Studio MIKL now trades as Maeliom. This is not a brand refresh: it follows a shift in the work that had made the old name inaccurate.
What “studio” no longer said
A studio produces what it is asked for. A website, an identity, a campaign. That is a clear role, and it was ours. The shift happened gradually, engagement after engagement: more and more often, the brief arrived with a problem that had been framed badly upstream.
We were asked for a website that would not convert, because the business could not yet say what it was. A campaign that would not land, because the audience had never been settled. The useful work was to question the brief before delivering it — then to stay long enough for the decision to take effect.
A studio that starts by challenging the brief is not quite a studio any more.
What “MIKL” no longer said
The second half of the name was a personal signature. It suited a sole practice, where the founder’s name is the guarantee. It suits less well a firm that takes equity stakes and carries responsibility beyond the length of an engagement.
Why a name that means nothing
Maeliom is an invention. The word means nothing in any language, and that is deliberate.
A descriptive name confines. “Studio” confined us for years to the role of supplier, including with people who had come looking for something else. An invented name carries only the meaning the work gives it — and it can follow the business as it changes shape, which it will again.
What the firm covers now
Maeliom is the trading name under which MCEM SAS operates. The work divides into three arms, and their order is not decorative:
- Consulting — positioning strategy and structure: the arm that decides what must change
- Build — product design and development: the arm that makes the decision concrete
- Ventures — equity stakes through service-for-equity: the arm that ties us to the outcome
Consulting decides, Build delivers, Ventures commits. That continuity is what the previous model lacked: advice you do not carry through to execution yourself remains an opinion, and execution that follows from no decision produces orphan deliverables.
What this is not
This is not a “digital” repositioning. The word comes up often enough in our trade to warrant being explicit: digital is one lever of execution among others, never the starting point of a positioning. What we support is the transformation of a business — its positioning, its structure, the way it sells and organises itself. The tools come afterwards, and cost a great deal less by then.
What does not change
The same person, the same commitments. Engagements under way continue with no change of scope or terms. Clients supported under Studio MIKL remain so under Maeliom, on the same terms.
On the signals that make repositioning necessary, and on what has to be settled before choosing a name, the reasoning is set out elsewhere.
What the engagement now covers, through to delivery rather than to the report, is set out in what separates three ways of buying consulting.
The new name does not claim to state the trade, and the identity that comes with it does not claim to found it: a visual identity expresses a positioning, it does not invent one.
What the change of name records, in the end, fits in one sentence: we do not deliver a service and leave. We stay — advice, development, and sometimes equity — until the transformation holds.
Common questions
Why did Studio MIKL become Maeliom?
Because the business had changed shape. “Studio” signalled execution, “MIKL” a one-person practice; the work increasingly consisted of challenging the request before executing it, then staying until the decision produced its effects.
What does Maeliom do?
Maeliom supports business transformation through three divisions: Consulting, for positioning and structuring; Build, for design and development; Ventures, for equity stakes via service-for-equity. The common thread is not stopping at the recommendation.
What does the new name change for Studio MIKL’s clients?
Nothing in terms of commitments: the same contact, the same conditions. Ongoing assignments continue with no change of scope, and clients supported under Studio MIKL remain so under Maeliom, on the same terms.