Expertise: Naming

integrated regional or global naming programs that guide client partners to standout brand, product, or service names with lasting recall.

Variloom

↳ Challenge

Variloom emerged from Moon Creative Lab—an innovation studio within Japan-based global trading and investment company Mitsui—with an ambitious goal: to reinvent circularity for the textile and apparel industries.

At the center is a patent-pending 3D printing system and bio-based filament designed for ultra-efficient fabrication of fully recyclable, performance-grade textiles.

Landscape was engaged to define the foundational elements of the brand—including its name, identity, and messaging—as the team prepared to bring this next-generation platform out of stealth mode.

 

↳ Opportunity

Through an expansive naming exploration, we arrived at the name Variloom—a trademarkable, globally viable name that stands for freeform versatility, and applies the idea of weaving to 3D fabrication. The name captures the system’s promise: advanced customization, minimal waste, and fully recyclable fabrics, beyond the limits of conventional production.

We crafted concise messaging that signals Variloom’s position at the intersection of materiality, creativity, and circularity. The platform’s benefits—print-to-shape flexibility, customizable and responsible material usage, reduced waste, lead times, and on-demand production—offer apparel manufacturers a radical alternative to traditional methods.

The identity system balances a refined, natural feel with a technological edge—reflecting the unique material qualities of the printed fabrics. We designed a custom wordmark, a restrained color palette, and soft, modular design elements that suggest tactility and movement. An MVP landing page was designed to introduce the brand, drive interest and engagement from early-stage partners and investors in the category.

 

↳ Outcome

Variloom launched as a standout player in circular material fabrication, gaining industry attention by winning the ISPO 2024 Award in collaboration with global surfwear brand Rip Curl. The product features a 3D-printed waistband for water stability, integrated ventilation panels for comfort, and a recyclable blend of bio-based plastics and wool for durability and end-of-life recovery.

As brands seek solutions that balance performance, customization while advancing sustainability, Variloom sets a new standard, inspiring circularity in form and function.

 

↳ Learn more

www.variloom.com

Honoree in 2025 Fast Company 
Design by Innovation Awards
Multiple ISPO 2024 Awards

Giro

↳ Challenge

Giro is a pioneering force in performance cycling equipment, with a heritage spanning decades of tour wins, breakthrough products, and athlete partnerships with elite teams like Team Visma | Lease a Bike and Canyon//SRAM. Yet in a category increasingly crowded with lifestyle-driven competitors, Giro needed a Spring/Summer ‘25 launch campaign that would reassert its position as the definitive brand for serious cyclists who are consumed by the sport and any available advantage.

 

↳ Opportunity

Working alongside Giro’s leadership, we identified the opportunity to reclaim the brand’s position through elevated storytelling rooted in authenticity—the tangible proof points of an obsession shared by both brand and athletes.

Together, we developed “Artifacts of Obsession,” a flexible campaign system that celebrates the evidence of that shared dedication: storied race wins, unthinkable comebacks, proprietary technology, and an unmistakable design language refined over generations. The narrative framework was designed to integrate real-time team content alongside custom assets we shot and art directed together, allowing Giro to capture the energy of live competition while conveying their distinct designed for sport perspective.

The work spans creative direction, copywriting, photography, and a campaignable system of templates and guidelines utilized globally across social, digital, and physical channels.

 

↳ Outcome

The campaign allowed Giro to transcend a crowded category—positioned not as another equipment maker, but as preeminent ingredient to a shared obsession for cycling.

Aeon

↳ Challenge

A Swiss venture planned to launch personalized MRI screenings as a part of their vision to reshape preventive healthcare. The company needed to establish a modern, science-based but people-centric brand for its market launch in Switzerland and planned European rollout.

↳ Opportunity

Based on customer interviews and category insights, we identified the opportunity for the brand to center on the foundational shift from reactive treatments of diseases to proactive care for long-lived health and wellbeing. Against this brief, we explored a wide range of name candidates, eventually landing on Aeon as a memorable, personable, and ownable name that signifies the journey toward proactive health. The new identity for this modern care service brand symbolizes energized optimism, visually inspired by the magnetic fields of an MRI scan.

