Affinity Forest

Af·fin·i·ty

noun: a close connection, a natural liking or attraction; a feeling of kinship, for someone or something

For·est

noun: an ecosystem or assemblage of ecosystems dominated by trees and other woody vegetation, usually wild. verb: to cover an area with a forest where none existed before.

AffinityForest

brand: an attraction for, a kinship with, the outdoors, with a purpose of spreading that affection and fondness with others.

What: AffinityForest really came about in the realm of brainstorming personal/social branding, coming up with names, trying to find something unique (wasn’t taken), and that I could find a domain name for.

Process: My process revolved around a sort of purpose driven, spontaneous, abstract, mind mapping of words and doodles to paper. As to the drive of purpose: I was trying to capture something that represented the theme of adventure, and the outdoors. I wanted to capture the realm, the entirety of it, rather than just a single or specific focus or discipline, like just backpacking, mountain biking, or camping. I also didn’t want to be too general, or generic. My intentions were to find something that wasn’t too personal (singular), but could represent a group or community. I also wanted something that invoked a sense of love for the theme. I relatively quickly found the word affinity first, it just seemed fitting, and I like the word (I have an affinity for the word affinity :D); the process of pairing it with another word was the majority of brainstorming and reflection. And I think most would agree, things like, AffinityOutdoors, AffinityAdventures, and AffinityMountain, just don’t have the same roll off the lips and tongue, like AffinityForest does. A bit later, I realized the bonus for the sort of double entendre using forest as a verb.

I’m pretty excited about what I came up with, and as a brand I think it captures and encompasses a lot of what I hope to represent here.

— Aaron