Website/business name

Leonie2 · Website/business name

I need some help thinking of a name for my website. The website is to advertise and provide information about affordable but professional webite design aimed at the small business market. I want to think of something with two words to the name and each word to contain the same number of letters as the other, it's all to do with the design of my website that the words should be the same length. I've thought of Design Studio but the website address for that is already taken and I want to avoid having a similar name to another uk based web designer. I want the name to sound creative and not like a budget low cost designer.

Ideas please Very Happy

n

I think it's probably more important to have a name which is memorable rather than because it describes what you do.
It suggests you have the ability to be creative without actually saying so.
eg
purple banana

...ready made logo, good visual impact on business cards, no-one is going to have to search their memory for the name when they want to recommend you to a friend, easy to say on the phone, and if your business takes off in a different direction, you don't have to dream up a new name which matches the new idea.

Have just looked up availability on www.pipex.com as an experiment and www.purplebanana.co.uk is not available, but www.purplebanana.info is, and www.purplebanana.uk.com is as well

You probably want a .co.uk, so purple banana isn't for you, but I bet if you asked everyone in the Shed in a years time what the suggestion was, everyone would remember.

n

Leonie2

That's exactly the kind of thing I'm looking for n! I don't want the name to describe what I'm doing. Most of my work comes from recommendation so it doesn't need to say "XYZ Web design" but like you say no one would forget purple banana! Laughing

I love that name, shame it's taken already. And yes, absolutely must be a .co.uk name or .com (some of my work will be international so I'm not worried about specifically being uk).

Here's the template I'm working from, trying to get my head around Macromedia Flash at the moment so that I can edit all the links, wording etc to suit me.

http://www.news2share.co.uk/site_flash/index.html

n

When I am ready to start up, will you do mine?
It's awesome!

Comments? Here or pm?

n

Leonie2

Of course n Very Happy

I need to build a portfolio up, I have two websites I've done already, and I have another two in the pipeline. One for a marine electrical business in Australia and another for a local builder here in Sussex. OH has been going on at me for years to start doing websites for people but I never had the confidence as I'm self taught and never sure if I've done it the right way. But like he says it doesn't matter how I got there, it's what the website looks like in the end that counts. The one I've linked to above, which is the one I'll be using for my own website, is a template so the design isn't mine, but it's much easier and quicker to work off a template than to try to design something from scratch. Saves time and therefore cost which means I can be competitive and attractive to smaller businesses who don't have a fortune to spend on a website.

But I need a name so please keep thinking. I love the purple banana name, and Penny's business is called Squat Orange which I also think is great, they're names you don't forget in a hurry. As I have the flowers on the page I was thinking of something with Bloom, the idea being that a website will help a business to bloom and grow Very Happy

Becki

Blooming good designs Very Happy

Leonie2

I like it, I guess also because it's got flowers on it Laughing

love flowers I do Very Happy

I've taken it offline now and put the news2share files back on so anyone wanting to see the link it won't be there now, sorry. But I'll get it properly online as soon as. Smile

n

Okay, thinking cap on.
I like the black and white.
How tied are you to the gerbera?
Should the first page should have the whole image visible on the page for impact?
At the moment you can see (well, I can see, I am assuming everyone sees the same thing) the wineglass down to the bottom of the glass without the stem of the glass visible, so I have to scroll down to see the whole thing. I think the first page should be like an advertising hoarding where you see a complete image, not just 3/4 of it.

purple carrot
purple peapod (I like purple, you can tell, can't you?) Having tried to say this as though on the phone, alliteration isn't a good idea.
purple-banana.co.uk is available but I think the hyphen makes it untidy and more confusing to type, and you don't want customers going to the other purple banana people by accident.

If you want a colour and a fruit or vegetable or flower, it needs to be unusual to make it stick in the mind, or to have a positive or amusing characteristic, like squat orange.
Do you have a colour in mind for the image?
n

Becki

Squashed banana is amusing me but that's too similar, I just like it Laughing

Pink cat

Colourful designs

Purple rabbit

Red banana (I like the banana bit)

(You should do a comp Wink

)

Monkey Mayhem Shocked

(I'm thinking aloud here Laughing

)

Spiders web design

Pink Daisies

Wink

Leonie2

It would be quite difficult to change the flowers (i.e. I don't know how to change them as they're part of the template and feature on every page), but I quite like them too so would like them to stay. The other images would be easy enough to change and I can put a logo on there somewhere to represent the name.

I'm not sure about the full page view, I'll need to look into that, it's showing full page on my screen here.

Guest

I like blooming designs.

Becki

I love gerbras. If you are going to use the flower, you need to use it throughout your whole business, to co- ordinate it. ie: stationary, emails, etc.

Leonie2

Agree Becki,it needs to be co-ordinated. But I could use the flowers as an image on the web page and have a separate logo. Very Happy

Becki

ROFLMAO

people wouldn't forget that in a hurry Laughing

n

I have just realised, I have two bright yellow gerberas in a vase in front of me.
Spooky or what? Must be a sign!
They are the remains of a little bunch of flowers a friend gave me last week.
Gerbera is a bit of a mouthful, and a lot of daisy names are taken, I know because I was looking for one last year.
If you want to keep the daisies, and I can see why, they are pretty, then the name has to link to them somehow.
bloomingdesigns.com and bloomingdesigns.co.uk are both gone, sadly.

