The “Square Spot” Story

When asked about the origin of our name, we often reply that we had no choice in the matter. The studio was founded in a charming old building in the village of Sanbornton Square, New Hampshire. It was hard to deny that the large windows and friendly front porch did anything but confirm the ancestry of the structure as a classic small-town general store. Although the building had been used as a residence for nearly 60 years, back in the early 1900s, Elmo Weeks’ retail enterprise in the tiny village was known simply as “The Square Spot.”

We elected to establish the studio as Square Spot Design with a nod toward the building’s history and an embrace of the contradictions within the name. As a studio that practices integrated communications, it didn’t take long to for us to realize that the Square and the Spot are perfect symbols of the opposing forces within a business such as ours. The square is a shape not commonly found in nature and represents the rational side of our pursuits: strategy, planning, management and budgets. The circle is the most perfect form in nature and represents transformation, emotion and the energy of our creative pursuits.

Although we have since moved to a different space in a restored mill building in Manchester, NH the Square Spot name fits as well as ever.