Helpful words

Don’t Click That: The Clickbait Virus

On a bad day, the website Upworthy attracts some 1.5 million unique visitors. Good days see 5 million visits. That’s a hell of a lot of ad revenue without much overhead—the site just writes a bit of copy and hosts other people’s content. So, you know, good for them. They’re making money. Because Upworthy gets…

Branding is Just Like Life: First Date Edition

How would your brand do on a first date? When we say that we build human brands, we aren’t spouting corporo-speak. We imagine brands as people. Even better, we imagine brands as people doing what people do: hanging out at the park, figuring out which trash bin to use, or—in this case—meeting someone on a…

Airbnb's-New-Logo

In Defense of Airbnb’s New Logo

Airbnb’s new logo looks like a vagina. Or balls. Or just about any combination of sex organs. When the company announced an identity redesign, most people said, “Hey, genitalia!” A flurry of tweets, clickbait, and listicles ensued. In the first wave, pundits argued whether the logo did, in fact, resemble a vagina. Tweens squinted and…

Don’t Call Them Wearables

Technology is easy to recognize. One glance at a coffee shop laptop and you know it’s a Macbook Air – doesn’t matter if it has 12 stickers on it. This is generally applauded as good product design. If you can recognize a laptop in the wild with a sideways glance, the product can practically market…

Say Croissant

9am. Café. Glass case. A croissant, its buttery, flaky texture a siren call to your empty stomach. A twinge of nostalgia tugs at your heartstrings. Or is that indigestion? “I would like a…” How are you going to say croissant? You could go with a crisp, hard C. You could start from the back of…

Don’t Call It That: Book Signing at Park Life This Thursday

Eli Altman will be signing his book at Park Life in the Mission this Thursday. It all starts around 6:30pm. To people who show up early, Eli will be giving away extremely fluorescent poster with a bunch of names on it.  

The NFL Wouldn’t Rename the Redskins, So We Did

Does your name offend a substantial number of human beings? Is it an outdated, horrible slang term from the early 19th century? Is it possibly illegal? Does it, by its very nature, reduce that same group of people to a skin tone? If so, you might be in the market for a name change! Yes,…

Turn Your Grin Upside-Down: How a Name Makes a Home

Houses with names may seem like a vacation home tradition. It brings to mind​ images of beach houses and country estates named Raspberry Hill or Waite and Sea. But across Oakland homes of the “alternative crowd,” young transients, hippies, punks, taggers, art and music folks, the heart and soul the Bay is known for, have…

Need to Name a: Tactical Bowie Knife Company?

At A Hundred Monkeys, we’re always hoping for ridiculous naming projects. Need to name a stable of Mongolian racehorses? We do that. Don’t know what to call your urban marijuana farm? We can help. Each week, we’re giving away free names. We’re nice like that. If you’re lucky enough to be in the tactical Bowie…

Need to Name a: Discount Fish Market?

Over here at A Hundred Monkeys we’ve been seriously underwhelmed with the number of ridiculous naming projects we’ve been invited to work on. Sure, we get the occasional sex toy startup or menopause-soothing necklace, but these are still weighed down by the anchors of reality. So starting today, we’re going to present a weekly round…

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