Design and Designer Names

Name: Your name is an extension of your design and it can reinforce your value by providing a mental shortcut for your prospective customers and clients to remember and differentiate your design among all other designs. Name is not how your design is addressed; what we refer as Name is the Private – Unique set of letters that point your design specifically. Name is personal, and should desirably be unique, original and creative.  The name does not make sense without a specific binding to an idea. If you would think your mind as a big network of ideas, think the name like a unique way that goes to your very specific design idea. Example Names: Galactica, Cyberdyne, Tardis etc.

Primary Function: Function is usually a noun, sometimes a noun and a verb construct; a very small, usually a single word sentence that explains what your design is. What we call as Function is the archetype general category of similar products that your design also fits into. Again, when we think our mind as a network of ideas, you could think function as a crossroads; it connects many unique ways together, helping us categorize and easily classify ideas. Example Functions: GPS Receiver, Computing System, Electric Vehicle etc.
Naming a design is highly important as it helps your product being discoverable and memorable. Ideally, a good name should be easy to pronounce and communicate, but of course it must also be able to different enough to be remembered. Furthermore you need to know one more concept which we call the Addressing.

Addressing: Addressing is what we say when we talk about your design; basically we put together and concatenate Name and Primary Function; when both Name and Primary Function comes together, you both give a specific meaning to your design but also help the audience quickly understand what your design is; examples: Galactica GPS Receiver, Cyberdyne Computing System, Tardis Electric Vehicle etc; here you do not need to think much about what Galactica, Cyberdyne or Tardis is about, the Primary Function that is amended to the name, helps create a direct mental connection to your specific design project.

Importance of Editorial Perspective
You are highly suggested, and in some cases required to use the Editorial Perspective for your texts that you provide to A' Design Award. When you use editorial perspective any press member could simply integrate your text into their articles without paraphrasing or changing perspective (from first or second person to third person). Thus it is important to prepare all text in Editorial Perspective. Furthermore, our case studies and focus group tests show that Editorial Perspective texts could be translated much easier, faster and with more accuracy. Since A’ Design Award & Competition translates most award winning entries to dozens of languages, using Editorial Perspective is highly relevant and important when typing in your text.

Common Naming Mistakes & Issues
You need to double check that your Yearbook and Profile Name is correct and compliant with presentation guidelines as well as our terms and conditions. The following rules and suggestions shall be considered valid suggestions for all Designer Names, Company Names and Design Names.

1. When typing names, Title Case shall be used. (no) DO NOT USE NAME SURNAME ALL CAPS. (no) do not use name surname all lowercase. (no) Do NoT uSe NaMe SuRnAmE StRaNgE CaSe. (no) Do not use only first letter uppercase such as Name surname. (no) Do not use Name SURNAME where SURNAME is uppercase. (no) Do Not Use PARtial case such as NAme SURname,
2. Use Title Case Only: Name Surname. Company Names should also be Title Case, and of course Design Names should also be Title Case. Such as Design Name Primary Function.
3. There should Not be any “quotation marks” in the names, also bracelets and other types of seperators.
4. Use Name Surname as Name Surname only, do not type it as Name, Surname (comma in between) or N. Surname or Name SURNAME or NameSurname or Name-Surname or any other way, such as Name S.
5. Name should Not include titles of any kind, including but not limited to titles of nobility or academics; Do not Type King, Queen, Prince, Princess, Duke, Duchess, Marquess, Marchioness, Earl, Countess, Viscount, Viscountess, Baron, Baroness or Your Excellency. Do not type Professor, Doctor, Designer, Research Assistant, PhD etc. either. Do not include Mr. Ms. Mrs. Miss. Or similar sex or marriage status indicators as well as honorofics such as Your Majesty, Your Royal Highness or Your Highness. Do not use religious titles, do not use formal titles, do not use common titles of any kind.
6. Names should Not contain ASSOCIATION MEMBERSHIP information.
7. Do not type trademark sign, registered mark, copyright icon or any other mark signs in your name. Exception: Officially Trademarked Products could use TM sign if it is displayed correctly in generated files.
8. There should be a space between Name and Surname, we especially notice some participants type NameSurname, this is not okay.
9. For Designer names, do not use only Surname, use Name Surname.
10. Do Not include special characters such as !@#$-+{}[]()#_~  in your name, you should not be including any special characters. Exception to this rule is when your name actually contains a hyphen.
11. Use Only Latin Alphabet A to Z; do not use foreign languages that require double byte Unicode characters for their representation. This is a techical requirement for news syndication and content distribution.
12. Do Not repeat your name such as Name Surname – Name Surname Design Co.
13. If you have multiple people in your team you can type Name Surname, Name Surname, Name Surname & Name Surname. Here before the last name, the “&” is needed.
14. You can use a team name as well, such as Team Designstar as an example, however you cannot use something like Name Surname, Name Surname – Team Designstar, either use only name or only team but not both.
15. Professional and Young Account holders cannot type Company Names.
16. Try not to include any other information in Names, especially Location of Architectural Projects, Material of Products, or other information such as Patent Pending and similar.
17. Do not include university name as part of your own names.
18. Make sure Company Name or Designer Name is not mentioned in the Design Name.
19. Do Not include postal addresses in your Designer or Company Name.
20. Do Not include URLs or LINKS in names, exception for website and branding designs only.
21. Do Not include EMAIL in names.
22. Do Not include Function as part of the Design Name. Type only the special - privatename, not description or type. For example type Name but not Name Function.
23. If you have to mention Name Surname as well as Company Name, use the following convention: Name Surname – Company Name
24. When using three names use the following structure: Name Surname, Name Surname & Name Surname
25. When using four or more names, do not use four or more names; instead make up a team name or mention the principle designer only or design director name only.
26. Do not swap & (ampersand) with and (long form of &), minus(-), plus(+) or dash(–) or bar(|) or slash (\). When using two names, use only ampersand (&) in between.
27. If Two Companies Collaborated, then instead of using long form Company Name collaboration with Company Name, use Company Name & Company Name instead.
28. If your Design Name or Name is in a language other than English, choose only your native name or the English version name but do not use both.
29. Do not write a sentence and finish it with a dot for the Design Name.
30. Do not explain what company is about next to Company Name.
31. Do not type your job in the Designer Name section.
32. Occasionally, we have false positives, if you think you do not have any of the issues above you do not need to take any action.
33. Do not use abbreviations in naming, provide full names. We usually assume N.S. as a Company or Brand Name rather than shorthand for Name Surname.
34. If your name is Name Surname and if what your company does is Design, when you put your name and surname together, it becomes a Brand Name; which is no longer representing you; it represents your Company; Therefore remember that your name is not Name Surname Design  or Name Surname Architects or Name Surname Engineers or Name Surname Manufacturers.
35. Finally we wish to especially point out to naming in relation to account types; Young, Academic and Professional Account Types cannot use Company or Brand Names in their design presentations because we engage in positive price discrimination; we make big brands pay more, and students and professionals pay less; unlike other design awards the difference in participation fee is not a mere 10 percent, but up to 1000 percent; at A’ Design Award it costs 10 times more for a company to join than a young designer, this is how we subsidize the entries of young designers and professionals, and to be able to do, we check the Profile Names, Certificate Names, Yearbook and Poster Names. Remember that we consider Name Surname as an individual, thus eligible for Professional, Academic or Young account type depending on age. However, Name Surname Design is a design agency or brand, eligible only for Agency or Enterprise account type.