The name for our San Diego video production company, Solana Productions, was not the result of endless research and expensive focus groups. Rather it was a last minute creation of graphic artist Dennis Higgins. Kurt Snider was producing a show for NBC and shooting a corporate documentary after hours. Two weeks into the freelance San Diego video production the client asked for an invoice. That was when we realized that maybe this business should have a name. It was a busy time and my natural inclination was just pick something and be done with it. My favorite musical group had always been “The Band.” How can you not like a straightforward name like that when others groups during that time were calling themselves “The Strawberry Alarm Clock.”
Having a journalism and television news background also steered me towards simplicity. I happened to be living in Solana Beach and a good friend and former coworker was the head of the graphics department for the CBS station. Dennis Higgins thought the “O” in Solana was begging for something clever, so a logo was born. Over the years the logo has appeared on just about everything we could think of or find in catalogs. This includes t-shirts, hats, fleece, jean jacket, beach towels, chocolate bars and even palm tree coffee cups.
