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About Naming

The hidden value of side projects

  • About: Naming

Why a side project might be the best thing for your main project I’m no stranger to a side project. I’ve done plenty of them in my wheelhouse, like everything at No Picnic: Don’t Call It That, Run Studio Run, Go Name Yourself, Assorted Characters, and Extra Strength. I’ve also taken on side projects that are much further…

Destination vs. Wayfinding in a Naming Ecosystems

“See the city, see the zoo, traffic light won’t let me through.”  – Phish Where did you go recently? Maybe you went to the grocery store or maybe you flew to Salt Lake City. In any event, you had a destination in mind and how you got there was simply an exercise in wayfinding. A…

Read, Read, Read. Read Everything.

William Faulkner won the Nobel Peace Prize for literature in 1949. Two years earlier in 1947 he spoke to students of the English Department at the University of Mississippi. During a question and answer session after the talk, he handed down some advice to the students on how to be better writers. Here’s an excerpt…

Dollar Store Names: The Deals, The Steals, The Thrills

Dollar stores live in the world of practical magic. A place where $5 feels like $50, and a name can be the thing that turns “eh, maybe” into “why not?” The best dollar store names don’t just tell you what you’re getting; they evoke an emotional response, spark curiosity, or cleverly allude to their mainstream…

The powers (and limitations) of names in defining a category

  • About: Naming

One of the best parts of this job is the newness of it all. Naming is one of the first milestones of a newborn idea. That means we get unique insight into some groundbreaking developments, from AI systems to krill-derived protein supplements. Most of the time we’re trying to help founders stand out in a…

What kind of painter are you?

  • About: Naming

Ellsworth Kelly or Kelly Moore? There are a lot of models for how creative professionals interact with their clients. I want to introduce one that we’ve been using at A Hundred Monkeys recently. We have found it useful when trying to understand the relationships we want to have, and the relationships that clients are looking for….

We play well with others

We’re lucky to have some talented friends and partners in the branding world—design studios, strategists, consultants, freelance designers—who think of us when their clients have naming needs. Typically, this means working together to figure out how to seamlessly incorporate naming into the rest of their branding work. This is our jam. Working with a longtime…

The Name of the Game: Decoding Gamer Babel

I’m an average gamer. I’m generally detached from gaming culture — community jargon, development lingo, the latest industry news, genre names. Nonetheless, I’m interested in making the most of my limited leisure time and the games that I purchase. Happily, there is ever-increasing nuance to gaming, with subgenres cropping up within subgenres seemingly every week….

Same, But Different

I sold records before I sold names. In my 20s, I worked at record stores dotted around the country: Amoeba in Hollywood, Cheapo in Austin, Everyday Music in Seattle. The job mostly consisted of being brooding and standoffish with an occasional request for actual customer service. A lot of the time that interaction would be…

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Brand equity: a river in reverse

Understanding the flow of brand equity within an ecosystem We have a saying at A Hundred Monkeys that “brand equity flows upstream.” It’s something we remind ourselves whenever we work on naming ecosystem projects. Essentially it means that any sub-brand or branded element (feature, service, tool, etc.) that doesn’t get a name sends the brand…

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