No good names were left
Don't look for the term variedro in the (spanish) dictionary, you won't find it. I had to make it up. It's just that we are quite a bunch talking about boardgames, design and a million things more on the net. An original and appealing name is hard to find, or to come up with as it has been in my case. Allow me to open this blog talking you about how has this creative process been for me, and maybe this will serve you as inspiration when you face this very same problem.
To create a brand is not just finding an attractive word, is to hit on the name able to tell your project's idea. Even worst, it also has to suggest a style, an aesthetic, that will have to be poured out into the logo which ends becoming your banner. And the icing on the cake, to make that name short, unique, easy to remember and charming. If it sounds spanish is a plus (in a spanish speaking country), given the current trend to put names with an english flavour. In my case, I think I've got it.
It's important to think that I've made it: I must believe in my brand because, otherwise, it would be useless to me, wouldn`t it? But to create it I had to do some research and some trial and error, that is, to figure out what names were already in use (and at the same time to catch up with the status of boardgaming in Spain) and to practice with pen and paper likely names for my project.
What I discovered in my scouting through the net was quite a bit of originality: less use than I expected of the word dado (dice) or ficha (piece, token, counter), but more of juego (game), and not so much english intrusion (represented basically in the use of the term game). With that I could determine which words should avoid. Just the easy part was left to do then, to create it.
But on which other words could I base myself for my new and shiny brand? I no longer have the papers over which I did my tests, but I remember looking up in a latin web dictionary words related with the ones I wanted to avoid. From there I cleared up nothing, so I focused on what is a dice in itself. It's not always a six-sided cube, and it can be painted with any kind of symbols. Nevertheless, what is common among all dices is that they are polyhedrons, geometrical figures which names are determined by the number of their sides. There I had an interesting concept. And, unsurprisingly, that name and similars were already in use in some or other website. But well, the possibility of combining it with another term remained, for instance lúdico (ludic, playful). Thinking this way I got Ludiedro, and I thought seriously that it could be the right name but... I hadn't been the first one in which the term had come to mind. Certainly at this point I didn't saw clear where to go, the best options were barred to me. But nothing like thinking a bit more to find a good alternative.
I reflected on the disparity of dies and boardgames currently on market, as well as the thematic diversity that I want to show in this blog. I mean, the key was in the variedad (variety). And if you put it together with poliedro (polihedron), oh wonder, you can get...
I must confess that I wasn't sure about it at first, and I tried to find another more interesting combination. Some had come to mind then, but didn't prove greater strength than VARIEDRO. It's a word that has everything (or almost) that I needed: brevity, originality, easy to remember and with a strange charm. Even now that I'm writing these lines it's a weird word to me, in a good sense, because of it's exoticism. If I had to give it a meaning it would be something like "polyhedron of undetermined shape and number of sides". And it's just that what I want to show in this blog, a polymorphic creativity.
POSDATA
I'll save for another posts the fun that was designing the font for the blog's title and the creation of that strange reddish cube that decorates the left column of Variedro.
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