The supporting brand identity and digital experience reflect Aeon’s role as a people-centric and forward-thinking care provider, balancing warm precision with intuitive simplicity through an approachable type, clean infographics, and portrait photography style.

↳ Outcome

Our work positioned Aeon as a future-forward and people-centric care experience, driving initial awareness and interest with customers seeking to be proactive about their health and well-being. The team successfully raised a $9.4M seed round and launched to the public in Switzerland and Germany, with plans to roll out the service to other European countries.

Explore the launch site

Vessel

Vessel™ is a collective of changemakers fighting for universal water access to close our nation’s water gap.

Currently, over 2 million people in all 50 states lack reliable running water, basic indoor plumbing, and safe sanitation systems. These challenges disproportionately affect communities of color, costing the U.S. economy up to $8.58 billion annually. Despite substantial investments in global clean water initiatives, addressing our domestic crisis requires a more organized effort by the many organizations representing the WASH (Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene) sector at home.

Vessel™, spearheaded by the human rights non-profits DigDeep and Water For People, is the first effort to build a formally aligned domestic WASH sector through a coalition spanning public, private, nonprofit, academic, utility, and philanthropic organizations. The collective endeavors to find solutions through engaging in research, community initiatives, and more effective policymaking.

Landscape worked closely with the leaders of the founding organizations to align on a new name and brand identity that captures and amplifies the coalition’s shared vision.

The distinct wordmark, built around a bold, modern serif to evoke inspiration and approachability, signifies their united cause with two curves joining together, symbolizing forward momentum and a powerful yet fluid alliance.

The new visual system uses an audacious color palette inspired by the collective’s energized optimism and focused action, complemented by engaging typography, photography, and infographics to foster connection with diverse audiences.

Additionally, Landscape helped the new organization’s communication efforts by creating effective design templates across various mediums, including presentations, internal documents, and newsletters.

DOG

DOG is a dynamic project space freely exploring ideas, experiences, imagery, language, connectivity, unknowns. An experimental, physical complement and counterpoint to the branding and creative services work commissioned by Landscape’s clients.

DOG has become a Bay Area cultural staple since its inception as an experimental outlet for the Landscape team. Regular event openings draw between 300 to 700 guests, attracting partnerships with Vimeo and coverage by The San Francisco Chronicle. Crowds often spill into the street outside the space or fill the storied Victoria Theatre entirely.

Programming at DOG is driven by the team’s interests and cultural, social, and technological trends, and reflects the studio’s commitment to nurturing our collective social fabric. Each event [currently E1-E13] explores a distinct topic through an intentional physical experience, serving to connect the local geographic and creative community and embracing all the serendipitous, intimate, and joy-filled opportunities associated with live programming.

The heavy, raw, angular furniture and warm palette, designed in collaboration with Studio AHEAD (recognized by Architectural Digest as one of the New American Voices of the Year), eschews the white-walled gallery and mid-century-clad tropes associated with the majority of established galleries or traditional design studios. This distinct environment invites visitors, exhibitors, and partners to adapt and interact in newer and more unexpected manners, enhancing the uniqueness of each event.

Previous Programming Has Included:

↳ [E5] Issues — An Independent Publishing Retail Pop-Up
↳ [E12] Relate(): AI BONDS — An AI Companionship Panel
↳ [E10] Dark Thoughts — An Independent Horror Film Festival
↳ [E9] Ingredient — An Ecological, Movement-Based Fundraiser
↳ [E11] Black Rodeo — A Photo Exhibit Exploring Black Rodeo Culture

Upcoming Programming Will Feature:

↳ Ecology & Food
↳ Sport & Expression
↳ Experiential Sound Design
↳ Independent Filmmaking
↳ More…

DOG exemplifies the potential of a physical space to engage and support the community, transforming the concept of a creative studio and offering a platform that fosters connection, creativity, and exploration.

To explore more about DOG visit
↳ dogdogdog.xyz

For partnership opportunities & submissions
↳ dog@dogdogdog.xyz

 

Ava

Ava, one of California’s largest Community Choice Aggregators, and a public company, is committed to helping communities gain access to clean, affordable energy. Today, Ava delivers power to over 1.7M people and is predicted to generate nearly $25M in savings to these customers during their ‘23-’24 fiscal year.

