Polaria · 2026
Five brands, one week
Brand strategy, benchmarks and naming for five brands with Polaria, all in one week. The logos came last.
- Brands
- 5
- Time
- One week
- Each brand got
- Strategy, benchmark, naming
The system
Strategy, benchmark, names checked for risk, then a mark. The logo comes last because it can only carry an idea the name already holds.
I’m a product designer, not a logo designer. Brand strategy is work I can do; logo design isn’t my specialty. So the weight here is on the strategy, the benchmarks and the naming, the same thinking I bring to a product. All five brands took one week with Polaria, from 28 October to 3 November, and I designed the logos with Claude.
The method
The same four steps each time. The name check comes before any logo, because a mark can’t save a name someone else already owns.
- 01 Strategy Who it's for, what it promises, what it should feel like.
- 02 Benchmark How the category names and marks itself, and where the gap is.
- 03 Names, checked for risk Domains, same-name brands and app stores, before any logo is drawn.
- 04 Mark One idea from the name, tested at app-icon and favicon size.
The marks
The thinking on the left, the mark it led to on the right.
Polaria
with Polaria1 Nov 2026
- Strategy
- Consultancies sell direction, so the promise is “Find your north”.
- Benchmark
- Four ways brands get named, across agencies, tech and cybersecurity.
- Naming
- A rename from Portal369. 3,000+ names checked against the .com registry.
- Mark
- The name in lowercase, with the north star above it.
Logo
Star wordmark
ZAKAI
with Polaria3 Nov 2026
- Strategy
- Clients usually get trust or speed. ZAKAI stands for both.
- Benchmark
- Eight AI labs and consultancies, compared on mark, colour and type.
- Naming
- ذكاء + AI, tested beside other names with their domains checked.
- Mark
- Two triangles, human expertise and AI, lock together into a Z.
Logo · Proposal
Interlock
Sabrina Selects
with Polaria2 Nov 2026
- Strategy
- A person, not a platform: authentic luxury, personally chosen.
- Benchmark
- Ten luxury resale brands, then 13 stores for how they use a logo.
- Naming
- Kept Sabrina. “Selects” comes from the strategy and sets it apart in search.
- Mark
- A round seal around an S, beside the name. Also the certificate sticker.
Logo · Proposal
Seal
BorrowMe
with Polaria1 Nov 2026
- Strategy
- A brand people trust with their things: three audiences, one promise.
- Benchmark
- The UAE market and competitors, before the logo brief.
- Naming
- Kept the name, which says the action. A new mark, in three rounds.
- Mark
- Top half points out (lend), bottom half points back (return).
Logo · Proposal
Give & take
Fomozi
with Polaria3 Nov 2026
- Strategy
- A store brand for creators’ drops: first to have it, safe to buy it.
- Benchmark
- Eight brands close to the model, then a closer set built on creators.
- Naming
- Seven directions ranked by name risk: domains, same-name brands, app stores.
- Mark
- A flame for what's hot right now.
Logo · Proposal
Hot
Polaria: a name you can pass on
A digital consultancy that wins its clients by referral was called Portal369. A referral name gets said out loud, and this one had a number in it: “three-six-nine” or “three-sixty-nine”, spelled three ways, and hard to own in search.
The brief was one line: a name that sticks after hearing it once. I benchmarked four ways brands get named, found that a real word with a small twist suits a referral business best, then checked more than 3,000 names against the .com registry before showing any.
Polaria comes from Polaris, the star travellers steered by. Consultancies sell direction, and product teams already talk about a north star, so the idea lands without explaining. The identity grew from there: the line “Find your north”, a lowercase wordmark, and a four-point star with one point for each practice: Build, Reach, Create, Protect.
ZAKAI: one word, two languages
ZAKAI is an AI lab and studio for companies in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The name is ذكاء (zakaa, intelligence) with AI inside it, so it reads in Arabic and in English, and the name does the explaining.
The strategy starts from a tension: clients usually get trust or speed, not both. The benchmark of eight AI labs and consultancies pointed the same way. Serious buyers respond to one solid, abstract shape and a plain wordmark, not circuits or sparks.
The mark is two triangles locked on one diagonal. Turn it 180° and it is the same shape: two intelligences, human and machine, making one whole.
Fomozi: names ranked by risk
A brand for new tech imports, sold through creators. Instead of a favourite, this naming round ended with a ranking: seven directions, ordered by how likely each name was to cause trouble, each with its logos beside it. Fomozi, “fomo” with a playful ending, came from the low-risk group.
- Low3 directionsNo same-name brand in the category, and a clean domain.
- Medium2 directionsClose neighbours in the region, and the exact .com taken.
- High2 directionsA crowded word: same-name apps and shops in the same space.
Every name was checked on the web and in the app stores for domains and same-name brands. That is a name check, not a trademark search, and the board says so: the client still clears the winner with the trademark offices before committing.
