Back when the idea of a ‘Night Kitchen’ was just a twinkle in our eye, we faced a dilemma the likes of which few nascent companies overcome with grace. What do we name the company?

Many ideas were adopted and abandoned. We didn’t want a name that screamed technology and nothing else, like ‘Internet Media Solutions’ or ‘Advanced Digital Technologies.’ We had subcontracted for companies with technology names and felt they lacked soul. So we paged through the dictionary, made up lists and pondered in the sunlight. The finalists were: Magic Soup, Athanor, ReadyMade Productions, Six of One (6 of 1), The Red Shift and 5×5.

It came down to two contenders. The first was ‘Night Kitchen.’ Taken from the title of a favorite children’s book In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak, the name ‘Night Kitchen’ contains mystery, creation and wonder. It linked us to our past and touched upon our roots as freelancers. Many a late night was spent cooking up interactive projects for our hungry clients.

The second was ‘Athanor,’ a term from alchemy, referring to the place where mystical transformations occur. The concept of a bubbling cauldron into which went many elements and out of which sprang gold (okay some of us played D&D as children) was intriguing. Unfortunately, we knew that everyone would ask us what it meant and how to spell it. Hackers would love it - clients would be puzzled. While it seems crystal clear to some of us in hindsight that we made the right choice, there was a feverish battle at the time.

Not totally abandoning the concept of Athanor, we used it as inspiration for our logo. Different treatments were developed, of which the current ‘droplet logo’ was the winner. Inspired by the famous photograph Milkdrop Coronet by MIT scientist and stop motion pioneer Harold Edgerton, our logo incorporates the alchemical concept of a catalytic element that, when added to the final mix, creates a ripple throughout. The logo also includes a series of crescent moon shapes, reinforcing the ‘night’ in Night Kitchen.