Let your work speak for itself. A fake name (to me) doesn’t translate into dishonesty or deceptive…given the naming challenges I spoke about above.

I like it. My firms name is derived from a greek translation based on the core business, but it’s not easily remembered, and I have struggled with how to not e over looked.

I can’t imagine what you are worried about in the realm of “tricking the public”. Who is it that you are afraid is going to be had? I find it unlikely that someone would hire T&F, pay them good money for an ad campaign, and then upon its completion realize, “Oh crap! This is a cutting-edge motion graphics agency?!?!?! I thought they were doing my taxes!”

I simply don’t understand what the problem is here. Nothing about T&F seems controversial to me. They are a solid company doing solid work. Enough said.

Thanks for your comments– I hadn’t really thought much about the euphony of the name(s)…but considering that now, the name “Keihner, Matz, & Meredith” sounds pretty good to me. It fits the old-fashioned ad agency convention — like “Doyle, Dane & Bernbach” and is easy to smush into just KMM. But that’s a personal preference, and more about the idea of what they ‘could have’ named the agency, rather than about the effects of what they ‘did’ name the agency.

But about the name they did choose– you’re right, the ‘beauty’ both in the sense of the inventiveness and in the sense of the ha-ha joke, would be lost if they named it after real persons who were not the agencies founders, like Lewis & Clark, for example.

But, as a person who appreciates the cleverness of the joke, what do you think about the concern that the joke will grow stale, or the idea that by being intentionally misleading, the name tricks people (assuming that tricking them is not a good thing)? Do you have any thoughts about that as a person who appreciates the creative move of the fake name?

i’d love to hear you take on it. Thanks again! cvh

Whoever said
“Why didn’t the three founders use their own names? What’s so wrong about being Keihner, Matz, & Meredith?”
MUST be kidding.

Have you really overlooked the fact that its beauty would be lost if it stood for something? Can anyone deny the fact that “Thornberg and Forester”, while conveying utterly ironic corporate-ness, also rolls of the tongue?

Such comments made me hesitant about dignifying the post with a response.

However, I cannot help sending a word on the subject to the masterminds of Thornberg & Forester:

Brilliant my dears, simply brilliant.