I get asked this question pretty much by everyone I meet and especially when they see my business card they ask “why the orangeblowfish?”

So here is why:

When i was growing up I always loved to draw and one thing I loved was graffiti and the tags people did on the streets. not the ones where they just wrote their names but the mural art you would see with bright colors and elaborate designs. So I set about designing my own “tag” i wanted the word to be encapsulated by the image I drew and the word “siu” fit a circle shape perfectly. I played with other shapes such as squares and an American football shape (or as we Brits call it a rugby ball) I preferred the circle as it felt more balanced and looked more aesthetically pleasing, luckily it wasn’t a football or the name would have been something completely different! At the time I loved watching the Simpsons and one particular image that stuck with me was from the episode “One fish, two fish, blow fish, blue fish” (from the second season)and for you geeks out there the title is based on the Dr Seuss book, “one fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish”

The infamous and deadly blowfish:

I loved the show and the blowfish shape fitted perfectly with my circle tag and thus the birth of the blowfish tag was born! I went on to paint the blowfish and the colors i used were orange (that all i had at the time) and the colors worked so I stuck with it!

An early rendition of the tag:

The name stuck with me as a great company name and during university I even tried to start up my own company called the orangeblowfish producing webisodes of a cooking program, which didn’t happen due in large part to slow internet speeds back in 1999! (also due to a rather dazed and confused university lifestyle)

It seemed fitting to use the name now that I embark on my artistic endeavors (as this was one of my earliest creations) to have it represent me moving forward.

So there you have it the origin story of the Orangeblowfish!