Custom Direct • Marketing Communications

We’re a pretty close-knit group at Custom Direct. Like a lot of creative firms, we have working lunches where we eat pizza while brainstorming to solve a design or communication challenge. This week all 12 of us gathered to talk and try out a new pizza place…

So… while eating ‘garbage’ pizza (think way too many olives), we began discussing rabbits, amoebas and whether or not armadillos were cute or gross.

Armadillos aren’t most people’s idea of lunchtime conversation, but we were working to create an identity for a new start-up. Not just any start-up, but an extension of Custom Direct.

Combining our creative talent with technical expertise, equipment (and a little luck) we’re beginning a new venture into Fine Art Reproductions, and the marketing of art and artists. Our company needed a name – an identity – a logo and mark to help convey our brand…

We want to speak as artists, to artists; to convey an idea in our name, but not be too literal. Custom Direct, Marketing Communications is literal. Armadillo Editions is not. We want to build a company with a brand promise, which includes the ability to faithfully reproduce the artists’ original artwork, in a manner keeping with the quality and integrity of fine art printmakers.

So obviously we began with an armadillo - the little armor-plated mammal that rolls up into a ball when frightened.

Armadillos are homozygous. Each time they give birth, to a litter of 5 or more pups, EVERY pup in the litter has the EXACT SAME DNA. Each one is an exact reproduction of the mother and the other.

Amoebas also create exact reproductions ‘from the original’ but after some discussion, no one wanted to be thought of as a single-celled entity covered with hair. Well one person didn’t mind, but that’s another story.

“Hey”, someone said, “rabbits reproduce a lot, and they’re lucky!” Rabbit Reproductions didn’t sound right, though, because while cuddly and likable rabbits also conjure up thoughts of speed. We want to say “hand-crafted and methodical” not “quick and crappy”, but the idea of rabbits had some legs…

“How about a breed of rabbit?” one of us suggested, “maybe we can call ourselves The Dwarf Hotot or English Lop Ear. Now THAT would make a cool logo…” But then we came upon a photo of a bunny: a Holstein Cow with Big Ears and a fluffy tail… The NAME that called out to us: The Checkered Giant.