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Episode
56

Creating a Brand New Name with Jeremy Miller

An interview with
Jeremy Miller

Introduction

As a logo designer you’ve probably been approached by companies who have names that are far from perfect… they’re too long, hard to say, or just don’t properly represent the brand. You’ll likely want to help them improve, but where do you start? What does an expert brand naming service look like?

In this episode Ian interviews Jeremy Miller to find out. Jeremy is the author of the new book Brand New Name, and the founder of Sticky Branding who help business’ grow a remarkable brands.

Jeremy Miller Interview Transcription

Ian Paget: Although the podcast is primarily focused around logo design, I find myself in a situation where clients want or need help with their company or product name, and I’d imagine listeners will be facing the same situation. So I thought this would be a really great topic to do an episode on. And since you’ve just released a new book on naming, I thought you’d be the perfect person to shed some light on this topic.

So as a starting point, what would you say makes a really great brand name?

Jeremy Miller: Well, it’s a challenging question because it’s strategic that … I don’t think there is a universal answer to what makes a great name. I think what makes a great name is it fits the brand it fits whatever it is, the company, the product, the service, the system, whatever it is, and it creates meaning.

So it’s in that realm of capturing the essence of what that thing is. So that can mean different things for different situations and … but you take a name like Twitter. Twitter stands out immediately amongst social networks, but it’s also a suggestive name. It gives you a sense of what the platform is like. It’s like a lot of tweeting birds. It’s short snippets of concept.

And when it was used, that metaphor was just such a beautiful answer to what the platform would be like. So some names are suggestive, some names are descriptive, but they just seem to have that way to capture what you’re going to get and it fits the brand that creates that immediate emotional connection so that someone knows it and then they can keep moving and breathing life into it. The name is a vessel.