What's in a Name?

Kimchi Kawaii turns 15 this August and so I’m going to be doing some blog posts about the adventures and things I’ve learned since starting.

Today, my Facebook memories reminded me about the name change I had to do. I was the first person in my group of friends and family to start a small business and so a lot of the stuff I learned was through trial and error. One year into everything, I faced my first major teaching moment.

My initial logo for my new brand at the time - Soy Happy.

I knew I wanted to do pun-based Japanese kawaii style pieces (kawaii is ‘cute’ in Japanese). And so I came up with the name ‘Soy Happy’ for the new brand. I liked the pun. I liked the use of soy sauce. I figured it was perfect and everything was set. Except that, I didn’t think to search the name online and see if it was already in use.

Fast forward to a year later when I got an email from another company that already had the name Soy Happy and it was registered as a trademark. The email was totally polite, but it did state that I needed to come up with a different name as they already had it registered. I definitely didn’t have the means to do an expensive legal battle - heck, I didn’t even have a lawyer at the time. When I started, I never thought to check the US Patent and Trademark (USPTO) site. Trademarks were for big corporations and stuff like Disney and Target. I was just small potatoes. Surely, I didn’t need a trademark!

At least it all happened only a year in. To be honest, my previous marketing efforts had largely failed. What I thought was super punny was leading to some confusion as to what I offered. See, ‘soy’ is also the Spanish first person conjugation of the word ‘to be’. So some people thought I was doing some Spanish/English mashup saying ‘I’m happy’. Everyone should be happy in any language, but it wasn’t really giving the public an idea of what I was offering. Thus, letting go of the name wasn’t really difficult for me.

I brainstormed a bunch of names through the highly scientific method of spewing random words that related to my art out on scratch paper and then placing them in combos that sounded appealing to me. Then, I ran the phrases through search engines and the USPTO. Some got axed that way when I discovered bigger brands with the name already (spoiler alert, they’d get all the traffic on search, not me) and/or more registered trademarks. But I did have one that passed - Kimchi Kawaii. I revamped my marketing stuff, the site I was selling on at the time and hired a lawyer to get my own shiny trademark. I didn’t want to put in more effort to lose it again!

Why the name Kimchi Kawaii? I was born in South Korea and adopted as a baby. My parents always wanted to make sure I knew about my heritage and I wanted to reflect that in my brand. I’m a Korean girl (the Kimchi) doing Japanese style cute art (the Kawaii). Plus, I really like alliteration. I felt that this name reflected a lot more of what my brand was all about and it also was general enough for me to grow with as my art and subject matter evolved.

My first logo design for the rebrand showing Roary my tiger with an ongii - traditional ceramic pot that kimchi is made in.

I came up with a new logo that pulled from Korean traditional art - the Korean tiger. Korean tigers, sadly now extinct, were favorite subjects in Korean art. Tigers were believed to be messengers from the mountain gods and also guides to humans. They were frequently portrayed with magpies, believed to be messengers from shrine deities. I originally had a magpie sitting with the tiger, but took it out in the name of a more easy to reproduce logo. The tiger was named Roary from a Facebook poll.

And so that was pretty much it! Kimchi Kawaii has been my brand name for 14 of my 15 years of business. The tiger is still my main logo, but I did update it recently to Roary’s sister, Junghee. I have no idea what the next 5 or even 15 years hold for my brand, but I do know my art style is evolving as I suspected it would when picking this name over 10 years ago. I hope you’ll stay on for the new paths that Kimchi is taking in the years to come!