How I Picked Blue Violin

Servinity, a local company, posted on its blog how it picked its name and logo. I thought I'd share how I picked Blue Violin because it's a question I get asked occasionally and because the process I went through was so much different than Servinity's.

I started work on Ratchet, the product's original name, in 2005 and originally intended to create a desktop application. I didn't like the look-and-feel of Visual Basic controls so I started to create a mock-up in HTML of how I wanted the product to look. During that process, I figured out that I could deliver Ratchet through the web and voila! Automated testing delivered through the browser.

A couple of months after that, I wasn't happy with the name Ratchet and felt a different, better name was needed. I tried a couple of different names like QAWebTest but honestly, generic names like that suck. I remembered reading a story that said consumers can't distinguish any fast-food restaurants that include the name Taco and felt that applied to boring names like QAWebTest.

Being out of ideas and at a Mexican standoff with myself, I went to iStockphoto and started looking at pictures to get the creative juices flowing. That's when I found the following picture:

The rest, as they say, is history.

Comments

[mathew s]

Great way to get inspiration.

[Jacqui Chew]

great story. am sure iStockphoto thanks you.