Julie, I have to admit, you’re missing the point of the whole article, and am surprised to see such an obvious obfuscatory & sycophantic response take the place of serious discussion. After all, the blog is entitled “authenticorganizations”; I couldn’t think of a better place to discuss this subject matter.

You should google “straw-man argument” because what you’re doing is side-stepping the discussion and cutting it short when you feel pressed to explain yourself. Julie, the idea here is to discuss the authenticity of a intentionally fake-name. The defense that it was strongly considered evaporates when you yourself claim that we are giving it more thought than even they intended for it to have.

I have a feeling that you’ve never been faced with the choice of having to name a company. It’s usually either a very thought-out process, with a deep multi-tiered weeding out of potential candidate names, or as you imply, a name chosen on a whim, with not much story behind it.

As it stands, you aren’t a very convincing advocate for their name, and arren’t arguing effectively. When I hear their name it it grates on me for its trying too hard attempt at being clever. If they wanted to open a law firm, then they should have opened a law firm.

As it stands there is confusion about what they do as a company. Are they an advertising company? Are they a design firm? Are they a production company, live-action, post, animation, vfx? All of the above? What exactly are they?

Not sure, but the name doesn’t exactly help their story get developed one bit. Their tagline Design is Law sounds like they lean towards the design firm ethos. They are represented by Bernstein & Andrulli, an artist management agency. Now it sounds like they are an artist collective. They aren’t listed as a member of the AAAA (American Association of Advertising Agencies). They are however, listed under the AICP (Association of Independent Commercial Producers), and in that listing, they list they services as Design, Animation and 3D for all platforms.

Wow, pretty confusing, isn’t it? Why would the author of this article get confused by labeling them an advertising agency? Who knows, but a sneaking suspicion leans towards their name as a culprit.

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.