Names Above The Door

This might be the first in a series of unreliable history lessons.

I was thinking about the flying ox...

St Luke’s was not the first agency not to be named after it’s founders but we must have came pretty close. I can only think of Yellowhammer in the UK prior to us but I'm sure there must have been others.

At the time, creating our own brand name was really a pragmatic decision – there were 35 original co-founders and the door wasn’t wide enough to carry all those names above it.

We very quickly post-rationalised a more grandiose reason – we were taken a stance against the rampant egotism of the mainstream ad industry (i.e. everyone else). In fact the motto of the company at the time was No Fear. No Ego. No Greed. You had to be there to truly appreciate the irony.

There must have been something in the air because within a year Mother arrived and took the idea one step further by naming their agency as the collective creator of every piece of work that went out the door (an excellent idea). Then Naked took the approach into media and by the time the digital sector opened up it seemed that every new agency in town was trying to outdo each with ever more esoteric names.

The inspiration for these names seems to come from all over the place. Poke sounds like a comic; Adam and Eve like a French New Wave movie; Red Brick Road like an album and, my personal favourite at the moment, AnalogFolk sound like a new music movement emerging from the West Country.

The real benefit I think is that there is something optimistic and inspiring about being part of a collective of creative people rather than feeling you are merely a servant to the names above the door.

by phil