I’ve always had a bit of an identity issue. My name doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. Throughout my childhood I had the constant issue of people mispronouncing my last name, which at that time was rather frustrating.

As such, I spent a lot of my life trying to find a different name and a different identity. When you’re a kid, you’re always trying to find yourself. Now as an adult, I know who I am and I know who I want to be. But my Filipino last name still doesn’t roll off the tongue.

A few years back I decided to give myself a pen name for some non-photography projects I was working on. I decided to embrace the Sicilian side of my heritage and go with the name Santino.

I decided to name my photography business “A.Santino Photography”. It sounded respectable enough. It worked with the Adam Santino branding and Relayson Photography just didn’t work for me.

Still… A.Santino Photography never quite worked.

For one thing, the website URL would have been “asantinophotography”. I decided on Santino Art for the website name. (Unfortunately I couldn’t get Santino Art for my instagram.)

Ever since Photocon, I have been trying to rethink everything. I redesigned the website. I redesigned my logo. I’ve been working on rethinking how I even approach my photography.

Mostly I’ve been pretty happy with the changes. …but not entirely.

Cutting to the chase, I finally realized that Santino Art was the final step in my branding metamorphosis.

I have no idea if this is the last change. We should always strive to keep evolving. What I can say is that I am totally happy with the rebranding. It’s a better name and a better logo.

I’m happy with the direction this is all going. Can’t wait to see what happen next.