The cargo bike project needs a real name before it can be a brand: something short, bright and bilingual enough to work equally well in Basel German and Alsace French. This is a naming project first, feeding directly into a minimal wordmark identity for a new last-mile delivery company built on cargo bikes, not cycling clichés.
Overview & Goals
- Land on a name that reads clearly in both German and French without translation or explanation
- Keep it to two syllables, three at most, so it fits on a trailer and survives being read at a traffic light
- Clear the name through Swiss trademark, domain and social handle checks before it goes anywhere near a sign shop
- Deliver a wordmark, type system and color palette that stay minimal and legible from a moving vehicle
Budget & Timeline
Brand Story & Voice
A new Basel delivery company built around cargo bikes, positioned as fast, local and dependable rather than as a cycling statement. The name and identity need to work equally on a trailer at a red light and on the other end of a phone call.
Target Audience
Two connected but distinct groups: independent shops and bakeries inside the Basel city ring who need reliable local delivery, and customers just across the border in Alsace who think and speak in French first.
Brand programme
- Situation
- New brand
- Logo
- New logo
- Logo direction
- Wordmark
- Deliverables
- Logo & marks, Type system, Color system
- Naming
- Name needed
- Naming constraints
- Two syllables if possible, three at most. Must be pronounceable in German and French without either sounding foreign. No cycling puns, no compound of green and something. Not a person's name, because a third partner may join. The .ch domain must be free.
- Voice
- Friendly, Confident
- Checks needed
- Domain available, Trademark search, Social handles free, Pronounceable in other languages
Logo & Style
Chosen logo direction
Wordmark logo_type_wordmark_01
Colour
Direction chosen
Clean & minimal
Mostly white with one colour used sparingly. Calm and sure of itself.
Examples of the mood, not the colours anyone has to use.
In the client's own words
Two of us are starting a cargo bike delivery company in Basel and we have no name. We do the last mile for small shops and bakeries inside the city ring: they hand us a crate at eight, we deliver it by eleven, no van, no diesel. We have a business plan, two riders and a leased trailer, and every name we have thought of ourselves is either taken or sounds like a bicycle courier from 1996. It must work in German and French, because half our customers are in the Elsass and Basel is bilingual in practice. Short enough to fit on the side of a trailer and to say on the phone without spelling it.
Scope & Deliverables
- Naming shortlist and final name selection
- Wordmark logo and marks
- Type system
- Color system
Do's & Don'ts
Do
- Bring at least three names that actually survive a Swiss trademark search, not fifteen that only look good on a slide
- Say every candidate out loud on a phone call before it gets proposed
- Check domain, trademark and social handles in parallel with the creative work, not after
- Test each name for how it reads on the side of a trailer from behind, at a traffic light
Don't
- Do not build the idea around a word that only works in German
- Do not propose anything with an umlaut, for the sake of the domain and every email address after it
- No cycling puns and no compound of green plus something
- Do not use a person's name, since a third partner may still join