Vanilla Mist

The poll to choose the name of the company has reached 100 answers. Here are the results:

So, the winner is Essentia Interactive. Loads of thanks to all of you who voted and/or suggested names, commented, etc. I can now sleep again – lol -…well, not really, because now I have a website to build, but this is supposed to be fun, as opposed to the incertainty of which name I should choose, although the process of choosing it with your help ended up being fun too. Thanks!!!

I have registered some domain names, but one of them is strangely pointing to another website and because I have once able to register a domain that was already taken (yeah, true story) I’m still not sure that I own it, but anyway, they are: essentia-interactive.com, essentiainteractive.com and essentia.ws. Don’t go there yet, there’s nothing to see.

Meanwhile, in the backstage, a couple of partnerships were discussed and as soon as I can I will make it official.

Ok, I know I was in business before the name was chosen, but it just feels so good to say it that I will say it anyway:

ESSENTIA INTERACTIVE is open for business!!! Hire me?

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Now, come on people, I need 25 12 10 7 6 3 0 (THANKS!!! ) more votes to have a winner. Essentia is winning but there is still room to Vanilla Interactive, so, please cast your vote here, it’s fast and simple and you’d help me a lot.

Thanks!

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As I wrote in the comments on the previous entry, I am still very confused with all the opinions I got from different sources, so I decided to make new graphics with my top 3 choices, based on all comments and input I received, and made it easy for you to vote – see poll below the images. This is the final voting and unless someone comes up with a name that is really better than these 3, I’ll have a winner when this poll reaches 100 votes. So… Which name do you like better?

[edit] Just to make things a little more interesting (and this comes from some email exchanges with Adam) if someone suggests a better original name and I end up choosing it, I will give them either an original WordPress theme or a simple personal website for free.

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Just a quick note to those of you who emailed me and are waiting for an answer, my inbox is very very full right now, as I have been sick some days. I will answer all emails, just please be patient because I need to prioritize client emails. Thanks!

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Ok, so the naming game goes on and from never having though of using Vanilla Mist as a commercial name I went to actually liking the idea very much. My first choice was Abstraction. No one likes it!!! lol So I dropped this one. Of all the names that were suggested, these are the onnes I like the most – and I made some fake graphics to help me visualize the choices:

Doesn’t Vanilla Interactive sound like the designs are boring and bland as in “plain vanilla”? This is my only issue with this one, if it wasn’t for that, I’d settle for it right away.

Does this one sound like a real agency with credibility?

Doesn’t this sound like “mixed” media when said out loud?

I don’t know what could go along with Essentia…

These seem to be the finalists, as many people liked Vanilla Mist in some form and I’ve had positive responses to Essentia. But it seems like I can find issues with all these names. So, tell me what your impressions are and vote for real!!!

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First I’d like to thank everyone who took the time to help me find a name for my company. The search is not over yet and if you have more ideas, please please post them here. However, I feel that I’m almost there while I’m starting to like the following – and I’d like you to leave a comment and vote on these, please!!!

• Abstraction
• Mist – or vanilla mist, or vanilla: as some people seemed to find Vanilla Mist a valid name for an agency, so, well, it’s not out of question. What do you think about that?
• Savour or Savoury | Savor or Savory – which spelling, btw?
• Flavor (Interactive?) – there s a Web Flavor, though, so maybe this one is not a good idea…
• Essentia : it means “essence” in latin. Does this name sound good?? Or just something that needs to be explined way too much?

And which do you like better to follow the name: interactive, solutions, design, web, any other suggestion? How about words that are made up, don’t mean anything, but sound good?

Again, I haven’t made up my mind yet, I’m still brainstormimg and I don’t have to decide among the above, these are just some of my favorites so far. It’s hard for me to know which names sound good or strange in English, being English my second language. So all of your opinions are greatly appreciated. Even if you can’t suggest a name, telling me how these names sound and if they are appropriate is already of big, big help!!!

All I can say is that when this search is over I’ll finally be able to sleep again! lol So, go ahead and vote, suggest, anything will do – and many thanks in advance!!!

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If these rumors are true, then more people will finally migrate to Yahoo Messenger. I think it’s great!!! I can’t wait!! Why people insist in using MSN Messenger is a mystery to me. I hate the damn thing. For many different reasons, some of which I mentioned in an interview I gave last week to one of the big newspapers in Brasil. Yes, that’s how much I prefer Yahoo Messenger, I am so well known for liking it that I even got interviewd about it.

But honestly, why do people use MSN Messenger? It’s too big and takes a lot of space on screen, it doesn’t allow different status(es?) to different contacts, doesn’t send offline messages or even when you’re under invisible mode, the contact list is cluttered, not even the smilies are half expressive as Yahoo’s – and I could go on and on with reasons for people not to use MSN Messenger, but still it seems like everyone and their brothers use it. And I can’t convince many people to try using Yahoo, so if the above is true and Skype and Yahoo merge into one, I will be a very happy gal.

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I need serious help finding a name for my web development agency. This is the weirdest thing: I have clients and don’t have a name!!!!!!! I’ve been on it for over 6 months and I can’t come up with a name that:

• is creative and strong without losing identity with the industry
• is suitable in 2 different languages at least: Portuguese and English
• has actual meaning in itself but doesn’t sound like a standard over-used name such as “e-solutions”, “liquid-design”, etc…

It’s really hard and being such a perfectioniost I won’t settle for just any name. I don’t know if someday my agency will be very big, but I have to keep this possibility in mind – and this affects how I name it too.

So I gave this some thought and decided to post this to see if any of you guys can give me some ideas, insights, etc…

Here are some guidelines I’m trying to follow:

I can’t have a name that implies I’m just simply a design firm. I do more than that. It’s a multidisciplinary business that involves strategy, information architecture, usability, branding, etc. I also can’t have a name that is easilly pronounceable in english but not in portuguese (and the other way around). Words like “throughout”, “thoughtful”, “world”, “brought” and such won’t do. Names that are “overly creative” like “paint the monkey” or “banana pixels” might be memorable but, well, would you hire someone from “banana pixels”, to make your corporate website? So, you get the idea. I don’t mind having a name that is not self-explanatory as I can always use other words attached to it, such as “interactive” (i.e.: beehive intreractive, where “beehive” implies hard work and “interactive” identifies the type of business), as long as the first word is strong enough, holds some kind of suitable concept and sounds believable and trustworthy as in “I can trust these people with my website”.

So, PLEASE, help me out here if you have any insights or ideas?

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Someone emailed me today about having the sidebar on the left side on Connections. So I inverted the position of the sidebar and the content to see how it looks. I like it this way too. Pretty simple to do, just 2 simple changes in the css. I will change it back soon, but meanwhile, tell me which one you guys prefer. I still like the original beter.

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