Please help me name this business!

Please use the Comments section below to do virtual brainstorming. Explanagraphics is the temporary name of my repurposed business. I don’t like it much, but it will become the permanent name, unless I can friend-source some creativity.

NOTE: don’t overlook the two pages of comments (if you’d like to see others’ thoughts)!

Please poke around this site to get an idea of the services on offer. The target market is both:

  • Marketing/Comunications professionals
  • Software development firms, especially start-ups

Criteria for Selection

Of course, I’m “the decider”… but I highly value input from my peeps.

The biggest limiting factor is that I must get the .com domain name. I won’t settle for something where another owns the obvious domain name, forcing me to settle for .biz, misspelling, or hyphenation. If you have a terrific idea where the domain name is “parked” I’m willing to try to buy it (if it’s available for a budget price).

Word and Phrase Ideas

  • Marketers tend to talk of “visuals,” while geeks speak of “graphics.”
  • I have often said my profession is “explaining.” It seems to cover informative graphics, interactive design, tech writing, classroom teaching and speaking engagements.
  • I tend to like “mash-up” names like Explanagraphics, because they can define the business pretty well. But I think Explanagraphics sounds clunky.

Other Feedback Welcomed

This site is pretty much ready to launch. I’d be happy to get your thoughts — and especially reports of glitches anywhere in the site. Most of the text has not yet been copyedited! If you know my email address, please contact me directly. If not, please use the Contact page.


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42 responses to “Please help me name this business!”

  1. Ron Lunde Avatar
    Ron Lunde

    knowgraphics.com and graphicknowledge.com are both available…

    1. Nancy Avatar
      Nancy

      Knowledge is a good synonym for information — and especially the comprehension of information!

  2. Ron Lunde Avatar
    Ron Lunde

    Also, graphiclear.com and babelgraphics.com (although that may mean something more like translation than understanding)

  3. laura majerus Avatar
    laura majerus

    Graphexplain?
    Graphicvision? (.com is taken though. darn)
    Graphandgetit?
    BasicVisual? (maybe not such a good idea as Microsoft may object)
    Visigrok (hee hee)

    I agree that explanigraphics is clunky. Plus, it’s hard to spell. I had to look back to see whether there was an e or an i in the middle.

    1. Nancy Avatar
      Nancy

      And just to prove that it’s hard to spell, it’s neither an e nor an i! It’s an a (see new content on home page).

      I actually really like visigrok (perhaps as another domain name that points to the same site…)

  4. Nancy Avatar
    Nancy

    Comments from various Facebook friends about the “temporary” name:
    (1) I like ExplanaGraphic – Is it pronounced with a long a or a short a ?
    (2) What does Explana mean?
    (3) That’s a long name for people to remember or pronounce or type into a web address.

    I’ve put an animation on the home page that may help answer (1) and (2)… although it’s likely people will arrive at the site from search or shares — and then they don’t land on the home page.

  5. Andrew Black Avatar
    Andrew Black

    The “obvious” name to me is VisualExplanations. This is very similar to the name of Tufte’s book. The domain name seems to be “parked”. It’s a bit long to type, of course.

    How about VizEx ? It’s short, and the domain name seems to be available.

  6. Nancy Avatar
    Nancy

    Via another channel, Dorian S. offered:

    Naming is fun.. not..
    How about a play on visual, visualize, vivid…
     •  VisualFeast (taken)
     •  Vivigraphics (not taken.. but vividgraphics is)
     •  VisualClarity available
     •  Visualinfo (taken)
    Infofeast
       (available for $1395) (I seem to like the word feast)
    Or is there an animal or other object that connotes what you want to say.. a clear, structured, visual animal… CobraGraphics
    Eh.. fft.

  7. Nancy Avatar
    Nancy

    Via another channel, Ann Marcus offered (names or seed ideas):
    TheBigPicture
    Worth a Thousand Words
    GraphicSynopsis
    InfoGraphica

  8. Jerry Avatar
    Jerry

    visualclarity

    bellegraphics

    Canonicalgraphics

    Crowngraphics

    1. Nancy Avatar
      Nancy

      I’ve been liking the idea of Visual Clarity. But online I found “VISUALCLARITY.COM IS FOR SALE! – $3,388.” Kind of out of my price range. Of course, I could offer them less.

      The domain-name sites that riff on the keywords looked at that and produced a bunch of suggestions relating to optometrists. Makes me realize that my naming process has been somewhat myopic (heh).

