Why hibriden

When I started freelancing as a graphic designer, more than 10 years ago, as expected, I had to pick a name to represent my business. Although I wasn’t sure about how to define clearly the different ideas about my perception of design, I knew it would be difficult to try to represent such a broad concept with a name and even more with a single word. So I started making a list of key concepts that are usually a reference for design. Thus, the list of ideas was reduced, but still no solution.

As a matter of fact I was actually figuring out at that time was my identity as a graphic designer, a perception that I had about design, and its importance in communication between individuals. The obvious word here was “identity”. I looked up the etymology of the word, I found it comes from Latin identitas, idem (meaning “the same”). Which made me realize the duality of the meaning of the word. It was then that the concept of duality acquired importance, as well, started to notice how our environment have countless ambiguous entities. To cite a few examples; if I refer to the word time it can be ambiguous, it must be clarified whether time represents past, present or imaginary (future), as a second example, on a deeper level “self” is also unclear; There is the “self” that I think I am, the “self” that others perceive the “self” I think others perceive, and so on. One more example: one day, on a personal level, is the totality of hours spent sleeping and being awake, a day starts at “night”.

Duality is not necessarily a negative aspect, but a fair representation of everything around us, nature is constantly changing. Thinking about duality my second task was to find an ideal word to represent this ambivalence of meanings.

Hybrid

This concept seemed very interesting, though it keeps constantly evolving even after years, still drives my attention to notice how it is possible to alter the perception of almost everything, not just limited to visual design. But my goal of finding a name was not totally finished, so I kept returning to concepts such as identity, duality, hybrid, idea, design, creativity.

After trying with several synonyms, translations, related concepts, I decided to combine words aiming to find a meaningful but simpler name. At the same time, the process of naming something “new”, was referring to the process in the name itself, it was the discovery of the dual identity of something, something similar to the “identity of a hybrid” …hibriden.

Process conclusion

The process of finding a name was definitely a series of discoveries about the design, language and human nature. It changed my perception and at the same time helped me find a starting point for future projects related to corporate identity.

Accept the premise that everything in our environment changes constantly, the impermanence of things, the concept of duality and movement is the principle of hibriden’s identity. Every interaction with a brand implies a duality; the visual stimulus in any specific moment is influenced by past and present experiences that happen with that entity.

Visual duality

Some interesting concepts in design identity often show a combination of different ideas, leading to more than one interpretation. In other cases, where the main concept is one, the message will always be supported by the “absence” of its opposite. The vacuum is the opposite or complement, either being abstract or literal.

Hibriden’s identity design consists of two angular figures showing opposite directions, being the first figure together perceived, connected by a third plane which functions as a “bridge” with reference to the act of communication. After several iterations the composition made a slight reference to a mask. A mask is an element that is also related to the concept of identity. More interpretations can generate the final logo, however, the basic idea is to represent communication simply between two entities.