Ava’s programs make it easier for households, business owners, and cities to lower energy costs, upgrade systems and appliances, and prevent power outages. We worked alongside their team and broader community stakeholders to articulate an evolved brand positioning, name, and identity system that supports rapid growth and signals leadership in the clean energy transition. 

The redesigned brand system guides a wider public towards an approach to energy usage that builds more vibrant and sustainable communities. Ultimately becoming more affordable, cleaner, and healthier for those who switch from traditional utilities. The brand transforms energy from an often overlooked utility into an opportunity to grow and create — a smarter home, a future-proofed business, a city that flourishes.

The previous name, East Bay Community Electric (EBCE), spoke to an authentic origin story and intention but risked alienating customers in their expanding service geographies. The new name, Ava, is about welcoming new customers— from Alameda to the Valley—and offers a more emotive, memorable, and scalable platform from which to foster growth. 

Ava’s new brand overcomes the tropes and stigmas associated with environmentally conscious offerings by avoiding greenwashing or asking their customers to make sacrifices. Rather, the brand evokes a hopeful, inspirational, and accessible near-term reality — embodied by candid photography highlighting relatable narratives and delightful illustrations that unpack otherwise uninteresting or complex topics. A bright, highly differentiated palette within Ava’s category creates distinct signal power – offering a hopeful backdrop to a clear, actionable, and inspiring messaging platform – flexible enough to appeal to residential customers, commercial owners, and municipal partners equally.

Hyde Park Labs

A joint venture between leading real estate developers Beacon Capital Partners and Trammell Crow Co., Hyde Park Labs is a state-of-the-art science venture campus initiated by the University of Chicago. The 302k sq ft building is purpose-built to accelerate mission-driven science ventures from seed to scale, shaping new futures from supercomputing and molecular engineering to material science and beyond.

Hyde Park Labs will open its doors in 2025, centering its tenants in Chicago’s vibrant South Side neighborhood amidst more than 140 leading institutions, such as the Chicago Quantum Exchange, Pritzker Nanofabrication Facility, Duality Quantum Venture Accelerator, and the Polsky Center.

Landscape partnered with Beacon Capital Partners and Trammell Crow Co. on a progressive brand identity system to convey the unique convergence of diverse perspectives, collective optimism, and commitment to inclusive science all in one place—including verbal identity, brand marks, color palette, typography, photography, architectural renderings, signage, and digital marketing assets.

Full case study coming soon.

RATIO

Beacon Capital Partners is a leading real estate investment firm with a 75-year legacy of purpose-built spaces that facilitate groundbreaking work. We partnered with Beacon to transform the Hollis Business Center into RATIO, an innovation campus centrally located in the heart of Emeryville’s fast-growing life sciences cluster.

Together, we launched a brand identity, digital experience, and signage system that capture the ambitious spirit of the space. The new name, RATIO, is inspired by the perfect mix of people, purpose, and place that define its environment. The same metaphor extends to the brand identity, which features a custom typeface designed to strike a unique balance of scientific rigor and warm humanity. When used in combination with a vibrant color palette and dynamic wordmark, the brand identity reflects RATIO’s appetite for exploration across both physical and digital applications.

We activated the campus itself with the help of Jenny Sharaf, a local artist whose large-scale murals energize RATIO from the inside out. We complemented Jenny’s colorful installations with a robust signage system constructed to effortlessly guide visitors through over 225,000 square feet of modern workspace.

From microscopic moments to global breakthroughs, RATIO is engineered to support ideas that reach far beyond the boundaries of its campus. We look forward to seeing the many positive changes made possible by RATIO’s infrastructure for innovation.

Multiple

The pace of autism innovation is rapidly increasing, but only a fraction of these technologies make their way to the educators and care providers who need them. An engine for innovation, Multiple is bettering the lives of people with autism at scale by catalyzing the creation of new technologies for a neurodiverse world. We partnered with Multiple to create a name, brand identity, and digital experience that uplift the autism community.

Founded by Dan Feshbach, a seasoned social entrepreneur, Multiple is a non-profit organization that converges diverse voices to solve the greatest challenges for people with autism. Dan’s commitment to neurodiversity is deeply personal—his son, Reed, was diagnosed with autism at just two years old. 

