Let’s address the elephant in the room: fonts are not fonts! What we usually refer to as a font, is actually a typeface. But what is a typeface? A typeface (or font-family) is a set of characters (letters, numbers, punctuation symbols, etc.), which have a uniform style. A typeface is made up of one or several fonts, which are variations of the same typeface. These variations can be in terms of:

• Size
• Weight (a bold text has greater weight that a regular one)
• Slope (italics are a variation, and so are bold italics)
• Width (the same typeface may have variations in terms of character or glyph width, leading to the so-called condensed fonts). The Univers typeface is such an example. You can see a specimen in font.download (scroll down to Variants).

For the remainder of this post, I’ll focus on weight and slope.

Let’s talk about typeface weight…

We’ll look at an evolution of the typeface that I’m using for headings in this website, Source Serif 4. It’s available on Google Fonts.

The screenshot shows some variations of the Source Serif 4 typeface in terms of its weight. From top to bottom, the weights are 200 (ExtraLight), 400 (Regular), and 800 (ExtraBold). There are more available. So, as you can see, a typeface can have several weights, not just two (bold and regular) as we are used to seeing in text editors. 

… and now let’s look at the typeface’s slope

In the image below we can see two specimens, with the same weight, but with different slope. The top one is in normal or roman, and the bottom one is in italics.

Note that the italic glyphs are actually different from the normal or non-italic (the letter a is quite different). This is why it’s important to choose a typeface that includes italics, if you wish to use them in your text. Web browsers can simulate italics if they are not included in the typeface (in this case they are called oblique or faux-italics), but the results will not look as good as with a dedicated italic variation. See an example below.

Given the same typeface, it clearly shows the difference between the normal style, the real italics, and the faux-italics or oblique. For the latter, the glyphs from the normal style have just been slanted.

Let’s combine the variations!

This screenshot from Google Fonts shows various combinations of different weights and slopes in Source Serif 4. The more available weights, the more combination of styles you’ll be able to use.

Before ending the post, I’d like to briefly talk about variable typefaces. Variable typefaces are a step forward in flexibility, as they allow you to manually adjust their weight, slant and/or width within a certain range. So instead of having fixed weights such as 200 (ExtraLight) or 400 (Regular), it’s possible to use values such as 203 or 350. The same applies to the slant and the width. As a result, they give you more control over their visuals. However, not all typefaces may be variable in all these features. For example, Source Serif 4 only has variable weight.

If you’re interested in reading more about variable fonts, Elliot Jay Stocks has written an article for Google Fonts, which includes examples of variable fonts.

Featured image credits: Sprinter_Lucio at Pixabay.

The post Typography Concepts: Typefaces vs. Fonts appeared first on Dandelium Studio.

In general, WordCamps include talks which cater to various levels of experience using WordPress. For example, in WordCamp Barcelona, there were three different tracks: the main one, a beginner’s track, and the advanced one. So even if you are just a WordPress user, there may be a talk for you. 

Background

WordCamps take place all over the world. After attending WordCamp Santa Clarita virtually in 2021, I decided that if a WordCamp took place near me, I’d attend it. And so when WordCamp Barcelona was announced,  I looked at the call for speakers, and decided to submit a proposal for a presentation.

Despite being a newcomer in the community, my proposal was accepted. I was very happy when I received the confirmation email. 

My Talk

Because of my love of languages and since this website is in Catalan, Spanish and English, I thought it would be interesting to share some insights and provide some tips for creating and running a multilingual website. Moreover, since Catalonia is a bilingual region, probably many website owners will probably face the decision of whether or not to have a website in several languages.

Bearing this in mind, I structured the talk into the following points: 

• Introduction and goals
• Plugins that we can use to create a multilingual website
• Among these, a comparison between Polylang and TranslatePress, which have free versions that allow us to create a website in several languages
• The process I follow when I write posts for this website
• Tools for polyglots (i.e. people who run multilingual websites in WordPress)
• Conclusion

The Mentorship Programme

As part of the speaker experience, I had the opportunity to take part in the mentorship programme offered by WordCamp BCN. Run mainly by Luis Miguel Climent, it was meant to guide and help us through the whole process: from creating the slides to the talk itself. At the start, Luis Miguel gave a talk about how to prepare a presentation and provided us with some key tips. Afterwards, we met with him individually several times in order to talk about our worries and give us feedback. 

Contributor Day (Friday)

On contributor day, attendees contribute to various areas of WordPress, such as programming, translations, ideas for inclusiveness, training and accessibility, among others.

