When collaboration flows On a Different Angle°

When you base your company on talented collaborations, chances are you’ll also find yourself collaborating on their own talented projects.

“Thinkwide was born with the ambition of develop great design projects through a curated network of highly talented and experienced people. So, great collaborations are the foundation where lies our future and, therefore, our success.”

By basing the company on a such inspiring and dynamic co-working place like Liberdade 229 , I was certain that it would be a great source for developing great relations that could spike our creativity. It only took about one year for this collaboration-based model to turn out to be a great decision. And the work we’ve done with bright people and lean companies such as the ones you can find on our network are a definitive proof of that (kudos for every single one of them). But what I also learned is that when surrounded by talent, collaboration emerges the other way around. Because great people usually bring along great ideas and, without noticing, we start to collaborate in other people’s projects: the same people that we supposedly chose to be part of our company’s network.

And when collaboration flows on both ways, great things may happen.

One day, Natanael Gama handed me the prototype of what I believe to be his first product design approach. Two sturdy wood pieces, elegantly carved for the intended purpose of leveling up his laptop screen to the same height of other paired monitor display he works with. And what started as a simple and elegant solution to improve his own workstation, turned out to become the inception of a much broader challenge.

With his experience and keen eye for design, Natanael always new that to transform a product into a business, he would need to build a brand. One thing led to another and, fascinated by the whole thing, I started working on Natanael’s brand naming. As ideas started to spark over insightful pow-wows around ping-pong games (mostly won by myself) we both came to the conclusion that this product is not a one hit thing, but part of a more profound mission of making great design products while being fully sustainable, transparent and fair with everyone involved in its production, manufacturing and trading process. So the brand should serve this purpose rather than simply outline a new and undoubtedly great laptop stand.

While some naming possibilities were being considered, “ On a Different Angle° ” sprouted at first as a the signature tag to underline the main purpose beyond the product: a brand for a company focused on tackling the creative industry in a fair, honest and completely ethical way throughout the entire product cycle. “Stand/Move/Play/Go On a Different Angle°” are all possible concept activations that can easily endorse different products and product segments in the future, as long as they all comply with the whole brand movement and mission.

Having the brand ethos ensured by this statement, naming the product turned out to be way simpler and a loose exercise as it should only highlight the laptop stand as the product itself. Sled™ instantly popped in mind while I was looking to the laptop stand being used, as it kinda reminded me a wooden Sleigh from my childhood.

A short, friendly and straightforward name that also served a cool acronym hidden within it – Stance for LEss Design – appealing for the simple and minimalist aspect of how it was thought and conceived.

So, what started as a quest for a product name ended up as a major brand with a clear cause, well prepared to hold and endorse other creative outcomes that reinforces the bigger purpose of the whole thing. But aside from the creative outcome itself, this whole experience was a great example of how collaboration can be fulfilling both personally and professionally once you set yourself to contribute with what you know to a broader project that you deeply believe in.

If you like the product and all it “stands” for (pun intended) Sled™ is on its way through a crowdfunding campaign for you to order it or just support the whole project.
On a Different Angle° is one of this collaborative projects going on here. There are other gigs going out-of-the-oven here that will surely deserve a word from us. Spoiler alert: one of them involves the one thing that literally steals all of our free time: ping-pong.