FontDiscovery 🖼️ 156: Inventing a Brand Name✨
Hey Everyone 👋
Hope you had a great week so far!
As I’ve told you, one of the things I want to work on in January for Typogram is new content. I’ve been working on creating a naming guide and a short email course to help folks generate unique names for their businesses. It has been fun researching how to make a fun and engaging email course - I have never done that before!
This week, I want to share a little snippet of what I’ve been working on - some of my favorite methods when it comes to naming. If you have any feedback on this post about naming, I would love to hear it! Just directly reply with your feedback or suggestions. 🙌
When creating a brand name, one of my favorite methods is inventing a word for your brand name. Here are some tips on how you might do so.
No.1 - You can combine nouns with adjectives or adverbs, like Grammarly
We can add adjective or adverb suffixes to make a new word from the noun. This newly invented word is more ownable as a brand since it is entirely original. In addition, your audience can easily piece together what your new brand is based on the clue from your new brand name.
Examples: Grammarly, Typely, Typefully, Contentful, Shopify, Spotify
No. 2 - You can combine two words into a single one, like Activia
You can also invent words by creating a portmanteau, combining two words from your seed list into one name. Your new brand name should have less than four syllables so it is easy for someone to pronounce, remember, and share in a conversation.
Examples: Starbucks(Beverage), Facebook(Tech), and Activia (Food).
No.3 - You can combine a partial word and a full word. Like Netflix
Similar to combining two words, this method joins two name ideas together, but with a twist. Incorporating a partial word, usually a word root, like -gram or insta-, allows us to present two ideas in a much shorter format.
No.4 - You can make a long word shorter, like Fantastisch to Fanta
Sometimes, it is better to subtract than to add. You can invent a brand new, shorter word by shortening a longer word into a shorter one or isolating parts of a longer word. For example, Fanta originated from the longer German word, Fantastisch, meaning fantastic. “Pepsi” was initially advertised to relieve dyspepsia.
Example: Fanta (Beverage), Pepsi(Beverage)
Thank you
…for reading and hanging out here this week. I can’t wait to share the complete naming guide with you. Check out this post if you are looking for font inspirations.
Have a great weekend!