Wellington, 1999

Three worried-looking men in their late 30s and 40s sit in a grimy office above Dixon Street.

Smoking having only been confirmed to be a health hazard a few decades earlier, it is still legal to smoke in offices. So they do, imagining that it helps them concentrate as they debate the big issue of the day: the name and look of the company they are about to set up.

Wellington, 2009

Three worried-looking men in their late 40s and 50s sit in a grimy rather nice office above Dixon Street, with their charming and intelligent staff.

The barbaric customs of the 20th century being but a distant memory, they suck furiously on Aspartame-filled mints to help them concentrate as they debate on the big issue of the day: how to refresh the look of the company they set up ten years earlier…

The name that we eventually came up with in 1999 – after we had been working together as a partnership for a couple of years – was Story Inc.

“Story”, because we believed then, as we still believe, that humans are “narrative animals” who love stories and understand the world through them. And that storytelling is at the heart of our business.

“Inc” to show that we are a company, with our own methodology, rather than a bunch of creative arm-wavers.

Actually, the official name wasn’t Story Inc, but story! inc. We were very particular about the lower case in those days. The exclamation mark was there to spice things up and add an element of surprise; but it was also about a second meaning, the New Zealand expression “story!” as in “that’s the story!”, said when something is done right.

We asked a clever friend, Richard Roberts, to create a logo and a look for us. He came up with a wonderful Rorsach Blot of an exclamation mark… and we were in business.

The name and the look have served us well for over a decade. “Story Inc” still says what we are about to clients and colleagues all over the world. (We stopped insisting on recreating the logo as story! inc in print because it caused too much typographical confusion.)

Earlier this year we decided it was time to refresh and simplify the look a little. The new version has been designed, patiently accommodating often conflicting feedback, by our graphic designer Catherine Adam.

In early versions of the new look we tinkered with ditching the exclamation mark altogether, thinking it was “so 90s”: but protests from friends of the company persuaded us to keep it – though in a more streamlined shape.

So here we are, ten years on.

Looking a little smoother but hopefully not too slick or corporate.

With a range of colours rather than one, because who says we can’t?

Still about stories.

Still hoping to surprise.

By James McLean, Director

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