Rob Meyerson

Revised and updated sixth edition of the best-selling guide to branding fundamentals, strategy, and process.

It's harder than ever to be the brand of choice―in many markets, technology has lowered barriers to entry, increasing competition. Everything is digital and the need for fresh content is relentless. Decisions that used to be straightforward are now complicated by rapid advances in technology, the pandemic, political polarization, and numerous social and cultural… Show more

Revised and updated sixth edition of the best-selling guide to branding fundamentals, strategy, and process.

It's harder than ever to be the brand of choice―in many markets, technology has lowered barriers to entry, increasing competition. Everything is digital and the need for fresh content is relentless. Decisions that used to be straightforward are now complicated by rapid advances in technology, the pandemic, political polarization, and numerous social and cultural changes.

The sixth edition of Designing Brand Identity has been updated throughout to address the challenges faced by branding professionals today. This best-selling book demystifies branding, explains the fundamentals, and gives practitioners a roadmap to create sustainable and successful brands. With each topic covered in a single spread, the book celebrates great design and strategy while adding new thinking, new case studies, and future-facing, global perspectives.

Organized into three sections―brand fundamentals, process basics, and case studies―this revised edition includes:

- Over 100 branding subjects, checklists, tools, and diagrams
- More than 50 all-new case studies that describe goals, process, strategy, solutions, and results
- New content on artificial intelligence, virtual reality, social justice, and evidence-based marketing
- Additional examples of the best/most important branding and design work of the past few years
- Over 700 illustrations of brand touchpoints
- More than 400 quotes from branding experts, CEOs, and design gurus

Whether you're the project manager for your company's rebrand or you need to educate your staff or students about brand fundamentals, Designing Brand Identity is the quintessential resource. From research to brand strategy, design execution to launch and governance, Designing Brand identity is a compendium of tools for branding success and best practices for inspiration. Show less

Considering changing a company or product name? Stop. Before you jump to conclusions, use this framework to conduct a name assessment and think through your options carefully.

Three guidelines to consider.

What makes a good brand name? Download and use this free name evaluation tool to check evaluate your brand name.

An analysis of what makes some brand names more effective than others

An excerpt from Brand Naming: The Complete Guide to Creating a Name for Your Company, Product, or Service

You don’t have a brand—whether it’s for a company or a product—until you have a name.

The name is one of the first, longest lasting, and most important decisions in defining the identity of a company, product, or service. But set against a tidal wave of trademark applications, mortifying mistranslations, and disappearing dot-com availability, you won’t find a good name by dumping out Scrabble tiles.

Brand Naming details best-practice methodologies, tactics, and advice from the… Show more

You don’t have a brand—whether it’s for a company or a product—until you have a name.

The name is one of the first, longest lasting, and most important decisions in defining the identity of a company, product, or service. But set against a tidal wave of trademark applications, mortifying mistranslations, and disappearing dot-com availability, you won’t find a good name by dumping out Scrabble tiles.

Brand Naming details best-practice methodologies, tactics, and advice from the world of professional naming. You’ll learn:
- What makes a good (and bad) name
- The step-by-step process professional namers use
- How to generate hundreds of name ideas
- The secrets of whittling the list down to a finalist

The most complete and detailed book about naming your brand, Brand Naming also includes insider anecdotes, tired trends, brand origin stories, and busted myths.

Whether you need a great name for a new company or product or just want to learn the secrets of professional word nerds, put down the thesaurus—not to mention Scrabble—and pick up Brand Naming. Show less

Top brand consultancies and naming agencies charge five- or even six-digit fees to develop company names. What’s behind those price tags, and what’s a less expensive approach to finding the perfect name for your company?

Rob Meyerson was struggling to fully grasp some of the assertions in Byron Sharp's books, so he started digging into the underlying scientific research. Here’s what he learned so far.

Should you create a new name for your business or brand or use your personal name? Here are five scenarios in which it makes sense to go with your personal name.

Consider these five reasons to avoid using your personal name and create a new brand name instead.

Getting a client (or your own team, for that matter) to agree on a single brand name is one percent creativity, ninety-nine percent psychology. Maybe that’s an overstatement, but for all the effort that goes into creating names, much of the work of naming is in getting a diverse group of people to select a single, final name. That’s where the naming presentation comes in.

How do some naming experts and agencies consistently produce strategically sound, legally available, and eminently memorable names? I put this question to nine recognized naming experts, including a former head of naming at Google, several owners of specialized naming agencies, a professional trademark pre-screener, and a linguist who helps ensure new brand names are acceptable for global audiences. Based on these interviews, I’ve compiled the following list of nine tips and tools, organized by… Show more

How do some naming experts and agencies consistently produce strategically sound, legally available, and eminently memorable names? I put this question to nine recognized naming experts, including a former head of naming at Google, several owners of specialized naming agencies, a professional trademark pre-screener, and a linguist who helps ensure new brand names are acceptable for global audiences. Based on these interviews, I’ve compiled the following list of nine tips and tools, organized by naming steps. Show less

I conducted 10 in-depth interviews with some of the world's top brand-naming experts. Each one answered similar, specific questions: “What's your process?” “What resources do you use?” “What do you do when you get stuck?”

This article lists five things anyone can learn about how to become a stronger creative professional.

In August 2015, three high-profile events touched on the challenge of legal availability in brand naming. Each case is unique, but together, these stories demonstrate the fact that brand naming is not only a creative exercise, but one also circumscribed by strategic and legal objectives.

As with mind/body dualism, the distinction between the tangible business and the intangible brand is little more than a convenient illusion. For those of us charged with "bringing brands to life," it's a mindset that has outlived its utility.

The Bay area gets a bad rap when it comes to names. No, I’m not talking about your friends’ babies, Namaste and Venture. I’m talking about brand names — especially the names of startups.

Singapore’s mix of ethnicities, cultures and languages makes it an ideal test bed for brand names hoping to appeal to consumers in Asia and around the world.

Many brands operating in China, both foreign and domestic, choose to use two names and sometimes two taglines to represent themselves to Chinese customers: One composed of Chinese characters and another that is alphabet-based, such as an English name and tagline.

China’s economy maintained its fast-paced growth in 2010, overcoming Japan as the second largest economy in the world and continuing a meteoric rise that has seized the world’s attention. Despite undeniable progress, many questions remain when it comes to building businesses and brands in China. How can foreign companies and products gain the affinity of Chinese customers? What will happen to those foreign brands that are (inevitably) acquired with Chinese capital? Why haven’t more Chinese… Show more

China’s economy maintained its fast-paced growth in 2010, overcoming Japan as the second largest economy in the world and continuing a meteoric rise that has seized the world’s attention. Despite undeniable progress, many questions remain when it comes to building businesses and brands in China. How can foreign companies and products gain the affinity of Chinese customers? What will happen to those foreign brands that are (inevitably) acquired with Chinese capital? Why haven’t more Chinese brands “gone global?”

To examine these questions further, Labbrand takes a look back at 2010, and the year’s most interesting, impressive or otherwise noteworthy brand events in China. The list, in no particular order, includes new and old brands, Chinese and foreign. Each listed brand is accompanied by a summary of what happened and why it matters. Show less

Consumer brands are not the only ones that need to tap into emotional connections with the customer. “These connections work for B2B brands, too, because businesspeople—yes, even CFOs, engineers, and procurement personnel—are people too.”