Ignasi Fontvila

I was born into a family where books were not scarce. My grandmother read. My mother read. My father read. My brother also read. The only one who didn’t read at home was the dog. Even my cats Fellini and Gufo read, or at least it seems that way when they walk on the keyboard of my computer staring at the screen and typing random words with all four legs.

The written word has always been a part of my life scenario, so it seemed natural to me to study advertising. The five years of my degree acted as a deterrent to dedicate myself to this activity. Even so, when I finished my studies I began my fleeting adventure as a copywriter, which just confirmed that this was not my thing.

Sick of writing brochures and business letters…
I started teaching copywriting and creativity classes at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Against all odds, teaching hooked me. And after the UAB followed Icomi, then the Abat Oliba University, the Escola Superior de Relacions Públiques of the University of Barcelona, the collaborations in Elisava, BAU, the IED, the San Jorge University of Zaragoza, the Jaume I of Castellón, the Instituto Tecnológico de Monterrey in Mexico and a lot of small talks, conferences and courses here and there (Salamanca, Badajoz, Alicante, Vitoria, Barcelona…).

Many students later and many naming classes taught with the idea of publicizing an undervalued and lesser known discipline, such as the brand name creation. If you want to hear me talk about it, you can always sign up for one of my courses at Domestika or Brandemia.

Parallel to teaching, I abandoned copywriting to start my career in naming. Thanks to a former student, Judith Ruiz, I entered Nomen as a freelancer and there I discovered my true vocation which, in case it hadn’t been clear enough by now, is the creation of words. After three months of collaborating with them, they offered me the creative direction, which I accepted, of course.

At Nomen I learned the basics of everything I know and that I have put into practice throughout my career. I read my first book on naming (Le nom de marque, by Marcel Botton, founder of Nomen, precisely), I worked on my first national projects for Repsol, Danone, Cotty Astor, Canal+, Seat… and I also began to collaborate on creations for the other international subsidiaries of the Nomen group in France, Italy, Germany and Great Britain.

Oops this is taking a long time, so from now on I will be quick.
Shortly after working for Nomen I eventually collaborated with Summa Branding, with duBois Ording and Carré Noir, before founding Nameworks in 2000. In 2005 Nameworks became part of the Nomen Group until 2011, when we had to close the group’s Spanish office. The 2008 crisis affected us late but it hit hard. In 2011 I joined Branward as Creative Director of Naming and at the end of the same year I refounded Nameworks.

Since then I’ve been offering naming services to direct clients, branding consultancies, advertising companies and naming agencies. That is, to all those who may need a name and want to work with me. And here we continue, with the very same idea from the beginning: to democratize naming and make it accessible to any type of person, company, organization or institution.