Did you know the name Apple was inspired while Steve Jobs was pruning Gravenstein apple trees on his friend’s orchard? According to the recent Steve Jobs biography, Apple Computer could have just as easily been called Personal Computing International. Had it been, who knows if it would have met with the same iconic success.

The Apple name, along with others such as Virgin and The Gap are not immediately intuitive because they evoke something about the company’s unique positioning. And they are risky. If you think about it, the word virgin has negative connotations, especially for an airline: new, untested, and young to list a few. The naysayers in the boardroom would certainly pick these out as an argument against such a name. Those with a different vision might say it perfectly captures the spirit of a new entrant into a category dominated by sameness and mediocrity. When you think of the possibilities for a positive disruption to the airline (and others) business, ‘virgin’ could also mean new, fresh, energetic, willing and young.

Naming success in this case is all about how the name is defined in the minds of the consumer, and creating a link between the name and the company’s positioning.

Evocative names are some of the most exciting to create, but the reality is, they are only one type of name, and admittedly, not all types are as exciting. Why? There are many variables that go into determining the right name for a company or product: What industry is it? Does it need to be descriptive; What is the personality of the firm?; Are there any legal or regulatory considerations that need to be conformed to? These are just a few of the things that need to be considered when we are doing naming for our clients.

Truth is, a name can come from anywhere and anyone. Yes, you can name your own company, but what you are missing is an exhaustive search and a deeper development past the obvious names, and in the process, perhaps even validation for an earlier inspiration. In seeking name options for our clients at Industrial Brand we pursue multiple streams of naming types. We may explore functional names that are merely descriptive of what the company does or sells, made up names, hybrids composed of two or more words, evocative names such as those mentioned above and any number of other name types in our quest to fully explore all the options. The quantity of names generated cannot be underestimated—it is in fact crucial. As a fascinating aside, have a look at some of the name generation Thomas Edison did when coming up with a name for what we now know as the ‘phonograph’. Marvellous insight.

It is at this point that engaging a firm experienced with naming adds the most value. Finding the best name is only partially about generating options. Sorting and filtering the names down to a select shortlist requires experience and skill, and objective analysis. Subjective analysis should not come into this process. “I don’t like it” or “This reminds me of…” are not relevant here and are not representative of how the target audience may see it. The goal is to land on something that will resonate with the market and support your goals for the company.

At Industrial Brand we don’t attempt naming for a client without first doing extensive research into the client’s industry, their organization and competition. Armed with this, and the raw names we generated, we can then begin to filter them.

We use a nine point matrix to score each name on a scale. Some of the elements we scrutinize are as simple as appearance and sound: Does it look good?; Are there any awkward letter combinations, etc.?; Does it sound good when spoken?; Will it be easy to mispronounce or be misheard?; Is it a word that’s uncommon or hard to spell (by the way, not always a bad thing)?

Other filters are more complex to analyze: Things such as how much meaning the name has, and how deeply layered other meanings are, distinctiveness within the industry and from the competition and whether the name is flat and lifeless or energetic. Is it corporate and impersonal, or genuine and warm?—there’s a reason and fit for each.

Ultimately though, the name has to be available. Canada only, USA, Global? The wider the reach, the more complex and less likely it will be that the chosen name is available. In addition, finding a suitable URL is vitally important today. In fact, we’ve had clients whose priority was owning the root name dot com URL for the company, so that dictated the name they ultimately selected.

We’ve had to get creative with URL selection and consider what URL is available for chosen names before presenting options to the client. If it seems there’s a possibility for acquisition of a desired URL, then we will keep the name under consideration. Ideally, we want the .ca, .com, .co, .net and any other domains that are relevant to the client.

Finally, working with an intellectual property specialist to ensure rights and ownership of a trademark name is almost always advisable. This applies to the name as well as the final logo created. A good trademark lawyer will also suggest options and advise modifications to avoid potential conflict. Considering the money, time and effort that will be invested in turning the name into your brand, ensuring legal ownership at the outset is a must. No one wants to receive an unexpected cease and desist letter even part way down the rebranding road.

