A Co-Working Name That’s Both Descriptive And Evocative

General Assembly is a communal office campus in downtown New York City, where entrepreneurs can rent office space for their startup company and immediately join a thriving tech community, meet other entrepreneurs and investors, and have access to complementary technologies and a talented labor pool. It’s a great concept, with a perfect name that works on multiple levels. The first reference in the name is to the United Nations General Assembly, the only one of five U.N. organs in which all member nations have equal representation. Through this metaphor, the name General Assembly very effectively conveys the key concept of a participatory environment for “everybody” with a serious start-up business.

Further, the name General Assembly evokes an old-school industrial manufacturing company — think General Motors — which adds the gravitas of real-world tangibility to the gleam in the eye of an entrepreneur or the dream on the page of a business plan. And the name lends itself to iconic abbreviation in its logo, which features “GA” in the middle of a gear, further reinforcing the industrial references. These brand cues of tangibility and realness, in a realm where far too often new ideas disappear in to “vaporware,” is extremely compelling, and reflects the same kind of thinking that went in to the company name we created for the software company Rivet. Great work, General Assembly.

[ General Assembly ]

A Name With Great Energy And Attitude That Just Flies

A name we created for an inflight wi-fi Internet access product, now used by numerous major airlines. This name has is all: meaning, energy, attitude, and it maps to the experience of using the product and of travel in general. This name flies high, and both name and service have been hugely successful.

[ Gogo: case study | website ]

A Unique Name That Is Memorable And Wonderfully Weird

What would otherwise be a boringly descriptive (though mildly poetic) name for a carpet store, for a protective laptop computer sleeve Goldschlager’s Carpet is completely unique, strange, memorable and wonderfully weird. It’s another winner from Compendium favorite Crumpler. This name conjures up a short story, and the mind begins reeling when imagining the carpet of Goldschlager in all its glory (or infamy). Brilliant.

[ Goldschlager's Carpet ]

An Amazing, Cool Name Employing Alliteration and Poetry

Manufactured by Corning, Gorilla Glass is “an alkali-aluminosilicate sheet glass engineered specifically to be thin, light and damage-resistant. Its primary application is portable electronic devices with screens, such as mobile phones, portable media players, and laptop displays.” (Wikipedia.) It’s a cool product with a lot of potential, but of course its name is what really turns us on. By metaphorically evoking gorillas, which are the ultimate combination of strength plus intelligence, in a name with a great sound, look and poetry through its effective use of alliteration, Corning has created a winner that has already become the standard-bearer in the industry.

[ Gorilla Glass ]

A Juicy Name That Really — and Metaphorically — Flows

Gravy is a hyperlocal event listings mobile app we named that is all about finding great things to do near you, wherever you live or plan to visit. Gravy is the good stuff, the “secret sauce,” a source for discovering all the juicy things going on around you. Like the gravy you eat, the event listings in the Gravy app flow smoothly to your mobile device, and the feeds are customizable in a variety of ways. It is all about serendipitous discovery, finding your fun, getting the scoop with “insider information” about cool happenings near you. Think of it as your very own hipster tipster!

Pass the Gravy, please.

[ Gravy: case study | website ]

A Groovy Name With Many Idioms And Great Cultural History

A groovy name we created for a Camelbak water bottle that fills the straw “groove” with an inline filter, so you can get your fresh filtered water Groove on wherever you go. Taps into lots of shared culture and idioms, from “Get your Groove on,” to “Groovin”, “Groovy,” and “In the Groove.”

[ Groove: case study | website ]

A Name That Turns A Negative Into A Positive

Apparel brand The GAP began in 1969, and its name was an allusion to a hot topic of the time, the Generation Gap. This store was for a youth audience that wouldn’t be caught dead in their parents clothes. Of course, times (and people) change, yet the name and its aspiration live on. This is an interesting case of a name being created out of a negative, that points out that “something is missing.” But of course, that just adds interest to the name, which is easily accepted by everyone. Later, the company adopted the brand Banana Republic, which makes any negatives in The GAP name seem pretty tame by comparison.

[ The GAP ]