The brief
Fjord’s founders wanted a name for a skincare line that would sit on a pharmacy shelf next to brands with fifty years’ head start.
They gave us one rule: it should not sound like skincare. We added two more of our own before the first workshop.
Forty names
The first list had forty names. Most were clever, which was the problem: clever names need explaining, and a brand that needs explaining has already lost the shelf.
So we changed the brief. The name had to be short enough to emboss on a lid and easy to say in German, French and English.
The one that fit
Three names survived a week on the studio wall. One of them, Orbe, was also the shape we had been drawing all along.
It fits on a 38 mm lid in one line, reads the same in three languages and needed no explaining at the first retail meeting.
Jonas Weber
Partner, design
