Nevertheless, it can be pretty important when starting out. The totally hip people at HugeObject had a naming dilemma and approached Digitalmash about helping them brainstorm one out and then designing an identity for it.

Challenge

Well the first big challenge was that I’d never done this sort of work before. Yeah I’d named things, but never on demand, nor for money. Looking back on it, they showed a lot of faith approaching someone from a company called ‘Digitalmash’ to help with their naming…ahem…

The thing I would be helping name was an online registration and survey app. The app would allow small business owners to create and administer online surveys or questionnaires. The HO guys were pretty open about things but wanted the name to be metaphorical rather than literal or abstract. (E.g. Digg and Flickr).

So ideally we were after a single-word brand that referenced the application’s broad function and purpose:

Brainstorming

The first thing I did was a little research on their potential competitors. The majority of preexisting survey applications seemed to be named in relation to their inherent and literal form. (E.g. ‘InstantSurvey’, ‘SurveyGold’, etc). This style of branding leaves little room for differentiation and is a little lacking in imagination. So already we were on the right track in coming up with something that would stand out against similar services.

But it was certainly tricky finding a unique name that achieved our objectives outright.

“If all else fails, flicking to a random page in a dictionary works an absolute treat.”

So one idea was to use a tagline to help reinforce the name’s relevance. And rather than framing the application by its relationship with those being sampled, the target audience would be those administering the surveys. So we boiled this down to conclude the brand name must communicate one or some of the following concepts:

Even though the application was quite basic, I thought it was important that the name would be flexible enough to accommodate some growth. So if I could avoid it, we’d find a name that didn’t confine the app’s functions to merely surveys and questionnaires.

The shortlist of names emerged: Sift, Litmus, Antenna, Sayso and Glean. After much deliberation and a little resistance on my behalf, HO went with Glean. The added bonus of having a verb for a name was the opportunity to whack an Italian extension on the end, making it Glean.it. Now that’s how you roll 2.0 style ;)

Identity

After the name was finalised, coming up with initial concepts was much more in my comfort zone. HO really liked one of my concepts which gave the idea of a logo which appeared to be built through the collation of smaller things — very in keeping with the app. This concept was further honed with type, shape and colour palettes, and in the end we had our identity.

First round of Glean concepts.

First round of Glean concepts.

Following the strongest concept a little further.

Following the strongest concept a little further.

Results

Well here’s the denumount. And this is where the story takes an unexpected twist.

HugeObject loved the final identity. You could say it was a great success. But, alas, the design never made it out into the real world because development of the application was canned about 2 months later. This happens more than you’d think in design (especially online stuff). I know, heartbreaking, but I never said this would have a happy ending.

What can we learn, or rather glean from this? Well firstly, as a designer, never get too attached to a design. Sometimes you don’t know how or even if it will end up being used. Hopefully you have a little insight into some of my new-found processes for coming up with names for things. Of course, failing those, I’ve heard flicking to a random page in a dictionary works an absolute treat. Go forth and nameth.

Voila! The final product.

Voila! The final product.

—Published 12 October, 2008

Next