What’s In A Name?

Welcome to the first blog from Danu Design – today is a brief overview of who we are and how we came to be here!

The seeds of the company that is now Danu Design go way back to when Tricia started a small business selling handcrafted jewellery whilst on maternity leave. As she was trying to grow this business it became increasingly evident that web presence was key to growth.

Being able to reach new prospective customers, being visible to customers looking for her product and making transactions easy for both customers and the company were all reliant on having a well-designed website. The site needed to appear high on relevant web searches and immediately build confidence in customers once they were there. Before long, the time spent building the skillset to accomplish these aims, along with the actual work of developing the site, was overshadowing all other demands of running the business.

Conversations with friends and other small business owners made it clear that she was not the only person struggling with taking these steps and the new skills she had acquired were in high demand. More and more requests for web design help came in, fuelled by word-of-mouth recommendations. As both knowledge and skillset were expanded and formalised through courses and qualifications, the original business took a back seat and eventually fell away.

The next task was to name the fledgling web design company. At the time this felt like a big decision – a critical turning point that could dictate the course of the future in mysterious and unknown ways. In hindsight you can’t help but think ‘what’s in a name; a web design company by any other name would still design websites’, but still, we had to have one. We wanted something short and to the point and as we all have Celtic heritage we looked to the Old Gods. The Gods of the North that were here before The Seven Christianity came to these shores. It didn’t take long for us to come across Danu and the name was settled almost as soon as it was suggested.

Being a female led company with a strong emphasis on sustainability, having our roots in our experiences during pregnancy and parenting and having a creative process as our core business all made a mother goddess a perfect choice. 

Danu is the mother goddess to the pantheon of gods in the Irish Celtic religion. She is the ancestor of all the main deities who were known as the ‘Tuatha Dé Danann’ or ‘Folk of the Goddess Danu’. The roots of Danu as a figure go so far back that there are parallels to similar representations of creation, fertility, water and earth across Europe and into Asia. From the near at hand Welsh mother goddess Dôn, the European rivers such as the Don, Danube, Dneiper and Dniestr through to the Hindu goddess Danu, the Danu river in Nepal and as far away as Dewi Danu, the Balinese water goddess.

As a small business it feels great being eponymous with something that represents so many of our passions and guiding principles. From the start we have been part of a community of small businesses in our home of Devon and we bring the spirit of that to all of our clients who are now as far away as New Zealand. We are passionate about sustainability and this is built in to all of our projects as standard. We are passionate about creativity and are constantly exploring new ways to help our clients express who they are as a business and to bring that message, along with their products, to new customers.

So that’s us! From our humble beginnings to where we are now. Danu Design – it’s just a name but, to us, it’s also who we are!