Why "TWO"?

Whenever we meet new people, especially in a professional capacity, and tell them about our little design firm, one of the first questions they ask us is why we named our firm “TWO Design”.

Well, here’s why.

Back when I was working as a copywriter, in some of the most respected advertising agencies in the country, there was always something that nagged at me – that the creative teams that worked on client briefs and built these amazing campaigns very rarely got any face-time with the clients themselves. There were always at least three degrees of separation between client and creative professional - either in the form of more senior creative bosses or client servicing and account manager suits. And that pissed me off, because so often the brief would be lost in translation, and the end product would be light years away from what the client wanted. Also, because of this Chinese whisper scenario, very often key insights that could’ve been gained from the client weren’t even considered.

It was a similar sort of disconnect that occurred when we got to the production side of things, especially for print work, where the creative team had no idea how their work was being produced, or by whom. Again, super frustrating.

Another fact that became apparent to me by the end of my last “job” in advertising was that this is how most “big” firms ran, and there was nothing I’d be able to do about it.

Except, there was one thing I could do.

So, I went ahead and did what any illogical person with stars in their eyes and arrogance in their hearts would do. I quit my big fancy advertising agency job, came home to Pune, and set up my own little firm – TWO Design.

At the very beginning, I vowed that no matter how big our firm got, it would always be the creative person that met with, and understood the requirements of, the client. And it would be the same creative person who would present their work to that client when they were done creating it. I would never employ a whole human being as a “Client Servicing” person. What a waste of a living being that job is, honestly.

Which brings me back to the big question that started it all.
“TWO” because I believed that in any interaction or conversation at the firm - whether it was a briefing by a client or a production meeting with a printer - there would always be only two parties at the table – the parties that were directly responsible for that piece of work or that conversation.

Hence, “TWO” became the most appropriate name for the firm, and a simple visual depiction of that same core philosophy became our logo.

— Vikram Bhalla,
Founder & Creative Director