Naming a "brand"

Greenberg Woods

Greenberg Woods

Joined
Dec 27, 2013
Messages
2,694
Hey guys, it been getting to the point where I am selling enough knives I feel i should start making a logo and such. Im in the middle of building an etching machine "anyone who has not, radio shack parts are SUPER cheap, so go fast!", but I am trying to come up with a name.

I know Laurence is Rhino Customs because of the large, tough slightly Rhino hornesqe knives. I dont have such a pronounced style, I guess you could call it a blend? most of my knives are a little Japanese and a little German/ Russian. So far i have been considering Typhoon forge and Tsunami Knives, seeing as i dont have a very "catchy" name to add custom to.

A little generic but as i figured out this is harder than i thought. Really any advice or even how you guys chose your name would be a big help. Thanks guys
 
hellspawn415 said:
I don't know. I just don't feel like "Ben Greenberg Customs" has much of a ring to it.
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The customer will already associate your name with your work, make it easy on them to find you without having another name.
I bet you could rattle off 10, 20, maybe even 50 or 100 maker's names - not too many using other business names.


A brand should be specific, memorable, identifiable, unique.




SOG is already using Tsunami
 
Here is my take on names. I think if you have employees working for you and you are putting out production level knives then a "designed" name is probably the way to go. This is because the name represents the efforts of more than one person and you are trying to get knives out the door and draw in a certain type of audience with a cool name. On the other hand, if you are the sole proprietor and make all the knives yourself start to finish, use your own name or initials. If the work you do is not production based but one-at-a-time, handmade, sweat the details, get it as perfect as you can, heirloom quality work then you want those things associated with your name. To me, a knife with a person's name on it says that person is proud of that work and stands behind it.
 
hellspawn415 said:
Hey guys, it been getting to the point where I am selling enough knives I feel i should start making a logo and such. Im in the middle of building an etching machine "anyone who has not, radio shack parts are SUPER cheap, so go fast!", but I am trying to come up with a name.

I know Laurence is Rhino Customs because of the large, tough slightly Rhino hornesqe knives. I dont have such a pronounced style, I guess you could call it a blend? most of my knives are a little Japanese and a little German/ Russian. So far i have been considering Typhoon forge and Tsunami Knives, seeing as i dont have a very "catchy" name to add custom to.

A little generic but as i figured out this is harder than i thought. Really any advice or even how you guys chose your name would be a big help. Thanks guys
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I named my business after the brown recluse spider. I did this for three reasons. 1. I did it as a PSA so folks can learn to recognize the relcuse. 2. That spider infests my grandads farm where I spent all my summers growing up. 3. The recluse is a southern creature, and I liked that.

I don't believe in naming the brand after your own name as is the common opinion of knifemakers. I wanted to create a recognizable brand and still keep my name seperated. I just released a production line, and can't imagine having it named Andy Roy Production Knives rather than Fiddleback Forge. Lastly, someday I'd like to be able to sell my business, and how do you do that with your name attached? What about t-shirts? You're going to have folks wearing shirts with your name on them? Beer coozies that say your name? Branding your name seems iffey to me. I'd rather keep mine off the branding material. YMMV.
 
i4Marc said:
I think if you have employees working for you and you are putting out production level knives then a "designed" name is probably the way to go.

This is because the name represents the efforts of more than one person and you are trying to get knives out the door and draw in a certain type of audience with a cool name.

On the other hand, if you are the sole proprietor and make all the knives yourself start to finish, use your own name or initials.

If the work you do is not production based but one-at-a-time, handmade, sweat the details, get it as perfect as you can, heirloom quality work then you want those things associated with your name.

To me, a knife with a person's name on it says that person is proud of that work and stands behind it.
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That's a really good response



Fiddleback said:
I don't believe in naming the brand after your own name as is the common opinion of knifemakers.

I wanted to create a recognizable brand and still keep my name seperated.

I just released a production line, and can't imagine having it named Andy Roy Production Knives rather than Fiddleback Forge.

Lastly, someday I'd like to be able to sell my business, and how do you do that with your name attached? What about t-shirts? You're going to have folks wearing shirts with your name on them? Beer coozies that say your name? Branding your name seems iffey to me. I'd rather keep mine off the branding material. YMMV.
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Busse

Randall made knives

Ek knives

Grohmann knives


they all made the transition
It's rare that someone reaches that level, but the name seems to be able to allow that
 
Who are the makers that you really admire? Do you want to make knives or do you want to start a company that makes knives?
 
Fiddleback said:
I named my business after the brown recluse spider. I did this for three reasons. 1. I did it as a PSA so folks can learn to recognize the relcuse. 2. That spider infests my grandads farm where I spent all my summers growing up. 3. The recluse is a southern creature, and I liked that.

