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Week / Day 3 · Fri Aug 7 / Name it, mark it: names + logos
Studio · taught

Name it, mark it: names + logos

A name that survives the four tests and a logo that works tiny, both locked before lunch.

Open this session's deck →
9:15
start
40m
duration
2
exercises
3
things you leave with
Welcome

Until now your product has had a working name. In the next forty minutes you storm real ones, put each through four brutal tests, and generate a logo that still reads at the size of a fingernail. At noon you lock the name; after that, nobody relitigates it.

You walk out with
✓A locked name that passed four tests
✓A logo that works at fingernail size
✓Name + logo applied to the landing page before the role-split
Why this session exists

A name is the first thing every stranger, judge, and parent meets, and the logo is what they remember. Founders who lock these fast get an afternoon of production; founders who debate them lose the day.

The arc, minute by minute
9:15
Three ways names get made: describe it, invent it, borrow a metaphor
9:22
The four tests: phone test, spell test, playground test, search test
9:28
The name-storm prompt: 20 names, four styles, tested
9:35
Logos: one idea, works tiny; the logo prompt with your design-system adjective
9:43
Storm, test, shortlist 3 names + 3 logo candidates; lock by lunch
Exercises
01
The name storm
Run the prompt, add your own, kill everything that fails a test. Shortlist of 3 on the table.
02
The logo run
Three logo generations for your top name: flat vector, your adjective, single color background. Pick the one that survives being tiny.
prompt · give this to the room verbatim
My product: [thesis]. Give me 20 name candidates in four styles: descriptive, invented word, metaphor, and two-word combo. For each: say it in a sentence, then score it against these tests: easy to say on the phone, easy to spell after hearing it once, cannot be mocked by a 13-year-old, and unlikely to collide with a famous brand. Rank the top 5 with one-line reasons.
Tools in play
Claude or ChatGPTIdeogram or MidjourneyKimi Code
Materials to prep
Design-system style cards on desks
The checkpoint · nothing counts unless it is live
At 12:15 lunch: one name, one logo, already on the live URL.
The handoff · what the next session assumes
Leave withShortlist of 3 names + 3 logo candidates on the table
DecidedLocked by lunch; after that nobody relitigates
Bring nextThe 11:45 build block puts name + logo + landing page live at your URL
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