The brand identity balances optimism and urgency to captivate an audience of founders and investors alike. The new name for the organization, Multiple, speaks to both the myriad of experiences that define autism and the exponential impact of inclusive innovation. Brought to life by dynamic forms, a vibrant color palette, and a modern typographic system, the identity nods to both the exceptional range of innovation taking place within Multiple and the passion with which it is pursued. Today, Multiple has supported more than 400 companies in 41 countries with the help of over 560 investors.

Multiple’s new website leverages the team’s deep expertise to signal confidence, clarity, and compassion. The result is a powerful resource for the many change-makers and risk-takers who are working together to expand the potential for people with autism to live great lives.

San Francisco Design Week 2021

Power is everywhere.

It’s local and global, personal and public, selfish and selfless.

There is power in the food we eat, the music we make, and the ideas we share.

Power is a seat at the table, a path forward, and a new beginning.

NorthPark

How does the modern office keep up with the changing expectations of a younger, creative-class?

A new generation demands a new (and improved) place to work. We partnered with EQ Office, a leading property management company, to reposition, rename, and rebrand one of their flagship Bay Area assets. Previously known as Embarcadero Square, a mixed-use campus on San Francisco’s waterfront, it required a new name and identity to signal a new approach to the modern workspace.

Working through a comprehensive naming process with their senior leadership, we developed a name that signals a relaxed and desirable work atmosphere, surrounded by ample green space in the heart of downtown San Francisco. Welcome to NorthPark, an unexpected urban oasis.

Drawing inspiration from NorthPark’s natural character and distinct location (between thriving Jackson Square, San Francisco’s breezy waterfront, and the bustling Financial District), we positioned the brand to highlight its ideal open space, and unique village-like format and feel; in a word, perfectly off-centered.

A warm and inviting logotype, hand-drawn illustrations, and natural palette create an atmosphere that blends the vibrant energy of the property’s surroundings with an inner sense of calm; a brand that makes space for new connections, ideas, and fast-growing companies.

If you’re in the neighborhood, look for inspiration at NorthPark — 560 Davis Street, in San Francisco.

Good & Common

In July of 2020, following the murder of George Floyd, Landscape announced a pro-bono initiative to support Black-owned businesses. DeWitt Lacy, a local attorney, reached out to our team with the goal of creating a free resource to educate Americans about their civil rights.

The collaboration led to the launch of Good & Common, an online platform dedicated to helping people learn more about what their rights are, how to exercise them, and what to do if they are violated. The platform translates Lacy’s extensive legal experience into accessible and actionable information for every American.

From research and strategy to design and development, we worked with Lacy to architect and build a digital tool that could deliver fundamental knowledge to the public, simply. Equal parts urgent and optimistic, the visual language was largely inspired by posters, pamphlets, and buttons found throughout the civil rights movement. While the identity leverages bold color and typography to capture attention, it also serves as a straightforward framework to communicate complex information with clarity. The name, Good & Common, was chosen to reflect the brand’s universal and democratic ambitions.

Good & Common hopes to build a campaign that can reach everyone from policy makers to public schools, local leaders to small businesses, and communities nationwide.

Obliq

Shifting rituals through beautiful, premium products, Obliq is an elevated cannabis experience. Landscape was commissioned to define the entire brand, from naming to identity to packaging to digital.

An altered perception requires an expanded palette. A deceptively simple visual system extends a deeply considered product experience; the unvarnished, shape-shifting identity brings Obliq to life. Five letters, five fingers, five senses — Obliq signals a new direction in cannabis.

Stay tuned for updates. Obliq is coming soon.

Mirra

Mirra is a SaaS 3D content creation platform. The platform’s systematic approach to design allows for the simple creation and distribution of beautiful, resonant, and immersive VR / AR / XR experiences. Design in your browser, export to almost any headset, no code required.

With the aim to foster a vibrant community centered around immersive media, Kevin Farnham, founder of the renowned innovation design studio Method, approached Landscape to help shepherd his newest venture into reality.

The project began with the definition of a taxonomy for describing interactions in 3D space, included naming and identity design, and culminated in a product that likely represents a first look at a class of tools that will become fundamental (and perhaps shape) the design profession.