Unfortunately, I cannot say much about it, as I only joined in the afternoon for the mentorship programme. We had an in-person group meeting to, again, talk about our worries and help us prepare for the next day. This meeting really helped me lower my stress and anxiety. 

However, I did attend the presentation at the end of the day, where the leaders for each of the contributor’s tables explained what they had done during the day. They also presented the results of the do_action project. In this case, a group of volunteers created a website for an animal shelter in Girona, starting from scratch. The result was impressive, considering that they even had to write the texts and choose the photos.

Overall, I felt the sense of community and inclusiveness that transpired. This left me eager to join in the next time.

Main Day (Saturday)

On the main day, presentations started at 9:00 and ended at 19:15, with breaks for breakfast, lunch and snacks in the afternoon. All food and drinks were included in the ticket price. There were 10-minute, 20-minute, 30-minute presentations and 1h 30min workshops.

The talks covered a variety of topics. From usability to plugin creation, including an analysis on .cat domain positioning or using ChatGPT for content creation. There was even a workshop for complete beginners. Note that most of these talks are either in Catalan or Spanish.

I attended talks in the beginner and main tracks. Unfortunately, some of the talks that interested me took place simultaneously, so I had to miss some of them. Those I’ll watch through WordPress.tv. I had fun listening to and learning from talks which dealt with more general topics, such as Míriam Paredes’s talk on using WordPress for cultural projects or Sonia Losada’s on how WordPress helped her run her dog training business. 

My Experience as a Speaker

My talk (in Catalan) was at 13:00 and lasted for 30 minutes. It was part of the beginner’s track. There were quite a few questions at the end, and some attendees even approached me afterwards. The pity was that we had to take a group picture and I wasn’t able to talk to them. This is one of the few minor things that could be improved in future editions.

Main takeaways

Apart from everything I learnt from attending the different presentations, my main takeaway from the event is all the amazing people I met. Kudos also to the organisers and volunteers, who did an amazing job and made sure that everything ran smoothly.

Another standout aspect of the event is how inclusive it felt. Being a shy introvert, I thought it was great that we were provided with a set of stickers in our swag bag. These stickers served as a way to signal our preferred social interaction style — whether we were open to meeting new people, preferred conversations with familiar faces, or simply desired to be alone. In addition to this, there was a designated “Silence Room”, where one could go to work or to just find some peace and quiet. 

Last but not least, I want to send a special thanks to Xavi Galver, who acted as my shadow, and was incredibly supportive. Shadows are volunteers who are assigned to each speaker, and they help them get ready for the talk by solving any last minute issues and providing any kind of support. I’m truly grateful for his assistance.

In conclusion, WordCamp BCN 2023 was a remarkable experience. The talks, the welcoming community, and the outstanding organization made this event an incredible experience. I look forward to attending future WordCamps and continuing to be a part of this community.

Special Thanks

To Nilo Vélez for taking all the official event photos, including the featured image (license CC-BY-SA) on this post.

The post WordCamp BCN 2023: My Experience appeared first on Dandelium Studio.

• Are there any real estate plugins for WordPress?
• Are they a viable option?
• Are they the best option? Or are there better alternatives out there?

In this post, I’ll explain the research process that I followed and my results.

For those of you who want to jump to conclusions, here’s the TL;DR: it can be done, there are plug-ins that would work for such a website, but I’m not sure that using WordPress for a real estate website is the best option out there. It’ll depend on the scope of the project and its requirements.

Requirements

My client wanted a simple website to manage a few properties. The properties will be available for rent, sale and, in the future, may include properties for vacation rental. Another important thing to consider are the languages: although initially the website could be in a single language (Spanish) it needed to have the ability to add other languages such as Catalan. If possible, she’d also like to be able to post the listings to other real estate portals.

On the other hand, the IDX and MLS functionalities aren’t necessary. Similarly, since the client will be working on her own, it’s not necessary to assign agents to each property. 

Can it be done? What plugins could work?

To answer these questions, I performed a couple of Google searches and investigated the WordPress plugin directory. I came up with articles such as the one written by the people at Astra. However, it’s outdated: some of the recommended plugins have been discontinued or removed from the WordPress directory due to security issues. It amazes me, though, that it seems that no one double checked this when updating it.

One of the first issues with these plugins was that most of them are in English. This is not a problem for me, but it’s certainly a drawback for my client, as the website has to be in Spanish.

