Branding Connhex

July 11, 2022

Choosing Compiuta’s name was difficult, whereas creating a company logo was somewhat easier: we just needed to communicate visually what Compiuta means.

Then our first product started to enter the final stages of develoment, and we had to start over.

The origins

When we start building something from scratch, it gets a temporary internal name in under ten minutes. We have this practice to force ourselves to “just get started” and figure out minor details later on.

This time, it was my job to come up with a name: I went with mediator, the entity that mediates between the data collected from the field and the final application. Mediator was never meant to be the public name: it had a sketchy connotation, like in “shady broker that mediates a transaction and takes a cut without adding anything valuable”. It was just a useful way of referencing this project, a tag associated to every code repository that had to do with it.

Then, as usual, time flies: months went by and the first iteration of the product was almost ready.

Why Connhex

We were starting to get a bit anxious since trade shows were resuming after Covid-19 and we wanted to promote our product. But we didn’t have a name yet.

So we started with the usual constraints and got to a big list - way bigger than the one containing possible company names. I’ve just looked once again through it and I’m not feeling comfortable at all sharing it: it contained names like storeit, connectit, databasement (which wasn’t that bad after all), prolink, linkiot…you’re getting the idea, right?

We were lucky to work with a great designer that coped with our indecisions and was able to get to the final design stages without a product name. She came up with:

  • a color palette by extending Compiuta’s cyan, dark blue and light gray
  • a few logo proposals based on what the product was supposed to do

This one immediately struck a chord:

Connhex logo
The logo that lead to the Connhex name.

It perfectly captures what this product is: a Compiuta’s cyan hexagon represents the data collector, six orange triangles pointing inwards mimick data coming from every direction flowing into it.

And it is an hexagon-shaped connector between the field and the cloud: this is where the name connhex comes from.

Connhex logo
Does this font remind you of anything?

It also shares a subtle family feeling Compiuta’s identity: here’s why the cyan and why Connhex’s logo font is almost identical to Compiuta’s. Details really matter after all.

Are you happy with choosing Connhex?

Yes, 100%. Sure, there’s still a bit of friction in its pronounciation and especially Italians tend to miss the “h” when spelling it. But sometimes you just need to accept something good enough, especially if there are more important things to care about. Plus, after you stick for long enough with a name, it starts to grow on you.

That’s why we are totally satisfied with choosing Connhex and have moved on to working heads down and making it better.