Helpful words
Problem namers
- About: Naming
A case for brand names that wallow with us. As consumers, we’re inundated with positive messages for products meant to make our lives better. This tastes good. This makes you more appealing to others. This makes your kids happy. This makes you happy because it’s cheaper than the other thing. Alongside this positivity comes a…
The secret habits of a highly-effective slacker
- About: Naming
If I’m being honest, I’ve never really worked that hard. I never pulled an all-nighter at school. I’ve never stayed at work until midnight editing a presentation. I used to feel bad about this — if I really cared about my work why am I not giving everything to it? I kept hearing people talk…
Laissez-Faire Attitudes Yield Shitty Soufflés
- About: Naming
Thoughts on Client Enthusiasm I lead about 25 naming projects every year and I’ve noticed a common characteristic that is a solid indicator for how fruitful a specific creative relationship will be: passion. To put it simply, do you care about what you’re doing and do you get others excited about it? Further, for naming…
What to do with all this noise
- About: Naming
We live in a noisy world, and it’s not just noisy for our ears, it’s noisy for our eyes and our minds too. Modern communication has allowed us near-unlimited access to all our loved ones and acquaintances. It’s also made for a vast sea of content and managing all of this noise can be taxing…
Build it and they will come
- About: Naming, Naming Ecosystems
What we’ve learned from building naming architectures At A Hundred Monkeys we have a singular focus for most of our naming projects. We’re naming one company or one product. A smaller subset of our work is focused on naming multiple products that make up a brand’s portfolio. We call this work naming architecture. My colleague…
The state of writing at A Hundred Monkeys
- About: Writing
At the end of every year at A Hundred Monkeys our leadership team gets together in Mill Valley, down the street from the old auto repair shop where we first started working together. We reflect on the work we’ve done over the past year and talk about the work we want to do next…
Some of the best names I’ve come across as a professional namer
It’s fun to talk about bad names. We do so often. Our Creative Director Eli started an instagram hash tag for just that purpose: #dontcallitthat. Eli also documents all the names he comes across in the wild and discusses them on Medium. Round one. Round Two. As a group, all of us at A Hundred…
We need to stop naming people at work
People at Google are Googlers. People at Twitter are Tweeps. People at Amazon are Amazonians. These names feel like they are coming from a place of camaraderie and pride. There’s an element of shared experience. After all, you’re spending 40 (who are we kidding 50+) hours a week with these people. That’s more time than…
Eureka doesn’t exist: Why choosing a name takes hard work
- About: Naming
Our studio is in California where the state motto is Eureka. When it comes to selecting a name, we don’t believe in Eureka. Eureka is a cop out. Not once in my seven years of presenting names to clients has someone exclaimed “Eureka!” or something similar to “Eureka!” like “Yep, that’s the name. For sure….
Naming Confessions of a Serial Entrepreneur
This past autumn, I decided to take a look at the startup landscape for our annual Burning Ears event—an exploration of the best and worst in company and product names with the A Hundred Monkeys team. This year we decided to focus our collective energy on specific industries, and I elected to look at startups. In…