Am pleased to report that I had another name finalist on this week. This time for a “new brand of trendy eyewear.” From this particular “assignment,” I wanted to discuss the name brief and how I, as a namer, might interpret it. I think it’s a very good example of a short, but effective brief for a couple of reasons.
Here’s what the client asked for:
We need a name for our new brand of prescription eyewear targeted at young, trendy consumers. We want a fashion label-type name, not something literal dealing with vision or glasses. Our glasses will help people feel cool, unique and confident by providing boldly designed, fashion-forward frames with quality lenses.
Words we might use to describe our product: revolutionary, chic, bold, fresh, classic/retro, and socially conscious.
Note that the many strong adjectives used to describe the product. A good exercise would be to describe your product without relying on a photo. This not only points me (your namer) in the right direction, but also helps me weed out the not so great names before I present them.
Be sure to tell your namer what type of name, if any, you DO NOT want. For example, here they state they do NOT want a descriptive or literal name. That’s immediately helpful to us namers. We know to avoid name types like “Visionworks” or “Opticon” for this particular project.
Be clear about your target market. Here the client identified their likely target market as young and trendy so I know the name can be a playful and unique, as well.
Finally, whenever I name a fashion product, I’ll typically look to French and Italian for inspiration. Romance languages are often synonymous with leading designer brands like Chanel, YSL, Hermes, Gucci, Versace, etc.
Based on the client’s direction, here are some of my name ideas for the new line of eyewear:
Blinx/Blynx
Chassis (Alluding to frames/framework)
Cheaters (Jazz age slang for glasses)
Ciglio (Italian for eyelash)
Exspectations
Hot Pear ((as in pair of glasses)
Lunetta ((from French for eye glasses)
Lux Spex
SquareMoon
Sweet Peeps
Twinkles
The choice? Lunetta--Perhaps not as “hip/funky” as some of the others but I think it fits the chic, fashionista-friendly bill the client wanted.
So remember namers and clients, a naming or creative brief does not have to be dozens of pages long, it just has be an accurate description of your product, your audience, and type of name you don’t want. To get the most out of your creative team, often less is more. Let them do their thing, you can always rein them in later.
