We get a lot of questions and compliments about our brand’s name and visual language, especially our logo. This makes us happy, as our brand is something we take very seriously since we know everything we do or say presents us with an opportunity to either strengthen or weaken our relationships and reputation.
Since the earliest days of Lucid, there have been three tenants that have driven our company:
- Innovating the learning experience inherent in dog training
- Improving communication between dog trainers and dog owners
- Enhancing relationships between people and their dogs
Finding a way to encapsulate these ideas into a single identity went like this…
Our Name:
When we started our company, we gave ourselves one hour to finalize a name. Several ideas and a strong pattern between those ideas quickly emerged. We knew that the concept of clarity was important to convey in our brand identity since it is at the crux of how we teach and what we hope people achieve with their dogs by training with us.
Lucid, of course, means clarity. On top of that, a lucid dream is defined as a dream you can control. The description, a dream you can control also describes the experience of having a well trained dog in one’s life. Lastly, the word lucid has a good ring to it and it doesn’t outwardly say “dog” – something we wanted to avoid for brand flexibility and differentiation purposes. Amazingly, we had a rather easy time naming ourselves.
Our Visual Language:
The key to clarity in communication between two beings is mutual understanding. A lack of understanding has always been a main disruptor in great human/canine relationships. Humans are more verbal in their communication whereas dogs are more physical. Some time ago, we learned about an amazing study that demonstrated the intricacies and deeper meanings that are found in how a dog wags its tail. When a dog biases their tail wag to the right, they are welcoming and curious. If their tail wags are biased to the left, they are reserved and, perhaps, intimidated. Combining the physical expression of the right-biased tail wag with a written expression was our design challenge. We landed on combining the right-biased wag (used by dogs to indicate open-ness and friendliness) with parenthesis (used in written language to denote an expression or definition). We liked the concept, and by working closely with Portland-based designer Michael Hofler, we were able to bring it all together in a logo that we’re proud of and receive many compliments on.
Salmon was chosen as our primary color since it represents our Pacific Northwest roots while feeling neither overly feminine nor overly masculine. Some people have also commented on its similarity to the color of a dog’s tongue…but even we didn’t put that much thought into it.
Our primary logo font, Roboto Slab Bold, was chosen because we like the firm and clear design of slab serif fonts. Avenir was chosen as our secondary font since it was designed to be particularly easy to read and it compliments Roboto and our logo well.
Strategy and deeper meaning aside, at the end of the day, all of it just feels right to us. We hope you agree.