"In change we thrive"

I have had an interesting journey recently. In looking at personal branding and trying to position myself (and my company) in the change space I had the idea of creating coat of arms or similar motif. The idea being to create something distinctive, that conveyed an impression of quality and substance.

I looked at similar companies and many have taken their names from recognisable City locations or have linked themselve by association with academic centres or the like. I had the idea of Turl Street Associates, as this was the road in Oxford containing mine and two other colleges. There were just two problems, they were that a) this would probably only resonate with ex-Oxford people and b) I already had a name, Kellian, for the company.

Kellian was one I used before and is in fact a sythesis from K(im), ELL(en) and IAN, ie my family's names. It also has the advantage that there is no other venture using the name so no risk of association, good or bad. It also has, I think, a sllightly Scottish connotation and this seems to convey something good around the world.

Going back, the one thing I did take from my Oxford deliberations was to make use of the Oxford blue in my colour scheme hoping that that would resonate at least subliminally with people who saw it.

So with the motif I decided I need to have a purpose for it, ie a message I wanted to convey. The one I came up with was "in change we thrive". The idea being that I enjoy and make my best contribution when I am involved in change. It also had a more general message that we as a world need to to change if we are to improve.

With this I set out on two paths. The first was to get that motto put into Latin and the second was to design a heraldic-type design. For the first I recognised my limitations. I did not study Latin at school, having been judged not to have the language acuen to do more than English and French so I appealed through the Oxford Alumni group on Linkedin for help/suggestions.

Naively I thought this would be easy, but in fact it generated considerable debate about both the latin and indeed why I would want a motto in a language I did not understand. One issue is that it appears latin does not have a word for change and indeed in anglicising latin some words have taken on different connotations.

The favourite and the one I currently am using comes from a scholar and is "Mutatione Vigemus" ie we, by changing, thrive. Of course the English word mutation does not always have poistive connotations

Interestingly a later suggestion is appealing to me more and it is "Transitu floremus", which is something like fourishing through transition. I am liking this latter one more and more and may swap, but for now I have stuck with the scholar's (a professor) version.

In lookin into heraldic designs I decided to take elements of the traditional, but try and make it a little more modern. The shield above is the result where by I have just split the field and not bothered with detailed emblems or symbols. That said I hope the image conveys a road/path (grey) to the horizon/future; the horizon being between the land (green) and sky (blue) with the dawn sun (yellow) showing our target or vision.

I am sure it can be improved, but for now I like it and am using it at http://www.kellian.com/ as I develop other aspects.

I will be happy for suggestions, feedback, other ideas, even if you think I am barking!