Do you expect your market to be men or women or both?
What age will your clients be?
Who does the name need to appeal to?
n

n

n

Hee, hee.
Well more of an explosive giggle actually.

The hyphenated version IS available!

It would be good as a cartoon too (peel intact, I think!)

n

Leonie2

Market would be both men and women. Most likely to be 30-50 agegroup. I'd like the name and look of the website to reflect something about me. My customers are largely going to be as a result of word of mouth. They'll be small businesses and one man (person) businesses so I don't want a large corporate look and feel, rather a friendly unintimidating feel but keeping it professional at the same time. I want people to know that I too am a small business and not a large design agency, although I can produce a professional looking website for them. Most of the businesses will be family run which means often a husband and wife team making the decisions.

I don't think the name must tie in with the flowers. I think a strong sounding name would be nice, having flower, petal, bloom I think makes it sound too feminine (sp?).

Cabbagepatch

Following this thread with interest but brain not working sufficiently well to contribute usefully Rolling Eyes

But I may have some clients for you in the fullness of time...... Cool

n

I was wondering about the feminine angle... and the flowery-ness.
Have pm-ed you one to look at.
n

lottie

I was going to say that flowers and perhaps animals, although wonderful, might not convey what you actually have in mind as a client base.

When one of my sons started up his company he didn't know what name to choose, so I suggested he thought of somewhere that really made an impression on him.

He had been travelling in Australia for about 18 months and chose the name of one of the deserts that was breathtakinly beautiful and also wild, they camped there in the middle of nowhere with not facilities and it felt as they were the only people on the planet.

Perhaps you could think of something along those lines - short and snappy and memorable?

mrutty

two3five.com seems the best place for affordable webdesign Twisted Evil

Two - B and I
3 - kids
equals Five

Wasn't sure what I was going to do so the name doesn't force me down any field of work.

thecardbee was more difficult and she was involved. It was won when she fell in love with a stamp.

Hiddenvalleypigs is because it's in hidden valley but Xmoor pigs was in the running for a long time as you got Xtra with Debbies pigs.

Kathy

Missed the start of this thread somehow!

I'm not very good at choosing names and usually end up with something quite ridiculous. One flower name I'd never heard of until recently was "auricula". It rolls off the tongue and I've not forgotten it for some reason (it reminds me of Nanny!). It doesn't sound too feminine either. Mind you, a lot of people might wonder what it is. Rolling Eyes

The lady we sold one of our ponies to does web design and like you, prefers a simple look.
http://www.css-design.co.uk/portfolio.htm
I like the way her pages load really quickly even though some have plenty of images. She says she had to perfect this as where she lives she can't get broadband and knows that people will very quickly move on to the next site if the pages are slow to load. Good tip I thought as some websites are really frustrating when you have to wait forever for pages to load. Smile

Leonie2

Thanks Kathy for the link, gives me more ideas to think about. There's nothing more frustrating than a webpage that takes forever to load. I'm going to give that template some more thought and perhaps reconsider a different look, although I do still quite like it, oh decisions Rolling Eyes

Leonie2

Well I decided to drop the flash webpage because I found it too distracting and if you take the visual effects away there wasn't much space left for information. This static site is much easier to edit too and means not having to pay £100's for Macromedia Flash. So I'm online now, busy working on a couple of websites to include in my portfolio and once that's done I hope to get some paying jobs in. The link is in my sig. Very Happy

Kathy

Nice one, simple, clear, easy to navigate with all the relevant information accessible, I like it. Hope you gets loads of work (but not too much so you can't come here!). Very Happy

Leonie2

Thanks Kathy Very Happy

I'll always find time to come here Wink

Becki

Looks very professional. Good Luck Very Happy

mrutty

Leonie2

Having tried to work with the Flash template I feel the same as you do mrutty, it's very time consuming which would mean I'd have to charge a lot more to make it pay for my time and the extra software needed, kind of goes against what I'm trying to offer which is affordable websites.

Thanks Becki Very Happy

The next step now is learning how to create ecommerce websites, does anyone know where I can learn about mysql and all that stuff? I've done a simple paypal button website but that's not the same thing.

mrutty

Do you have a spare box on whixh to play with stuff on? If so get one of the Linux books that comes with all the CD?DVDs you need. This not only takes you through step by step but is a useful referenace guide.

Leonie2

mrutty what do you mean by spare "box"? do you mean a spare computer? the web host that I use provides a sql database with our webspace, and I can use an ecommerce ready made template.

mrutty

Spare box, yes spare PC.

Ah so you don't want to learn mySQL just the one that is loaded on your webspace. Best to get the O'Reilly mmySQL book then. Should help with most things.

Leonie2

thanks, I'll look into that, the web host people recommended that too Very Happy

mrutty

It's the industry standard set of books. Always very well written