LogoLounge

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About two-thirds of the Cronan Group’s business is naming

assignments. And most of the time, the clients already know

what they want, says principal Michael Patrick Cronan.

“Almost every time, the clients provide the answers. They just

don’t know that they know them,” he explains.

When the developers of TiVo came to the Cronan Group with a

revolutionary product in need of a like-minded name—the moni-

ker Teleworld was being used as a placeholder company name—

they knew they had something very different. The question was,

how could they let consumers know that, although TiVo is a tele-

vision-related product, this digital technology is as unlike regular

TV as radio is unlike the Internet?

Teleworld—now TiVo—allows users to program their televisions

so they can view what they want when they want to, without hav-

ing to bother with videotapes. Instead, a large hard disk records

and plays back the programs you like.

“But the real essence is not the hardware, it’s the software,” says

Cronan. “It can go out and find out what you as a viewer like. For

example, one of my kids was having a tough time with French

Revolutionary history at school. My wife Karin [Hibma] went

through TiVo to find shows about it and had him watch two shows

per night until he had a better understanding of the subject.”

Mike Ramsay, CEO of TiVo, brought Cronan in early and set the

bar high, says Cronan. “I had worked with Mike on other large

projects,” the designer says. “He has a way of tossing a big

challenge to you in a low-key way. When they gave me the

corporate presentation, and my jaw was hanging open with the

Cronan Group

TiVo

Corporate Identity and Naming

This impish character has become the personification of

the TiVo brand: He wears his mantle with style. This version,

created by the CronanGroup, was later further modified by

Pittard Sullivan.

Cronan says the impact of the main

character won’t be watered down

by adding other little characters.

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The TiVo character underwent a long period of

exploration in the studios of the Cronan Group. This

squib is what principal Michael Patrick Cronan calls

a “preliminary and very lame letterform study.”

But from the first letterform studies emerged this

version, in which the designers discovered a face.

Here the face became more refined, and actually is

very similar to the one in the final design.

“An attempt to give the letterforms more mass

takes it in the wrong direction,” says Cronan.

At this point, Cronan says, the team really got

off track.

“Here,” jokes Cronan, “TiVo goes undercover

as a tech nerd.”