What's in our name?

When we sat down to consider our company name, I'll admit that it wasn't easy to figure it out. We knew we wanted a short, punchy name that embodied who we are and could grow with us. We formed up a bunch of questions to ask ourselves first, that would help guide our process. We asked ourselves:

• What is a beautiful New Zealand icon that we can use in our name?

• How can we acknowledge our rich Māori heritage in our name?

• What do we love?

Added bonus!

• How can we relate our name to art and/or placemaking?

This led us to the discussions regarding iconic New Zealand imagery but ultimately we fell back to the Pōhutukawa tree, the flower that we chose to celebrate in our game. We love the Pōhutukawa! The flowers burst forth every year in a vibrant and beautiful display of colour reminding us of Christmas time and long kiwi summers, not to mention it is an important indicator that the kina is fat and ready to be harvested (not that Steve is interested.)

We really wanted to be able to celebrate this beautiful tree, a staple of our New Zealand coasts, in our name somehow. But the word Pōhutukawa was too long for our liking!

Some word interplay found us Pohū and we were immediately drawn into it's meaningfulness. We loved how Pohū immediately worked with our purpose to provide art in an environment, in a deliberate, playful, perhaps temporary way. The making of a space brighter and more engaging for our community.

So, Pohū it is. Welcome to Pohū. To us.

Pohū: means to burst forth, explode or bang.