In any case, after doing my research, I determined that there were only two plugins which would work for the requirements: 

• Realtyna WPL
• Estatik

My first choice was Estatik, for two main reasons:

• After looking at the reviews, I felt that the Estatik reviews were overall a bit better. Note that this was based on my impressions and not on purely objective facts.
• It offered a Spanish translation

However, after trying Estatik, I realised that it has some drawbacks and as a result I then looked at the other option, Realtyna WPL.

Note that in both cases I’ll be looking at the free version of these plugins, with the occasional reference to the paid version.

Estatik

Property detail

Main page

Grid view

List view

I then installed Estatik on a local development environment to evaluate its functionalities. The summary of my experience is the following:

Estatik Pros: 

• How good it looks out of the box. 
• List, grid and map views are already available and work without any additional work.
• The ability to add custom fields and values for these custom fields.
• Compatible with Polylang (for multilingual websites).
• In general, it’s easy to use and understand.
• Integrates with Google Maps.
• Automatically adds a form below each property listing to get more information for the property.
• Integrates with other SEO plugins, such as Yoast SEO.
• It’s possible to import demo listings, which are very useful to understand the capabilities of the plugin.

Cons:

• Last update took place about a month ago. However, support is a bit of a hit-and-miss. I contacted them via the support forum and afterwards through their website. My forum message didn’t get any replies, but they did help me via mail (they took about a week to reply).
• Lack of or incomplete documentation.
• Lack of features in the UI. For example, to translate the different fields, there is no easy way to do it using the interface. The only way to translate them and link the translation is to manually access the edit taxonomy screen using the right parameters in the URL. This is a huge drawback if your client wants to update the website on their own.
• No alternatives to Google Maps. If Google Maps are not used, addresses cannot be added manually and the search function does not work for locations. After writing this, I received a reply from their support team and told me of a hack to be able to input the addresses manually. While it does work, the search function still doesn’t.
• Free version adds a small notice below the listing. This can be removed manually using CSS.
• Spanish translation is far from perfect and needs manual tweaking.

Realtyna WPL

Property view. This is not how it looks out of the box, there are already some design changes applied.

Grid view. This is not how it looks out of the box, there are already some design changes applied.

When I was convinced that Estatik would work for my client’s needs, I realised that it wasn’t possible to search by location using custom fields. As a result, I decided to evaluate Realtyna’s WPL plugin.

Realtyna WPL can feel overwhelming at first. The summary of my experience is the following.

Pros:

• List, grid and map views are already available and work out of the box.
• The ability to add custom fields and values for these custom fields.
• It integrates with Google Maps
• Although they do not claim that the plugin’s in Spanish, in reality the translation is about 60% done at the time of writing, which really helps.
• Offers its own SEO functionalities.
• It’s possible to import demo listings, which are very useful to understand the capabilities of the plugin.
• Can automatically add a form to each listing to make it easier for the potential client to get in touch.
• Can automatically create a QR code for each listing. I thought it was a cool functionality.

Neutral:

• Great control over fields. Allows adding custom fields, their values, and also offers many different configuration options. In one sense, this is a pro, but at the same time, it’s difficult to understand how everything works at a glance and can feel overwhelming.

Cons:

• Compatible with multilingual websites, but only in the paid version.
• The out-of-the-box design feels dated. If you’re not using one of their themes, you’ll have to work on creating a template or changing the CSS in order to make things look decent. For example: the image display doesn’t respect the image ratio and as a result, images usually look stretched.
• Can feel quite complex.

Which One Is Better? Estatik or Realtyna WPL?

After analysing these plugins, I believe that both of them have their pros and cons, and choosing one over the other really depends on your requirements. If you only need a simple real estate website and don’t mind using Google Maps, Estatik is probably the best option. Estatik would probably also be the best option if you want to speed up the setup of the website. 

However, at the time of writing (February 2023) Estatik support is a bit of a hit-and-miss. They may take long to reply to your requests, if they ever do so. In my particular case, I’m really grateful that they replied to my questions, and gave me a sort of workaround / hack to deal with the issue I was facing. Then again, I’m not a paying client, and I understand that they may have other priorities, especially if their team is small. So, if you choose Estatik for your website, take this into consideration.

On the other hand, if you’re looking for more advanced functionality, I’d go with Realtyna WPL. However, its configuration will take longer and you’ll probably need to make changes to the design of the website, which are unnecessary (in my opinion) if you’re using Estatik. 

Conclusions

At the start of this post, I had some basic questions regarding WordPress and its use for a real estate website. They are the following:

Are there any real estate plugins for WordPress?

The answer to this is clear. Yes, there are. The two main options are Estatik and Realtyna WPL.

Are they a viable option?

Yes. Using these plugins it’s possible to create a functional real estate website using WordPress. 