As a recent article about naming your child suggested, the name you give your offspring can determine their success later in life. While it seems implausible to imagine that the difference between “Steve”, “Mike” or “Larry” would matter all that much to your kid’s success, when you think about it in terms of your business, it’s not all that hard to envision that the choices you make at the start do have a magnifying effect on the trajectory of your enterprise.

It is doubtful that Steve Jobs, arrogant and visionary though he was, could ever have initially seen the company he named Apple ascend to such a massive and industry-dominating place in the world. Or maybe he did? Regardless, that name was the right choice, and the fit with the people, products, values and vision created a distinction that propelled the company to mythic status.

As passionate food freaks, it’s all too common to get caught up in the tastes and exoticism of what we are experiencing, rather than in what makes the most sense and is good. In fact, if you look at what makes something ‘gourmet’ these days, more often than not it’s the item that has taken great effort and care to produce and spent the least amount of time traveling from the farm to your table.

A good example of this in Vancouver is asparagus. Ask around and you’d be hard pressed to find someone who can tell you specifically that they’ve even tasted fresh, local asparagus. Seriously. Most of what people buy comes from Mexico or California with little thought to the seasonality, or what was done to it to get it to grow, or survive the long trip here. In contrast, the local season for asparagus is very short—a few weeks at best. If you’re not quick, and early, at the farmer’s market, you might not even realize we have an asparagus supply here!

Enter Foodtree.

Although manifest as a website and mobile app to share fresh, mouth-watering photos of food in your community in a fun and simple way, Foodtree is a philosophical and fundamental shift in our approach to understanding the where, why and how of the food we consume. If information is power, then this is one of the key ways we as consumers can control our food supply future. Until we empower ourselves in this way, organic and healthy food will remain a novelty and just slightly out of reach of the mainstream.

Yet, mainstreaming this concern about where our food comes from and what’s in it, is precisely what’s required.

Inspired by the symbols, styles and ideology of the Homesteading movement, the new identity hearkens to a simpler time of getting back to the land and a self-sufficient lifestyle. The hand-crafting and do-it-yourself ethic also produced a unique aesthetic evocative of an era past, but also in resurgence.

Our future may very well lie in the successful merger of a new integration of technology with the sustainable methods from our past. This is what Foodtree represents and the logo and its application is meant to evoke.

If you didn’t catch the grammatical error in the title of this post (or the many in the photo for that matter), read on…

Unlock the latch and propping open the lid of my secret chest of pet peeves and you’ll see that nothing irks me more than the flagrant misuse of versions of “there”, “their” and “they’re” and “its” and “it’s” and “you’re” and “your”. It kills me to see this again and again in otherwise well thought-out, well-written emails, posts, articles, tweets, status updates, letters and even advertising. In some cases I know this is coming from reasonably educated and intelligent people, but it certainly takes them down a notch in my opinion.

Grasping the rules for the five or ten most basic grammatical rules can really make you look a whole lot smarter. Brian Clark over at Copyblogger has a good primer on the first five, and once you’ve mastered those, there’s another seven that are also decent. He’s also got some other great articles worth checking out.

These errors are especially dismaying when they come from people in the communications business or, well, any business really. We often tell designers that you are only as talented and useful as your ability to effectively communicate your ideas–in writing. I do not want our clients receiving emails from us with these errors that’s for sure!

With the rise of social media and text entry from mobile devices we’re all looking for shortcuts, but getting the difference between “there” and “their” wrong isn’t one of them. When you’re trying to come from a place of thought leadership and opinion, these mistakes can be even more costly than just looking dumb to your English lit friends.

