knoun — verbal design studio, Warsaw

is a boutique verbal design studio. Its service that adapts to each project is marked by a level of commitment from first workshop to final line, and an built on nuance, context, tone, and precision. Run by a micro team of linguistic obsessed with naming, phrasing, and brand copy, who don’t stop until every word feels and every subject becomes known.

who we are

  • communication strategists
  • brand language analysts
  • brand dialect designers
  • phonemic composers
  • verbal adventurers
  • lexical explorers
  • experimenters
  • collaborators
  • enthusiasts
  • devotees
  • deviants
  • fanatics
  • bandits
  • rebels
  • loons
  • fools
  • poets
  • bards
  • nerds
  • geeks
  • actors
  • authors

Just not bloody copywriters.

what we do

Discovery & Positioning

Before anyone writes a word, we argue with you about what the company is for. Most of the value is in the argument, and most clients have never had to answer it out loud.

  • Briefing
  • Brand personality
  • Competitive positioning

The deliverable: a one-word pitch to be known for.

Naming

A name is the only piece of language you can't quietly revise. We check it across your languages and trademark registers before anybody is allowed to fall in love with it.

  • Brand names
  • Corporate names
  • Domain names
  • Checks

Sometimes the name is the whole system.

Short form

Compression. A tagline is a positioning statement that survived being said in a room to someone who did not write it.

  • Taglines
  • Slogans
  • Claims

The quantity is not fixed in advance and may vary with the needs of the brand. It never is fixed. Never will be.

Long form

Expansion. Where a brand stops asserting and starts explaining itself, at the length a real reader will give you, in one voice throughout.

  • Hero statement
  • Brand anthem
  • Website copy

Nobody here charges by the word.

what we’ve said

  1. Close-up of blood-red lips parted around a tongue: No Blood in Vain
    01 / 05No Blood in VainGourmet Terror

    Positioning

    The challenge: a functional food whose main ingredient, blood, people instinctively reject. The solution was to place it in desserts, not supplements, and lean into the taboo until it became uncomfortably alluring, borrowing vampire sensuality for a luxury performance diet.

    Verbal identity

    The challenge: talking about eating blood. The solution: a name and tagline that say it outright, without apology or euphemism (Gourmet Terror, No Blood in Vain), exact nutritional terms such as heme iron for the facts, and seductive copy that treats the hunger as already there.

  2. Silver Tested on Humans can beside a dotted-type poster
    02 / 05Results may vary.Tested on Humans

    Positioning

    The challenge: a reishi drink that fitted no category, and a brand that could neither lean on ingredient claims nor make promises. The solution was to position it as an open research programme, where drinkers observe their own response and decide for themselves what the drink is for.

    Verbal identity

    The challenge: sounding credible without any claims. The solution: one narrator, a researcher who observes and reports, and a fixed vocabulary (formula, variable, participant). A product description reads as a lab entry (Mix 1, Variable: Blueberry), and every formula carries “Results may vary.”

  3. Three molecure transit posters: fate can be altered, with subscript naming system
    03 / 05fate can be alteredMolecure

    Positioning

    The challenge: Poland’s largest bio-pharma company, over half its staff doctorate holders, came across as credible but distant. The solution was to position science as a personal mission, driven by people who have witnessed death, and to carry one message everywhere: hope.

    Verbal identity

    The challenge: speaking about death and science in a human voice. The solution: an anthem that refuses consolation, a tagline “Fate can be altered”, a claim built on witnessing death, and chemical-formula slogans (sci3nce – people – dedicat10n) that bring the institution closer to its audience.

  4. Leaf Liturgy scripture-pastiche copy set over dark loose tea leaves
    04 / 05We bringeth to them tea, and they drinketh…Leaf Liturgy
  5. Lime Tvigwychsin tote bag: When you’ve dedicated your life to your old bag, the vodka is g**d
    05 / 05The vodka is g**d when you can hardly say its nameTvigwychsin