{"id":924,"date":"2009-09-04T21:11:09","date_gmt":"2009-09-04T21:11:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chocobeam.me\/playground\/2009\/09\/word-sound-design\/"},"modified":"2009-09-04T21:11:09","modified_gmt":"2009-09-04T21:11:09","slug":"word-sound-design","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/2009\/09\/word-sound-design\/","title":{"rendered":"Word sound design"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font face=\"Arial\">   <\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Chocobeam\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/18828270@N00\/3882979312\/\"><img border=\"0\" alt=\"Chocobeam\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2607\/3882979312_fc5a800107.jpg\" \/><\/a>       <br \/><em>Chocobeam Sound Lab. The beginning.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>So I founded my company and called it Chocobeam (Sound Lab). I find that it\u2019s interesting to come out with a word to imagine a name because at some point, it\u2019s <strong>pure sound<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>When you hear the name of something, the brain converts audio to words to meaning. So the audio layer comes on first, even if it\u2019s for a micromillisecond so you are not even noticing it (because the meaning is really what the brain is searching for). <\/p>\n<p>Anyway this sound is what people are sharing and spreading by <strong>word of mouth<\/strong> about you, first. It also can be repeated in the case of a success, billion times everywhere. You\u2019d better sound good when there\u2019s competition, it can make a difference.<\/p>\n<p>So my references are for most of them japanese: <strong>Nintendo<\/strong>, <strong>Capcom<\/strong>, <strong>Konami<\/strong>, <strong>Softbank<\/strong> etc or from the web and computer world: <strong>Twitter<\/strong>, <strong>Vimeo<\/strong>, <strong>Amazon<\/strong>, <strong>Google<\/strong>.. What I found is that:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>They are easy to say for a lot of people around the world. Of course based on english. <\/li>\n<li>Contraction of two words (<strong>Cap<\/strong>sule <strong>Com<\/strong>puter seriously, it\u2019s genius) works good. I personally find that it\u2019s better to have a cool name that having a perfect description of the service\/product. <\/li>\n<li>Three syllables is always a win because it\u2019s like a story: there\u2019s a start, a middle and and end. People love stories. <strong>UPS<\/strong> sounds finished, <strong>Fedex<\/strong> not much. Two syllables is dangerous, too fast for people to remember it and after three, the more you have the more it\u2019s boring to say. The more you have, the more you can describe and give meaning though. It still often sounds boring or pompous. <\/li>\n<li>People need to be able to read it and pronounce it well at first try. Super not easy. I remember the first time I heard about Nintendo I thought it was hard to say. And weird to read. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>With that in mind, considering my values and what my business is about, I came to <strong>Chocobeam<\/strong>. Sounds cute (<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Chocobo\" target=\"_blank\">Chocobo<\/a> anyone?) and kind of edgy even pronounced ala fran\u00e7aise (without the Ch dynamic).&#160; Some people just want to read Chocobean but I can\u2019t do nothing for them. Get back to school? Kidding.<\/p>\n<p>The meaning is quite simple: contraction of chocolate and beam, chocolate being me and the beam being my audio. Be kind, to get this brainstorm done I almost had a phlebitis.<\/p>\n<p>Beam has two others meaning though: in french beam is \u201cbim\u201d and it kind of reminds me of the slang in the suburbs of Paris. <em>\u201cBIM! dans ta sale face l\u00e0\u00e0\u00e0!\u201d <\/em>meaning <em>\u201cBAM! motherfucker\u201d,<\/em> adding a comics-related and active sound while reminding me where I come from.<\/p>\n<p>BEAM is also an acronym and means <strong>B<\/strong>iology, <strong>E<\/strong>lectronics, <strong>A<\/strong>esthetics and <strong>M<\/strong>echanics (<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/BEAM_robotics\" target=\"_blank\">BEAM robotics<\/a>). I think it fits well my work in the interactive design and computer games field.<\/p>\n<p>Looking at that sometime I really believe that how the name of your service\/brand\/product sounds has a big impact. I <a href=\"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/audio-games\/design-de-mots\/\" target=\"_blank\">wrote about it<\/a> two years ago when there was so much web 2.0 services with stupid names. Who made it through time? None with weird silly sounding names and difficult pronunciation. <strong>Facebook<\/strong> fits my points above. Three-four syllables, good dynamic between consonant and sibilant, easy to say around the world, easy to write and have some meaning (and humor). Instant interest, instant good feeling. Perfect.<\/p>\n<p>Counter example: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aka-aki.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Aka-Aki<\/a>. The service is interesting and promising. The name is awful. Freaking not appealing at all. It sounds complicated. It sounds boring (\u201ccan you spell it to me?\u201d), you can\u2019t hardly get it the first time you hear it (and I had to search the web to be sure of how it\u2019s written even if I already was aware of his existence!). It\u2019s like people creating this service found that it was a fun and cool name. It\u2019s already killing them outside Germany where they are quite successful.<\/p>\n<p>If you want some consulting on this issue, if you need advices to help you find the timeless name of your product, brand, application, feel free to send an email at <a href=\"mailto:info@chocobeam.com\">info@chocobeam.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p> <\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chocobeam Sound Lab. The beginning. So I founded my company and called it Chocobeam (Sound Lab). I find that it\u2019s interesting to come out with a word to imagine a name because at some point, it\u2019s pure sound. When you hear the name of something, the brain converts audio to words to meaning. So the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/924"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/924\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}