Naming is the hardest part of our work, and the part most founders want to rush.
We do not rush. A name is a promise. The brand has to keep it for the rest of its life. Every email, every door, every conversation. The name is in the room before the founder is.
Three tests we use
1. Can you whisper it across a quiet restaurant and feel it land?
2. Will it still feel right in ten years, when the brand is twice as big?
3. Does it leave room for the brand to grow into it, rather than collapse around it?
Sanct passed all three. Mei Market is older than the name we gave it. After Service tells you exactly what it is and refuses to apologize. Studio Reverie sounds like a place you would lower your voice in.
If the name doesn't pass all three, we do not move on. We sit with it. Sometimes for weeks. That is part of the work.