One summer, 7 years ago I spent days and days thinking about a name for a clothing brand - drawing terrible, uneven fonts of bubble and block letter in a little notebook, constantly disappointed with my results.
But I was relentless and finally came up with the name Painted Saints, the little book filled with halfhearted design attempts. This would be my first branding exercise, before I even knew what that meant.
Nothing ever came of Painted Saints except for a few hoodies that I had jiffyshirts.com or wherever print for way too much money. I still have the hoodies.
5 years later the name Midnight Special came to me while sitting on the couch one night. It just landed somewhere in the room and I looked at it and realized it was the right one, like the name completed a story I'd been writing my entire life;
I trademarked the name that same month.
For tonight, here is one way to go about naming your brand:
1. I talked about Brand Personality in the last blog post. This can come well before a name is decided. The personality of your brand has been developing your entire life, it's you. To help define your brand personality, compile a list of your inspirations - these could be anything from favorite songs to architecture to film/TV shows.
2. How do your inspirations make you feel? Imagine that all of these inspirations are combined together and something new is created. What would it look like? I encourage you to think of your brand's own character - a symbol, an icon. Something more powerful than just you.
3. Now that you have your brand personality and your brand character, pretend like you're writing a song or a poem and start to think with words again, complementing the aesthetic you have created. Write a few poems.
4. Although I broke this rule, most successful brands are one word (easier to fit on a tee shirt as well) - think about it. But take it with a grain of salt because there are no rules to this.
-Midnight