Before you go rummaging through this or our other blog, I can assure you there are indeed errors like this. It’s the cost of not having time to copy edit every single thing. But I’m ranting about individual control over this, not the lack of a copy editor. FYI, when we catch copy errors, they get fixed. With this post I hope to point those of you to the path of salvation, and to think hard and proof twice.

DOXA Documentary Film Festival is launching something new at this year’s festival-their first-ever celebrity camera auction.

Equipped with single-use cameras, some of our favorite famous people have unleashed their point & shoot creativity to support exposed! DOXA’s Celebrity Camera Auction. The cameras will be auctioned off on eBay during the festival which runs from May 22 to 31 in Vancouver.

Here’s your chance to own a unique set of undeveloped snapshots, exposing the remarkable lives and extraordinary visions of some of today’s most celebrated public figures. They make great, one-of-a-kind  gifts for the ‘fans’ in your life as well!

So, if you’re sick of hiding out in Kristen Kreuk’s hedge to see what she’s up to, bid on her camera!

If you don’t care about celebrity lives, then all the more reason to skip that Hollywood blockbuster and check out some of the incredible films screening at this year’s festival. Starting today!

Not sure if Bansky has hit Berlin or not really, but now you have a better chance of finding out. Adidas has created an iPhone app that acts as map and guide for locating street art in Berlin. So, if you’re tired of yet another museum or monument, take to the street gallery with the Urban Art Guide. Backpacking ain’t what it used to be.

The latest issue of Design Edge just hit the streets and features our own Mark Busse on page 14 in the Newsmakers section! For those of you who don’t know (and that’s not many), Mark has been instrumental in reviving and enlivening the Society of Graphic Designers of Canada BC Chapter as its president for the last two years.

Together with the current president and others, they are bringing Icograda Design Week to Vancouver in April 2010. This is huge. Kudos to Mark, Marga, Rod, Matt and the rest of the GDC Icograda committee. Should be amazing, and help put Vancouver firmly on the global design map! Speaking of which, why doesn’t Vancouver have a design centre of some sort? We should.

Click here to download a PDF of the Design Edge article.

Seems it’s become a bit of an annual tradition for me to post the annual winner gallery from the World Press Photo Competition. So, without further adieu, this year’s winning photos.

In addition to ADCC and W3 awards we took home earlier in the year, we were recently very pleased to learn that our website for UBC School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture was honoured with a Lotus Merit in the interactive category.

Props go out again to our team and clients!

Those of you who know a thing or two about us know that we’re very much into our food. You might have perused this blog and noticed a distinct absence of food-related posts. The reason is that some time ago we decided the topic was so huge for us that it deserved its own space, hence the creation of Industrial Brand’s In the Kitchen blog.

Over time, all our Foodie friends started to join the fold and post to the site because that was what it was about – sharing our food experiences with our other passionate friends. They techincally weren’t a part of Industrial Brand though and that posed some problems moving forward with the project. Thus, we made the decision that In the Kitchen would morph into an independent online food blog and stand alone from the company. We renamed it Foodists and have completely re-conceived the site, organizing it in a more graphic and compelling way.

The new site has its own playful identity and simple, colourful layout designed to provide friendly appeal to a broad audience. Instead of opinions, the site will offer “meditations”. Rather than recipes or tips, we’ll share “guidance”. And as opposed to the standard product or restaurant reviews, we celebrate our finds in the “worship” section.

We guarantee you’ll be hungry within a few minutes of reading.

After months of work and anticipation, today is the day. The day we launch our new identity with a new website, blog and an unimaginable list of collateral and promotional item including a new logo, new tagline, new stationery, new promo items, new website, new EVERYTHING.

Design and producing an entirely new brand identity for you own company is both exhausting and rewarding—especially if you’re a design firm! We have to be the hardest client we’ve ever worked for! And this has to be the most expensive project we’ve ever tackled! We now have a whole new sense of empathy for corporate clients that hire us to do brand identity work for them.

Now that it’s over, we’re hosting a celebration party tonight and would love you to join us. Details and RSVP here.