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About Naming
If you cross a creative over the holidays…
- About: Naming
Being a professional namer of companies and products affects how people interact with you at social gatherings and holiday parties. New acquaintances might question “how it all works” or ask if I “went to school for that,” and tend to be enthusiastic to know more—especially if they have a new project or side hustle in…
Renaming, like naming but harder
- About: Naming
At A Hundred Monkeys we do our fair share of renaming projects. This year, 42% of our naming projects have been finding new names for products or companies that already have publicized names. Not only is renaming somewhat common, it happens for different reasons. Some companies are legally forced to change their names while others…
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…
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 Architecture
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…
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…
How to find good names
Good names do not fly out of the aether. Most are found, which requires careful looking. Books are one of the best places to look, so if you’re looking to find great names the more you read the more you’ll be successful at finding hidden gems. I’m always reading one or more works of both…
The Burning Ears 2018
- About: Naming
For the second year in a row, the team at A Hundred Monkeys put our heads together for the Burning Ears—our annual look at the best and worst in company and product names. Last year’s Burning Ears was a product of Creative Director, Eli Altman’s naming workbook “Don’t Call it That” and his call to…
Realer than Fiction
- About: Naming
Companies and products that leapt off the screen. There’s one way to launch a brand that gives people unprecedented abilities to control public perception, make their brand feel real before it actually exists, fine tune their brand story, and have their audience’s undivided attention. It’s called fiction. Many brands have benefitted from having their name,…