Music Brand Suggestions, part 1

I know. The word “brand” is gross. It doesn’t have to be, but it certainly gets used in lots of gross ways. I’m not interested in that discussion. Here are some humble suggestions for naming your next concert series, mixed ensemble, self-publishing cooperative, interactive aesthetic experience collective, netlabel, or hip gastropub-slash-concert-venue.

1. Nobody speaks Latin. Besides, all the really cool Latin music-y words are already taken. Speaking of music-y words, none of those either. Save your fortes and pesantes and maestosos for the score.
2. If you had to look it up in a dictionary or thesaurus, nobody else knows the word either. I know you’re clever. You don’t need to prove it to me every time you hand out a business card. More importantly, the rise of the web and social media has made it crucial for people to easily spell your name without looking it up.
3. Spaces are ok. InterCapped names were really cool right around the time the lowercase i- prefix was cool. Apple has moved on.[1] Join them.
4. Your name need not define you. It’s ok just to have a name that only you find meaning in, as long as it’s cool. Some of my favorite names in concert music mean nothing: Sphinx, eighth blackbird[2], Sleeping Giant, The Knights, Alarm Will Sound, Roomful of Teeth. Even though the name Sō Percussion[3] indicates something to do with hitting things with other things, note that they aren’t mentioning anything about being a quartet. Think here about rock band names. Do you get any inkling of what The Beatles, Nirvana, or Tool are from the name? No. And that’s totally fine. Apple is not a fruit company, and Coke won’t get you high.
5. Check your namespaces. If you can’t get a reasonable domain name, Twitter name, Instagram name, or others, look for something better. It’s not worth the hassle of explaining that you can be found at “lorem ipsum hyphen quartet dot com” but “lorem hyphen ipsum” on Twitter and “the real lorem ipsum” on Snapchat and “not the fake lorem ipsum” on Instagram.
6. Shorter is almost always better. It’s easier to remember, easier to type, and fewer characters in a tweet.
7. Give yourself room to grow. Your name shouldn’t limit you or lock you in. If the name of your concert series is “Biennial Orlando Piano Extravaganza” you’re locked in to a schedule, a location, and an instrument. Also, you’ve brought shame upon yourself and your family by using the word “extravaganza”. If you were to start an ill-planned Tumblog called “One Surrealist a Day”, you’d better be prepared to post something every day! If, on the other hand, you just called it “Exploring Surrealism,” you’d get to post whenever the fish moved you to drop kick a Monday.
8. No puns. Stop it. If you thought you might want to use a pun name, you should probably just ask somebody else to name it for you. Save yourself from yourself.

Stay tuned for a future installment on visual identity.