So I had decided to start my one-man company, and I also knew I was going to offer my services around UX (User Experience) and photography. Now I only had to give my company a name, and have some sort of branding.

I have seen great designers and art directors go about their work, and I admire their talent and skills. And I also realized that this was not really for me...

However, now I had to come up with a name. So I thought of lots of names, plays on words, words from Latin and Greek, etc., etc. Over several weeks I built up a list of like 50 names. Some I really liked, but when I checked them they were already taken. And some lost their charm after a night's sleep.

In the end I converged on the notion that UX and photography have lots of things in coming. In particular, they are about looking at things as if you see them for the first time. Letting go of judgements and pre-conceptions. Just look, ask questions, be surprised, and try to understand.

It's about striving to see things differently. Not for the sake of being different, but because this brings new ideas and progress.

And that's how I arrived at "Zieanders". This name consists of 2 dutch words put together: "zie" and "anders", meaning "see" and "different".

To me that's the essence of what I'm striving for, both in UX and in photography.

And then the logo actually came quickly to me. The circle denoting both "the user" and a camera lens. And the curly brace denoting software that underlies both UX design and photo editing.

Recently I did a photography exercise to make a self-portrait that does not show myself. And I ended up with this photo, which purely by accident resembles my logo!