What’s In a Name?

In 1989, Richard Saul Wurman founded a company he called TUB: “The Understanding Business.” He’s said that he named the company in part because of the story about Archimedes having had his “Eureka!” moment in the bathtub, and in part because at the time of TUB’s founding, the shape of Mr. Wurman’s body was … tubby.



TUB’s ownership was transferred to Harper-Collins when Mr. Wurman sold ACCESS Press, but to this day he remains owner of another company called TOP—The Opposite Paradigm (c.f. peeling the banana from the other end)



This year my friend Bob Royce and I are starting a company that’s inspired directly and meaningfully by Mr. Wurman’s ideas, life and work, and as an homage to Mr. Wurman’s companies we’re calling our business TUG:The Understanding Group. We also like the metaphors and imagery around the work that tugboats do. Here are some logo studies, based on the desire to make our company’s identity at least somewhat visually similar to TUB: