Natiiv

Welcome to the New Digs

Tagged design , idangazit , natiiv , pixane

After three months, we welcome you... behind the splash page.

I decided to launch this company in January after I resigned from my job at a large public relations agency. I knew that I wanted to coach artists, writers and musicians in how to use social media, but I hadn't given a thought to the name of the company.

So I wrote a post on my personal blog asking for help. I didn't want my name to be the title--Jones is a bit of a common name. I didn't want to use the phrase "social media," because I think it will be dated rather quickly and would pigeonhole the company. A Hebrew word would be nice, but I didn't know any that weren't overtly religious. On and on and on... Oh, did I have rules.

A few days later, I got a text message from Idan Gazit of Pixane Design. "How about Natiiv for the company name? It means path or road in Hebrew and Natiiv.com is available."

I said it out loud to myself "nah-TEEV", sent a couple IMs and within 30 minutes had bought www.natiiv.com. That night I hopped onto LegalZoom.com and made it official.

Natiiv Arts & Media, LLC.

Later that same week, a logo showed up in my inbox from Idan. He'd been thinking about the company name and noodling with some colors and design. While we didn't go with the original colors, we kept the basic original design. The line across the top draws inspiration from subway maps, with each 'i" a stop on the route.

Then came the best offer of the winter. Idan, whose design sensibility really clicks with me, offered to build Natiiv.com. I jumped on the chance to be one of his first clients in the pixel building space and we got to work.

Now that my site has been launched, I'll let you in on a secret--Idan is wonderful to work with. He is not just a designer, not just a Django programmer, not just a photographer, but also a solid business consultant. Despite working in the digital space for a couple years, I'd never gone through the whole process like we did.

I told Idan stories about fictional clients and he took that and developed the information architecture. From IA, he sent me wireframes. We picked colors, talked about design and he went to work. The result is this site. One that is built on Django, has a great use of grid design and leaves me with a lot of flexibility as I start to write more client stories and book events.

Please take some time to explore Natiiv's new home on the web. Come back to the blog for regular posts, check the event page for new places that I'll be speaking, and the client stories area to listen to me brag about my clients.

I know it took longer than we'd all hoped, but I'm so in love with this site. If you'd like to give Idan kudos (or hire him) shoot him a note or leave a comment here. Welcome to our new home, I hope you like it as much as I do.