What’s in a name? A lot, actually. Or not enough. Or maybe, if you’re lucky, nothing much. That’s when you know you’ve got a good imagination.
I can hear you asking: Anni, what the heck are you talking about?
I’m talking about pen names. Store names. Art studio names. Blog names. If you’ve ever had to invent one, you know how difficult it can be. Sometimes the perfect name hits you suddenly and you KNOW you’ve got to use it. This has never happened to me, of course, but I’ve heard it’s possible. No, I don’t get those sudden bursts of inspiration. It takes me MONTHS to come up with something I like.
Take this blog name, for example. After a few weeks of writing down anything that came to mind, I had all kinds of ideas for a new name; so many that they filled up three pages in Microsoft Word. 3 pages! But when I started to fine tune them, I found out – yes, you guessed it – the domain had already been taken. So “Anni’s Pencil” wasn’t my first choice, but at least it was available.
For the last two months, I’ve been ruminating on a studio name. Many of the online artists that I follow highly recommend using your own name or a studio name for your professional work. It makes sense because if you ever want to sell or create a business around your art you’ll need to have a professional web presence. And one tip I picked up was that most of the older artists wished they’d established theirs sooner rather than later.
So I’ve been trying to narrow down the possibilities. It isn’t easy for me. My portfolio is already listed under my full name, but I think my name is way too long to be acceptable for a future business. My thinking process kind of went along these lines:
First, I tossed around ideas that use the format “Blah Blah Studio”, trying to find names that were applicable to me in some way. Smoky Mountains Studio? Appalachian Art Studio? East Tennessee Art Studio?
Not acceptable. They’re just as long as my name, and besides that I have absolutely no enthusiasm for them.
Next, I started researching all kinds of geographical trivia that might work. I learned a lot about my little area of the country, but nothing stood out for a business name. Ridge and Valley Studio sounded like something an oil painter would like.
Then I tried finding something related to nature. Ideas like Blue Moon Studio, and Wild Rabbit Studio (because we have a lot of rabbits living around us), and Skunk Hollow Studio (yep, we have skunks here too!) came to mind.
Uh-uh. Didn’t like those much either. They seem more related to arts and crafts than fine art. Too bad I’m not into stained glass!
Then I asked Google for some ideas.. Some suggestions that came up included
- use a number (17 Studio? No ring to it.)
- Include your favorite flower (yeah, right…try to find one that doesn’t have the domain name taken!)
- Use an animal that means something to you, like your spirit animal. Yes, well, have you ever realized how many artists think koi are meaningful? How about dragons, lions, or butterflies?
I guess there are so many obvious ideas out there and so many people who’ve already had first choice of a domain name that I’m just too late to the party.
Finally, I decided to take a look at the web pages of artists I admire. Many of them use the formula ‘Surname Fine Art’ as their business name. That’s fine if no one else has your surname but it doesn’t work for me. Then I looked at Lisa Clough’s web site. She uses a mixup of her name and her sister’s name to make “Lachri Fine Art”.
BINGO!
I love this idea, and once I saw it I started mixing up letters of my own name. Soon, I had several possibilities. I tried them out on my family first. The winners then were taken to the test…how many of those were already taken for domain names?
It turned out that two of my favorites were unavailable. I could’ve still used them as .net or .something else, but I really wanted .com!
My final choice was actually a mistake. I was typing the chosen name “anizifineart.com” into the web page for purchase, but I accidentally typed “anizafineart.com” instead, and bought it! Aniza instead of Anizi. Not a big difference, but technically Ani Zi is more representative of my name than Ani Za.
Ah, well, sometimes really good things come from accidental typos. I actually think I like Aniza Fine Art better, now that I’m living with it. Maybe it was a Freudian slip?
And now I have a studio name! (Just in case I ever need one.)
Now, if I only had some ideas for what to do with it!?!
originally posted at annettezimmerman.com (Anni’s Pencil)
