This week, we have another client spotlight coming your way. There is nothing we love more than celebrating the hard work our clients do and watching their businesses thrive like never before. Our last spotlight focused on mompreneurs. This time, we want to highlight a business that took a deep dive into their own brand development and naming.
The Fix & Form Approach
If you are new here, welcome! Fix & Form is a strategic branding agency committed to breathing life into businesses by applying human-centered brand and marketing strategies. We just celebrated 11 years as a company and are beyond excited for all the growth this year has already brought. Keep reading to learn about just some of the clients we have had the honor of working with.
Naming and Brand Development
First, a little introduction to naming and brand development. At first glance, naming a business might seem like an overlooked task. In reality though, it is the basis of everything related to your business. A name is your introduction. It’s the first word people say, see, or search. It can spark curiosity, signal personality, and help people remember you. A name is not just anything catchy though. Your business name is the title, and your brand is the story that follows. Hence why brand development is so important. If your current name is lacking, everything else is mostly likely in need of some love as well. Learn more about naming in our recent blog.
Heart Forward Project:
Brief Intro
Heidi Berkman, the mastermind behind the Heart Forward Project, holds a special place in the Fix & Form branding. The Heart Forward Project is a passion project designed to fuel kindness and encouragement to people and their communities through homemade felted hearts. When Heidi first connected, she was trying to not only develop her brand of her business as a consultant and coach, but also had this kind of non profit philanthropic project that she was working on as well. Heidi was full of ideas, we just needed to create the organization to turn a great idea into something beautiful. That’s where brand development, or brand therapy, came in.
The Challenge to Solve With Brand Therapy
Heidi was someone who had spent decades giving to her community through thoughtful, creative acts of kindness. Her challenge came with too many great ideas and threads to channel her creative acts of kindness in to something more structured, something she could call her own in a cohesive brand. She wanted to build a consulting business focused on community-building and event design, but she also had this deeply emotional, philanthropic project she’d quietly been nurturing for years. The two ideas weren’t competing, but they were tangled. Through Brand Therapy, we uncovered early on that the heart-led project needed to come first. It held emotional urgency. It was already active in her life and community. In order to move forward with her business, it needed a name and a voice.
Where Naming Came Into Play
As with all good brand development, the name didn’t come from a just a brainstorm. It came from listening. Multiple heart felt sessions where Heidi shared intimate stories about people holding the hands of loved ones in their final days, and how these small, felted hearts became a way to leave a tangible piece of comfort behind. We explored dozens of names, and eventually we found language that captured both the action and the spirit of her project: Heart Forward Project. It reflects the act of giving from the heart. It signals movement forward through grief, forward through love. And it’s framed as a project, not a business or nonprofit, because that’s what it truly is: a handmade effort fueled by community care. So this was a really, really meaningful project for not only Fix & Form, but Heidi as well. We came together. There were so many tears in our strategy sessions, and how impactful this project really was.
Where the Brand is Now
Today, the Heart Forward Project lives on as a powerful example of brand development beyond typical business structure. Heidi was a joy to work with in creating the Heart Forward Project name. While she decided not to move forward with her consulting business (for now), that decision became part of the process, too. Our months of name exploration showed us what she wasn’t ready to build and that’s an important part of brand development, too.
Healing Heart Stories
Honoring Rita
While volunteering with hospice patients, a woman was introduced to a simple yet meaningful idea: a small, weighted heart placed in a loved one’s hand to offer comfort in their final moments. Initially, she wasn’t sure such a gesture could make a real impact until her close friend Rita was dying. Struggling with not being able to stay by Rita’s side constantly, she remembered the heart. After placing it in Rita’s hand and telling her it was a symbol of their love and presence, she watched Rita relax and find peace. After Rita passed, the woman couldn’t find the heart among her belongings until paperwork from the cremation society listed it among Rita’s possessions. The heart had stayed with her, even in death. She knew then: it had mattered. And it belonged with Rita forever.
Bringing Comfort
In the 1990s, a woman facing a sudden and aggressive breast cancer diagnosis underwent a major surgery, determined to choose the most effective treatment. Just days before her procedure, a friend gifted her a “Healing Heart”, a small, weighted heart filled with millet and lavender, meant to offer comfort and symbolize the presence of loved ones. On the day of her surgery, it was the only item she truly remembered bringing, and when she woke up, it was still in her hand. Later that same year, her mother was in hospice, dying from pancreatic cancer. She brought another Healing Heart for her mother, placing it in her hand during each visit. Hospice nurses were moved by its gentle power to bring comfort. After her mother passed, she kept the heart in her China cabinet, a quiet tribute to both her mother’s love and the heart’s enduring presence.
Intrigued by Your Own Brand Development?
You are in luck! At Fix & Form we are excited to announce our social campaign focused all on naming and brand development. Gain expertise from our founder Anne as she goes along a journey of naming, naming, naming! We are committed to helping your brand develop in whatever way we can and create a meaningful relationship with you. Stay tuned right here to see when our June “Name My…” campaign starts as a birthday gift from our founder, Anne, in her birthday month.
We want to hear from YOU:
Interested in learning more about Fix & Form, want to hear more stories, or connect with us directly? Check out our case studies, schedule an appointment to meet with Fix & Form, or send us a message to connect! We look forward to hearing from you and discovering how we can collaborate to create something amazing together!