I don't believe in naming the brand after your own name as is the common opinion of knifemakers. I wanted to create a recognizable brand and still keep my name seperated. I just released a production line, and can't imagine having it named Andy Roy Production Knives rather than Fiddleback Forge. Lastly, someday I'd like to be able to sell my business, and how do you do that with your name attached? What about t-shirts? You're going to have folks wearing shirts with your name on them? Beer coozies that say your name? Branding your name seems iffey to me. I'd rather keep mine off the branding material. YMMV.
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Exactly... I've had this same headache myself and decided to go with an anagram of my last name for a couple reasons. For one, I figured the same thing as well.. not much ring to Royce Roberts custom knives. Sounds more like a porn star name than something associated with cutlery, and the last thing i want is to have T-shirts with my name on them, especially if someday i make a buisness out of it... doubly so if i ever sell it off and the new owner starts making things I don't like. The other thing that kind of kept me off my own name is that in this day and age, i don't really want to have my name and face out there for people to search, and my job frowns upon people being in the public and social media drawing attention for one reason or another, so i decided to make it simple and not use it. I am into the headache now of making the logo as well, which is harder than i imagined, as with most of us my OCD prevents me from being satisfied with something that's just OK.

Best of luck

Royce
 
hellspawn415 said:
I dont know. I just dont feel like "Ben Greenberg Customs" has much of a ring to it.
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Greenberg isn't a bad name actually. It's distinctive. From your post I assumed your name was Smith, Johnson, etc. Throw things after it until something rings right... Greenberg Forge, Greenberg Bladeworks, etc...
 
I just went through the same thing myself and decided on using my last name with my first initial. I think your name has a good ring to it. Greenberg Customs, Greenberg Knives etc.

It could be worse, in the service I'd heard of a Private Private and knew a Sergeant Sargent. Just be glad your last name isn't Custom!
 
lessismore said:
I just went through the same thing myself and decided on using my last name with my first initial. I think your name has a good ring to it. Greenberg Customs, Greenberg Knives etc.

It could be worse, in the service I'd heard of a Private Private and knew a Sergeant Sargent. Just be glad your last name isn't Custom!
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yep, I personally know a captain power (nope, not the guy from the tv show) a Sargent Major (major being his last name) and a corporal punishment... lol. I agree, Greenberg customs aint bad. that's distinctive. I already know of a few knives marked Roberts... hard to narrow it down to mine that way.
 
One thought i just had was GreenBerg blades below some mountains. Greenberg literally translates as "the green mountains"
 
hellspawn, in the spirit of jumping on a good deal, what all should one buy from radio shack that goes into an entry level etching system?
 
J. Hoffman said:
Who are the makers that you really admire? Do you want to make knives or do you want to start a company that makes knives?
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I want to make knives. Im 18 and plan to go into metallurgy, so this is a lot of thing to me. Its a good source of income and part of how i will be paying for college, Its incredibly calming and I love making knives, and its also my experience. Lots people get degrees but if i have the degree and experience working metal that is worth so much more. Im a big fan of Laurence's very unique style, Haslinger is very interesting, and so are Nick Wheelers. I hate to be "that guy" but i also like the nice curves in stuff like Murray carters knives.
 
Uhurungus said:
hellspawn, in the spirit of jumping on a good deal, what all should one buy from radio shack that goes into an entry level etching system?
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http://chriscrawfordknives.com/#/electro-etching-unit/4535265119 this is for the etching unit. I do some small electronics for other projects so i but assorted stuff, but the electro etching peice is great. Ferric chloride is always nice to have if you want to make damascus or simply do an etched finish. I also advise some good rated hook up wire. YOu never know when you will need it.
 
zhyla said:
Greenberg isn't a bad name actually. It's distinctive. From your post I assumed your name was Smith, Johnson, etc. Throw things after it until something rings right... Greenberg Forge, Greenberg Bladeworks, etc...
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Oh, you mean like Chris and Jones like me? :eek:

Chris
 
I'm still a newbie in the scheme of things and have currently only used an acronym of my initials in the shape of a horse head.
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....BUT, I am currently looking to change that. How would someone google search for me? How would anyone be able to find out who I am at all unless they already knew me? I need to play around with things a bit. What I would like to do is use that symbol for the capital "J" and follow it with "ones" to spell out Jones. But I need to figure out if I can even make that legible enough to work or not. I very well may end up having to use my name.

I did just receive my leather stamp in the mail today. It has my name across the top, town across the bottom with my horse head symbol in the center.

Chris
 
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