Choosing the Sun

Apparition of a Name

It is hard to remember exactly how the name came to us. I remember we were trying to come up with something joyful, something that would make people smile and feel at ease with us. Because we are both expats, Natalia from Poland and myself from France, it made sense to mention to the world that now, from where we were standing and ready to collaborate, it would be from a place with sun - a lot of sun. In fact, this place has 68% more sun than Paris and 80% more sun than Krakow, if counting the average hours of sun per year.

The sun is not exactly the reason that made us, individually, move to Lisbon, but it surely helped, and it remains, after more than 10 years of living here, one of the key sources of joy in our daily lives - a common and very universal truth between the two of us and many more friends around us.

While we were researching our shared values and vision, the phrase "We Have Sun" came to us as something obvious, effortlessly and naturally. From this love at first sight with our new name, we could start exploring its meaning, growing from a strong intuition to a deeper comprehension of what is so appealing about the sun itself and how we have been talking about our brand for the last 7 years.

Not a Book

The Sun is a greatly adored source of wonders. It is both very common and very far, very obvious and very mysterious. It's a great source of meditation and poetry, carrying many symbolic aspects and representing an endless source of research. So much so that Natalia warned me, or friendly suggested, that we could write a book later about the sun itself, and that I should rather talk about our more personal experiences with it.

Photography

I will start by stating that my first love with art and creation came from Photography. I was trained and worked as a Photographer before learning to design and code. Photography's etymology means "Writing with light." I adore sunlight, and ever since I started capturing the world around me, I developed a hypersensitivity to the beauty of light, almost as an end object of observation and not just a means of exposing some reality to us. (My exhibition "Alentejo Saudade" is really about this if you are curious to see it; incidentally, it's about a specific place in Portugal.) I started Photography when I was 16 years old, and I almost always carry a camera with me. Having Sun is a great gift for me. It creates these beautiful moments of contemplation that I can capture on paper. Deep down, it's my main and primary form of expression.

We All Have Sun

Another aspect of our name that resonates with us is the universality of the statement. We all have sun; no one has it more than another. We hear stories about some potential war for the Moon land, and even Mars, but no one can capture and conquer the sun. Even on a cloudy day, the sun's light is revealed, and even if you do live in some extreme north, your summer will shine with more sunlight than ours. We are not saying that "We Have Sun" while you don't. We are saying we have sun, you and us. So let's smile at this simple joy and enjoy some collaboration together to make anything we do a simple joy.

It is not over

The sun, at the scale of our human life, is endless. And so is the definition of a brand. We are no brand experts, and sharing our first insights with you is a challenge that I am happy to take on, invoking your tolerance and curiosity, of course. As we move forward in the conquest of meaning and the building of products to make life more beautiful, this article serves as an attempt to articulate our thoughts - a starting point to be continued...