What Should We Consider When Selecting a Company Name?
marsuniversity:
Hello everyone. As a first-time poster, please forgive me if this topic has been posted too many times in the past (a quick search revealed only a few similar topics), or if it is in the wrong forum.
To explain our situation, we're setting up a small company (comprised of three individuals, working together). The company will be producing mostly RPG-related products, with a few card and board games on the side. We're currently debating amongst ourselves over what name to use. My gut instinct is to just go with something that I like and that "sounds cool" (at least to me). However, besides the name not being claimed by another entity, is there anything else we should be worried about? Should we be trying for something catchy and easily memorable? Should we be worried about having a name similar to another company? How about an abbreviation? The problem we're having with the original name we decided on was that its abbreviation would come out as FFG, which happens to be the same as Fantasy Flight Games, and we're a bit worried about confusion amongst our potential customers.
Has anyone experienced some issue with the company name they've decided upon that we, frankly, haven't even considered? Any help you could give us on this decision would be greatly appreciated.
David Artman:
You seem to have most of the issues sewn up. I'll toss out a few extras:
* Logo design and typography - You'll want to consider how (or even if) you include the company name in its logo, which can in turn impact the logo's shape or profile. For instance, a name with one long word and two smaller will make a T or diamond pattern, if typeset into the logo in a stack. Multiple similar-length words make a square or rectangle; etc.
* Exhaustively research what your company name (or similar words) mean in foreign languages. The anecdote I recall about that was, for the Commodore VIC-20, they considered calling it a "Vixen" until they found out that vixen in German is, basically, a slut/whore. And everyone knows about the Chevy Nova's lack of success in Spanish-speaking countries (would you buy a "No Go" named car?).
* Name -> Logo or Logo -> Name? Decide that soonest. If you just KNOW you want a particular logo element, well you're gonna have that element in the name, likely. Conversely, if you KNOW you want certain words in the name, then you need to consider how they will "inform" a logo. Or forget about it and be like 90% of all companies out there.
HTH;
David
guildofblades:
You want it to be memorable first and foremost.
You want it to either 1) communicate as to what you do or (ala, Computer Consultants, Inc for computer consulting) or if you plan to do a wider variety of things, you want it to be topical or genre neutral (ala, Ebay, Amazon.com, etc. For instance, a name like Fantasy Role Players Inc would be less than ideal if most of what you did was historical miniatures).
Yeah, you wouldn't want a name that abbreviated worked out to be the same abbreviation (and an abbreviations known and used within the industry) to represent another company. It'll create brand confusion and make it harder for folks to remember you by.
Conventional wisdom suggests shorter names are better. Obviously, though, we ignored that one when naming our own companies. lol.
Ease of use. Try saying the would-be name of your company out loud. Talk about it in a sentence. If its difficult or challenging to say, folks will either not bother or they'll brutally hack it, neither of which works well for you in the word of mouth category.
Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Retail Group - http://www.guildofblades.com/retailgroup.php
Guild of Blades Publishing Group - http://www.guildofblades.com
1483 Online - http://www.1483online.com
marsuniversity:
Thanks for the quick response, you two, you've definitely given us a few additional things to consider.
In regards to David's comments on logo design, we hadn't even considered that yet. We were still focusing on a name, assuming that most customers would hear the name spoken or in typed print (such as in a review or internet forum post) much more often than they would see our logo itself. I'm curious as to how much impact (if any) logo design has had on everyone here? As we'll be working on small-run card games, we may need something that scales easily to fit on the back of a deck of playing cards and still leave room for a product blurb. Using a company abbreviation could help that out, but we might loose a bit of name recognition. Then again, this may not be an issue at all, as there a few game companies identified only by abbreviation (TSR and FASA spring to mind here).
Another issue to consider would be logo design choices affecting printing later on. Does anyone have any horror stories or words of warning regarding their logo design and the cover/package design or printing process? I'd like to know if anyone has experienced an easier time with particular image or font selections.
Ryan, the suggestion regarding verbal use is greatly appreciated, as you've brought up something that should have been a fairly obvious concern that none of us had considered at this point. Additionally, as we're planning on putting out a range of game types, a more general name would probably work best for us. The issue now, if I drawing proper conclusions from your suggestion, is to choose something which doesn't call to mind too many genre or game format trappings, while still making it obvious that we produce the kind of thing you'd find in stock at your local game store.
Thanks for the assistance so far, this is already helping us to narrow things down a bit.
David Artman:
Quote from: marsuniversity on August 19, 2008, 01:36:55 PM
I'm curious as to how much impact (if any) logo design has had on everyone here?
For me, it's massive. Consider that the logo will be far easier to fit on a spine than the full company name (viz Ziff Davis; Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, etc). Further, I feel a good logo sticks in the head FAR better than even the most evocative names. Of course, searching on a logo is neigh impossible (unless its all letters, and then it merely becomes very hard). But spotting on on a shelf, with hundreds of other books: trivially easy. I guess it all comes down to your distribution agenda....
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Another issue to consider would be logo design choices affecting printing later on. Does anyone have any horror stories or words of warning regarding their logo design and the cover/package design or printing process? I'd like to know if anyone has experienced an easier time with particular image or font selections.
No horror stories (I'm a good logo designer), but a few words of warning:
* Avoid color-transition gradients (or bitmapped art, in general) as it can render poorly and will increase print costs (needing four-color rather than spot color).
* On that note, be sure to make your logo as vector art, the better to infinitely scale (and minimize file size, for what that's worth). The same vector art logo can be printed 1" high or 10' high, without pixellating.
* Be prepared to make a full-color logo AND black-on-white and white-on-black versions. This provides maximum flexibility for printing and displaying, but it means you have to really fiddle with a logo to get to one that works in all three modes.
* On that note, I favor one-color (plus grayscale) logos, the better to contain printing costs (in web press environments--POD color printers cost the same per page whether spot color of four-color process).
* Personally, I avoid serifed fonts, again for best-printing practices. That said, there's a tone of serifed fonts used in professional logos, so your mileage may vary. I just find that serifs, if scaled WAY down (like, to fit on a normal 12 point line, say) become very hard to print cleanly, unless you are dealing with 1200dpi+ web press printing onto high quality paper.
* On that note, I also favor bold (or "black") fonts, with heavy stroke weights, whether serifed or not. Again, it's a scaling thing.
* Similarly, avoid light line weights in any graphics: they can disappear at small scales, often with unfortunate side effects (like making the logo look like something totally different... or another company's logo).
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The issue now, if I drawing proper conclusions from your suggestion, is to choose something which doesn't call to mind too many genre or game format trappings, while still making it obvious that we produce the kind of thing you'd find in stock at your local game store.
Yep, you've got to balance the general scope of your gaming products against the specific scope of "we do game products." Tricky one, that. Of course, Steve Jackson solves it rather neatly; and I, for one, emulate him with "david artman designs" - d.a.d. - which I also like because it's active sounding and prefaces all kinds of stuff; e.g. "david artman designs... games" or "...products" or "...toys", etc. That said, I am also leaning towards naming MY company "Zero Budget Books" with the logotype of "0BB". I can do a LOT with the orientation and positioning of a numeral and two Bs. :)
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