Mirella Arapian details the process behind Vertigo's relaunch as purpose-driven design studio MEK

Having realised their name no longer aligned with their people and planet-focused vision, Melbourne-based studio Vertigo relaunched as Mek in the final stages of 2020. To find out more about the new name, as well as the process behind it, we caught up with Creative Director Mirella Arapian. EM: How long have you been thinking about renaming and rebranding the studio? MA: A couple of years now. We had outgrown Vertigo – the name and brand weren’t aligning with our vision and the work we wanted to be doing. After seven years it was time to make a change and own who we are, which is strongly connected to the values we uphold in our personal lives. As a vegan and animal activist, I always thought that would be off-putting to non-vegan clients and projects, but thankfully so far the rebrand has had the opposite effect. While we don’t exclusively work with vegan companies, having a defined brand that encompasses the bigger picture has now given us the confidence and push we needed to take the business to the next level and work with people who share similar values. Also, there wasn’t really anything differentiating us from all the other design studios out there. We wanted to have our own unique point of difference and we’re super happy we’ve achieved that with Mek.