I wanted to rip off that bandaid as well as not give too much of a preamble. We have been UnderBelly for over 5 years and UnderBelly Creative for coming on 3. We have always loved our name and honestly, it felt like a protective shield for a long time. So changing our name halfway through 2023 was not on my bingo card for this year but neither was a pandemic in 2020. It’s all about rolling with the punches.
Now I will give that preamble.
When we pivoted in October 2020, we decided to keep our name for a couple of reasons. One, we felt we needed the legitimacy and foundation of the work we had been doing for the previous 2 years. And two, we weren’t sure if this whole Creative Agency idea was even going to work. Was anyone going to hire us to do their branding? So going through the process of starting all over from scratch for something that was so up in the air didn’t make sense. It’s also what people knew us as so changing it, frankly, didn’t really cross my mind.
As I mentioned above, UnderBelly acted as a bit of a shield. We had intentionally built a brand that lived above us. Neither Liz nor I were UnderBelly. Sure, we influenced it and people associated us with it, but at the end of the day, we wanted UnderBelly to have its own legs. As an events app, this made total sense. We had aspirations to be used by millions of people and it didn’t make sense to have a brand that revolved around the founding team. But as we’ve grown as an agency we’ve realized that separation doesn’t make as much sense.
People come to work with us. To receive our designs. We recognized this a few months back as we were adjusting our content strategy. We wanted to highlight more of the team, more of the behind-the-scenes, and more of the us in UnderBelly.
And then, we were informed that another Underbelly had recently received the trademark for ‘Underbelly’ with regards to design services. Talk about a gut punch.
We knew immediately we weren’t going to fight it. They have the trademark and I think we knew we had outgrown the name. That doesn’t mean I did not go through the full 7-stages of grief in a matter of a week. Because 5 years is a long time and UnderBelly has been a comfortable shield through it all. But as my co-founder and good friend told me when I told him of the news “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end”.
So without further ado, we are now TwoLips Creative! But considering we updated the website first, this may not be the big reveal I had originally imagined while writing this piece.
We saw this new name as a chance to be more personal. To have a name that is directly connected to us and the business we’ve built over the years. On the more sentimental side, tulips are Liz and my mom’s favorite flowers. The three of us actually have matching tulip tattoos that we got years ago. But also, the Cool Shit mouth was the first ever design we made that just felt right. So much so that we based our entire visual identity on that design. A visual identity that allowed us to grow beyond an app to where we are today. And TwoLips honors that. I would be lying if I said we also didn’t think it sounded and looked cool. I mean, sure, we’re no longer UnderBelly but it is still us.
So thank you to everyone who joined us on this ride as a small events app called UnderBelly. And to those who rode along on this wild journey to UnderBelly Creative. Here’s to a new chapter and new name. TwoLips Creative.
About The Author
Olivia Wisden is the Founder + CEO of TwoLips Creative. She has worked with dozens of brands over the years ranging from city initiatives to product launches and beyond. When she’s not fan-girling over the design team’s illustrations she can probably be found reading a novel or attending a boxing class.
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