bigger picture, to see how they interact and fit with each other… and, importantly, tell when something is ‘off’ which leads to brand damage.

 

Branding is the result of seemingly effortless articulation of ideas and concepts that are complex and (sometimes) tedious. It’s also about helping establish or shift the perception of something, by seeing what’s not there or hasn’t existed in that realm before, or by using apophenia. It requires taking the messy, fragmented bits of a proposition — the questions, decision points, platforms, creative approaches — and fashioning them into something cohesive. It’s as much an analytical endeavour as it is emotive and creative.

 

I work in Brand because I find it fulfilling to create brands end-to-end so they’re cohesive and tightly-knit throughout. I do it as Sleight of Brand because it allows me the space to do it my way end-to-end rather than function within the strictures of an org chart with responsibility over only one or two aspects at best.

 

3] What values inform your ‘why’?

 

‘Bold, incisive and playful’ are the core brand values of Sleight of Brand, defining both the kind of work I want to create and the way I want to create it.

 

My personal values that come into play here are:

• Learning: it’s one of my primary drivers. In this instance, everything I learn about brand building and running a business, I get to make use of for my clients too so it’s a double win.
• Rigour: I firmly believe that our standards make us. It’s important to exercise them reasonably, sure, but you achieve a difference in quality through having good standards… excellence is a quality that is invisible until it’s absent.
• Fairness: Like many neurodivergent people (I’m autistic), justice and fairness are very, very important to me and any whiff of unfairness is intolerable. What it makes me want to do is contribute to actively changing the status quo as much as I can. It means I prioritise inclusive communication, treat Accessibility and inclusion as default when building brands, and working with brands that match my values and aims.
• Social impact: I want my work to contribute to genuine social change, by raising awareness of what minoritised groups experience, challenging practices/ thinking that contribute to those experiences, and being stringent about the visions that I contribute my skills to.
• Creativity: I write, crochet, sew, do embroidery, design and explore language as a routine part of my life. It gives me multiple avenues to experiment and create, and, most importantly, bring back concepts/ideas from one to the other making my work and approach richer. One of my big projects at the moment is recreating one of the Mondrian paintings using crochet.

 

4] How did you end up with the name Sleight of Brand? (did you work with an agency, undertake trademark searches and registration, indicative costs…)

 

When I was made redundant from my previous corporate role, I had been considering striking out on my own working in the brand space for some time. I knew that I had to ‘walk the talk’ if I was going to be offering brand related services — my own brand had to be exemplary of what I can do for other people’s brands. While on a red-eye bus with my dad in India, I let my brain do its thing and had fun with the exercise of, “oh, what am I going to call this?” And that’s when I came up with 20-odd names in that space. Sleight of Brand was one of them.

 

But the *way* I came up with it is down to a couple of autistic traits. One of them is ‘echolalia’, it’s the repetition of phrases, words, noises, etc. I’ve often used that to figure out what rhymes with a specific word just to see what comes up. And then there’s the concept of ‘apophenia’, which is the ability to connect disparate things. So when I was thinking “brand… hmmm what rhymes with brand,” ‘hand’ came up and I hit upon sleight of brand!

 

It started off as a joke, “Haha, I’m going to call this Sleight of Brand!” But the more I thought about it, the more I was convinced “no, this is perfect for me and this is very much my brand!”

 

I love wordplay, I love puns, and language in general. Plus it’s a name that’s going to make people sit up and take notice and… a name can’t do everything, but this one just makes you go, “I wonder what they do then and how do they do that?” And there’s a bit of the promise on the face of it as well — I create sleight of brand for people. So that’s how it came to be, and I’m very close to completing trademark registration.

 

5] What did you almost call it before deciding on ‘Sleight of Brand’?

 

‘Ampere’ was a strong contender but didn’t really work because it was too broad and… well, it never stood a chance against ‘sleight of brand’. I genuinely considered ‘Strateji’ for a minute (‘ji’ is the Hindi equivalent of the Japanese ‘san’, a term of respect when addressing someone and) the pun tickled me, but would have required explanation more often than not. Some others were ‘Brand Quotient’, ‘Brandaid’, ‘Brandstanding’, ‘Brand prix’ and ‘Brandatory’… I went all-in on the wordplay at one point, clearly.

 

6] How important is a business name according to you?

 

VERY; It’s a *huge* missed opportunity, not putting effort into your business/brand name! It’s such a vital part of a brand and I find people still don’t recognise the value of having an apt and memorable name. I touch upon the business and opportunity cost of the ‘wrong’ naming approach in my webinar ‘You named it WHAT??!! Why brand naming matters’

 

I’m on a mission to change how people treat brand naming; ‘How it was named’ is directly in service to this mission as partly a study of brand naming and a demonstration of what great brand naming can make possible.

 

The name is the most used aspect of your brand, one that sets the tone for how people perceive your brand and is not to be trifled with; “let’s just call it something” was never a great strategy, but even more so now.

 

7] What one thing do you wish people were aware of about your area of expertise/industry? 

 

That brand-building isn’t a one-off or single dimension activity. It takes time and effort and is worth investing in. You’re playing the long game, with the end goal being building trust with your audience and customers, and you achieve that through consistency. So for your branding to truly work, every aspect of your brand — the logo, colours, typography, voice, interactive elements, customer service, messaging and comms and much, much more — they all need to fit together. That requires consideration, not just creating something as a tick-box exercise.

 

Speaking of tick-boxes: I wish more people understood that brand rigour needs precede any AI output; it’s how you make AI *actually* start working for you. Without a strong brand and business strategy, even the best prompts will lead you astray. The tool alone does not the product make.

 

It has its uses, it can speed things up in some aspects but achieving any kind of quality, tasteful output will still require human input, judgement and rigour. And as it stands, it’s not truly generative — it’s merely regurgitating combinations and permutations based on the often flawed, not-always-ethically-sourced data it’s been fed.

 

If you’re finding yourself trapped in endless chats with AI but not getting to the right solution, that’s a symptom — you skipped a step. You skipped building the principles that actually make something work.

 

8] Question for funsies! Fill in the blank: Whatever you do, don’t _____ 

 

Don’t compare.

 

Your journey will never be the same as anyone else’s and therefore, your experiences and results will never be the same as their (and vice versa).

 

I liken it to buying clothes from high-street brands — you might buy the exact same items as someone else but the way you style them, the way they fit you, the way they make you feel will always be unique to you.

 

If you see someone doing something really well it’s worth evaluating the strategy behind it, so that you can understand how to make a similar play or use it to inform your standards. Don’t compare though, because it will never be a truly fair exercise, which makes it futile and is a disservice to both you and the other party.