Category: The Weird Science of Naming New Products

When starting a logo design, the first thing a designer looks at is the name of the company and the sector they operate in. Depending on what the product is about, the designer can design a logo that figuratively represents the product. When the name of the product does not represent a tangible object, designers might need to go more abstract and use elements that suggest what the company’s sector is. Other times, the client has a clear idea of what they have in mind and might request certain elements in a logo. The logo does not always clearly show what the company is about and there might be a name for a subtitle to better explain the logo. For a restaurant, often times the restaurant name does not tell the customer what food they serve. The restaurant might include the cuisine in their name or subtitle to tell the customers what the kind of food they serve.

I found this article very interesting. That there could only be one name to a company. Those companies would sue other companies if their names are similar to the ones that are already existing. I read that many companies would come up with their names using catchy words or phrases to name their brand. Something else I read from the article states that a name to a single company can cost a lot of money ranging from $3,000 to $75,000 to build a foundation for the company. Who knew a name can mean so much when we use names everyday.

This article was interesting, I thought it was easy to come up with names. But after reading this article I realized I was wrong, there are many difficulties when it comes to naming companies and products. Anthony Shore was well-known to many companies as a namer. He helped named over 160 companies, websites, products and colors. Some of the companies include SoyJoy, Lytro and Yum!. I thought big companies like Yum! (parent company of KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco-Bell) came up with the names themselves, but it was Anthony Shore that did. Anthony Shore starts his projects by making lists of words and combining texts, rhymes etc. “This is the point in his search at which Shore sits at his computer and opens window after window, making lists of words and then trying to make connections among the words on those lists and then putting potential candidates for the final name on a master list. ” For a project he came up with 1,200 names. Overall, being the only person to be able to come up with so many different names alone is actually really impressive and almost impossible, it would take a lot of time, creativity and thinking.

The topic surrounding the article about the science of naming was very intriguing being as I had never read something related to this. A lot goes into the process to name products, starting with sometimes hiring someone specifically for the task, which I was not aware was a common thing. According to the article the pay for a name can range from $3,000 to $75,000. Another fact that stood out, is that the naming process can include sound testing and handwriting trials. This article definitely was helpful incite to have us start thinking about create names for the restaurant project. Restaurants usually put effort into naming each dish on their menu just as much as naming the business itself.

Upon reading this article, I was surprised at how difficult it was to come up with branding names for the products. What I found really interesting is that there are some corporate companies turn to creative people to name their products instead of coming up with the names themselves for their own product. The article states that “Most Executives are not imaginative as Steve Jobs or Richard Branson”, and I agree on that a little bit. Even when the modernist poet, Marianne Moore, was chosen to come up with names for a new Ford car in 1955, all of her ideas were rejected. The Ford executive then decided to name the car after his son, Edsel, which was considered as “one of the great disasters, naming and otherwise, in corporate history”. Coming up with brand names is considered very difficult because there is no corporate and concrete method in how to do so, rather it is very ambiguous. But one thing from the article that was appealing to me was that coming up with name requires “love and sensitivity”. Sensitivity is what separates the designers from the amateurs.

It is interesting to say the least when reading this article that talks about the difficulties and complications of naming things like products or companies. I have always found naming to be tricky because it is hard to come up with something that sounds right and fits but is also creative and different enough from other existing names. A name is something someone hears and makes a direct connection or correlation to what the name is representing. There are things to consider when naming like what letters and words convey that the product or company is or wants to be represented as like creating a name that sounds like or that symbolizes the company or product and a logo to go along with it. All aspects of linguistics and how fast or slow a word or letter sound is also important like the example of “fip” and “fop” in which fip sounds faster than fop or “The ‘D’ of Dasani water made it sound heavier. Leben says: ‘It doesn’t say ‘refreshing.’ It says ‘slow down,’ ‘cool off,’ ‘relax.’’” Sound symbolism and association is important to naming. There are also things like “Lingtwistics” which “deconstructs these naming ingredients, then reassembles them in unexpected ways.” When naming the restaurant in our projects, we would also have to consider all of these compilations that professionals face as well. Designing a logo, in similar ways, can be complicated as well since it has to also be different, unique, clever and also fit the name or the company.

I was quite amazed after reading this article because I didn’t know that it’s so difficult to name the companies. Finding a name was not easy to find. But well I have experienced it because I know how hard it was for my client to choose the name of the restaurant. However, it was great to know how Anthony Shore helped the companies with names because he named many things, such as the website, companies, products, and colors. In the arcane world of corporate branding as a name, Shore was known. Shore provided 150 students from Stanford and Berkeley with a questionnaire, asking them questions such as Which sounds faster, “fip” or “fop”. “Fip” has been quicker than “fop,” Leben says, because of the way the sounds were made in the mouth. “Fip” feels lighter and quicker because there is just a limited amount of exposed vocal tract. In all, he was responsible for 160 separate brands, including “SoyJoy (the health bar), Lytro (the camera), and Yum! (the parent company of KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell), as well as lesser-known names like Avaya, Enormo, Fanhattan, Freescale, Homestyler, Kixx, Mylo, Pause, Rig, Scribe, Spontania, Valchemy, Wonderful and Zact.”

My thoughts on this article are I’ve never heard of Anthony Shore until now.  I didn’t know Shore named a lot of companies, products, websites, ingredients, and colors.  Anthony was accountable for SoyJoy, Lytro, Yum, and other 160 distinct names.  In the U.S a lot of businesses open up and need a name for their items.  I agree that products, characters, or any noun develop an understanding that is shared of something.  Interesting to find out that the name of “piano” has nothing to do with sounds.  I just tried saying “fip” and “fop” to see which word is faster, I agree “fip” is quicker because “fop”, my jaw drops and it creates a heavy and deep sound.  I find it interesting how the sound of words and letters creates characteristics of a noun, action, verb, or adjective.  Also, coming up with a word that isn’t real is unique and a great impression like “ixxéo.”