What's in a name?

Quite a few people have mentioned that they like the fact I give each item a name. It's one of the things I've done from the very beginning. I knew I needed a way of keeping track of stock and that each item I made would need a reference number/name. It's partly so I can list stock and easily find what I'm looking for, and partly so that customers can ask for an item without having to say "the blue one with the little flower, no, not the one with the red writing, the one that's got the purple ribbon at the bottom...". I like numbers, but referring to my designs as Ref00453 didn't really excite me.

So, inspired by IKEA, I chose to use names instead of numbers. I thought about using actual names, but that's been a little over done, so instead I randomly chose a geography theme. I started naming items after cities. I tried to pick a city that sounded right and matched the design. At Christmas I started using Islands because I thought I was being clever (Santa Isabel, Santa Ines etc.!). Then came the lakes collection of jewellery. I wanted to have a range of necklaces and bracelets that were a little more stylish and upmarket, compared to my usual casual style. So they were named after lakes to give them a different identity (I know, I've not done massively well at adding pieces to this collection - there will be some more soon I promise!). Cities, islands, lakes... then mountains! I introduced a range of magnets and went with the alliteration. Mountains of magnets. I haven't quite made mountains of them, but there was a large pile at one point... Being clever again, I named my map notebooks 'Rhodes'. That made me smile for days! And subsequent map related items have followed on by being named after other Greek islands (as I couldn't think of any more map related names, this was the next best option for a theme). And similarly, the music notebook was named 'Munich' (nothing clever this time) and all designs made using recycled vintage sheet music are now German. Apart from the recent music birthday card, which is called 'Chlef' in another vague attempt at being clever...

I've got over 100 products on my stock list now. Phew, that's a lot of naming! But don't worry, there's still plenty of scope for future names. I haven't used any rivers yet. Or countries. And I could always branch out into forests.



PS. I mentioned ages ago that I have some exciting new notebooks coming soon. They are coming, honest.

PPS. I know I totally need to get on with the follow up post about advertising. See the original post here. I have started working on the numbers, so I'm hoping that I'll soon be able to share with you what's been successful and what's been a waste of time!