  9. Nancy Avatar
    Nancy

    Via another channel, Rich Clem offered:

    GraphUI (pronounced “graff – foo’ – ee”)

    I think this one is meant as a humorous suggestion.

  10. Megan Avatar
    Megan

    I like hand2mouse. Any particular reason you’re ditching it? Also, since the word “infographic” is so overused these days, I can’t help myself…I’ll submit the franken-abominations “defographic” (de-fog…eh? eh?) and “referographic.”

    I also vote for Visigrok. Memorable, short, and sounds like either a Germanic tribe or a subterranean fantasy novel character. Nerd appeal all over the place.

    1. Nancy Avatar
      Nancy

      I kinda talk about the word-overuse problem in another post. But really, the word had a real meaning prior to the deluge, and as recently as 3 years ago I spoke with marketers who didn’t know what it meant.

      hand2mouse is going away because I’ve worked on two GUIs now that are touch screens. No mouses.

  11. Kristl Avatar
    Kristl

    VinfoDesign (visual information design)

    GraphicSense

    InfoSense

    InfoGraphix

    GraphicLandia

    InfoLandia

  12. Stanford Davis Avatar

    Nancy. I am very impressed by your work and business concept.

    Here are a couple of ideas:
     •  seeandknow
     •  concept2visual
     •  visuals2know
     •  visualknowledge
     •  seeitknowit
     •  concept2comprehension

    I thought of seeknow, but it could be see know or seek now. seeKnow?

  13. M. Edward (Ed) Borasky (@znmeb) Avatar

    My personal opinion is that it shouldn’t be anything obvious, because if it is, you’ll never get a trademark, or you’ll have some attorney hounding you, and domain names will cost too much. So you want something memorable and new. For example, one Y-Combinator company that did something with email came up with ‘Xobni’ – “Inbox” spelled backwards.

    How about just ‘xplana’ – is that in existence in some form on the Internet?

    1. M. Edward (Ed) Borasky (@znmeb) Avatar

      Never mind … xplana.com exists and is huge.

  14. Gayle Avatar
    Gayle

    Hmm, I responded earlier but don’t see my post. I’ll try to recap…

    I like Visigrok. I had thought of Visigraphics before I saw that, but it’s taken. And Visigrok is super geeky cool and makes a lot of sense.

    Another possibility: Clarigraphics

    (can’t remember what else I had in previous post attempt…sorry!)

    1. Nancy Avatar
      Nancy

      I’ve always used “grok” and I’ve always found someone in every crowd who has never heard of it. So it’s risky. And (thinking out loud, here) will marketers be attracted to a nerdy-sounding name? My friends are, but then my friends are… 😉

  15. Holly Chamberlain Avatar
    Holly Chamberlain

    I like Graphic Knowledge even though a bit long. Easy to say and easy to write. For mashups, I also like GraphicSynopsis, InfoGraphica, and GraphicSense because they seem interesting and yet easy to write and say.

  16. Daniel PC Avatar

    Nancy,

    I really like your site. It’s clean and fast and I like the color choices. I actually really like several of the names mentioned above by Stanford (concept2visual) and Kristl (GraphicSense and InfoSense). Those names seem accessible and make sense and are reasonably memorable – and professional sounding.

    Another way of thinking about information is that it wants to be KNOWN or…UNDERSTOOD. Then you don’t have to wade through the painful process of explaining. The best visuals just say it.

    1. Nancy Avatar
      Nancy

      Fast? Wow. All them thar graphics are 24-bit PNGs, not known for being small!

      Hmm. Maybe I should change my footer from “information just wants to be explained” to “information just wants to be understood”…. (sounds like the plea of a lonely soul!)

  17. James Perkins Avatar
    James Perkins

    Seeitknowit
    Useeituknowit
    Useeuknow
    Graphiche (capiche?)
    See2know
    Viewknow
    Businesses
    Graspicartist
    Graspicart
    Graspic

  18. Nancy Avatar
    Nancy

    Via another channel, Mike Freiling offered:

    Viewnique – but it appears to be linked to another domain, so I assume it’s already owned.

    Graspix – play on “grasp” (as in understand), “pix” (as in visuals), and “graphics”. Does not appear to be owned.

    [ed. note: He had not seen James’s suggestions, below. Apparently their brains are somewhat similar.]

  19. Marlin Avatar
    Marlin

    expligrafix

    expligrafik
    vizwiz
    (domain parked tho)
    expliviz
    dynamaviz

  20. John Wirsig Avatar
    John Wirsig

    LetsMakeThisClear.com is available

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