Is WordPress the best option to create a real estate website?

I don’t have a clear answer to this question. It depends on the functionalities that you need and the markets the website will operate in.

What I did find is that these plugins are not particularly suited to the Spanish market. For example, none of them integrate with real estate portals or include the energy consumption classification in the free version. Moreover, the translations are either incomplete or require manual tweaking.

During my investigation process, I checked some of the solutions used by real estate agencies in Spain. Their business model is completely different from a website using WordPress:

• Their packages usually include hosting and the software for the website.
• Clients pay a monthly or yearly fee. The cost is lower at the start (as the client doesn’t have to pay a website setup fee), but it’s probably higher in the long run.
• It’s not possible to try the software in your own development environment. The only way to see it in action is by requesting a demo or looking at websites using the software.
• The setup of the website is usually included in the fee.
• Most of these include the option to connect to other real estate portals.

So, if you’re in the Spanish market and wish to create a real estate website for a medium-to-large agency, you’re probably better off using another solution. On the other hand, if you’re a single agent and do not wish to have a complex website, probably you can get away by using WordPress + a plugin. You have to be aware, though, of their limitations.

The post Creating a Real Estate Website Using WordPress appeared first on Dandelium Studio.

However, overcoming the initial hurdle of getting started can be hard. Plus, installing WordPress is just the first step, afterwards you need to find the right design for it and write the copy (your website’s texts).

Despite this, the first steps in the process can be done very easily and very quickly. You first need a clean (ideally) WordPress install. Most hosting providers have WordPress one-click installers which automate most of the process. Once you have installed WordPress, you just have to login to your WordPress back-end (or administration panel) and follow the steps below. Otherwise, you can also check the video below where I go through the process.

Step 1: Go to the theme directory and look for the Astra theme. Download it, install it, and activate it.

Why Astra? It’s a theme that’s very flexible, very customizable and it’s updated regularly. There are other options, but we’ll be using Astra’s templates, which only make sense if you use Astra. Let me know in the comments below if you’d be interested in a similar tutorial using another theme.

Step 2: Go to the plugins directory, and look for a plugin called Starter Templates. Like in the previous case, download it, install it, and activate it.

Starter Templates is a plugin by Brainstorm Force (the company behind Astra) that easily imports any of the available templates. If you want, you can check their template catalogue before deciding on whether Astra and Starter Templates are for you. 

Bear in mind the following, though:

• Not all of the templates will really be available, as some of them are premium and require a paid plugin.
• Some of the templates are made using the Elementor or Beaver Builder page builder. My advice: try to choose a template that uses Gutenberg, WordPress’s default block editor, instead of Elementor or Beaver. 

Step 3: Run Starter Templates, choose a template and import it

After finding a website template that you like, import it. The importing process will let you change the colour scheme and the typography (fonts). If you import it and change your mind, you’ll be able to change these manually (or re import it again), but it’s faster if you do so through this plugin.

Step 4: Edit the default template content to add your own

This is the step that’s going to take longer, as of course you’ll need to write your own content; the templates cannot write it for you. I’d also recommend changing the default images to make it more personal, but maybe this is something that can be done later on.

However, if you follow this process, you’ll be able to have your own website much faster than you would if starting from scratch, with matching colours and nice typography (fonts).

On the other hand, if you want someone else to set the website for you, or you’d like to have a design made from scratch, you can get in touch with me.

The post Four Easy Steps to Create a Website When You’re Not Feeling Like It appeared first on Dandelium Studio.

The Issue

Recently, one of my clients started having issues with some of the posts on her website. The website basically crashed when trying to load said posts, showing an error message on the front-end (something which I’d say is pretty rare in WordPress, as it usually goes just blank).

The message went like this (this is a shortened version):

Fatal error: Uncaught TypeError: Unsupported operand types: string * float in /wordpress-directory/wp-includes/media.php:467 Stack trace:
#0 /wordpress-directory/wp-includes/media.php(717): wp_constrain_dimensions('150', '', 120)
#1 /wordpress-directory/wp-includes/media.php(1379): wp_image_matches_ratio(120, 45, '150', '')
#2 /wordpress-directory/wp-includes/media.php(1697): wp_calculate_image_srcset(Array, 'http://www.prof...', Array, 4021)
#3 /wordpress-directory/wp-includes/media.php(2013): wp_image_add_srcset_and_sizes('apply_filters('', Array)
#10 /wordpress-directory/wp-includes/post-template.php(429): apply_filters('get_the_excerpt', '', Object(WP_Post))
#11 /wordpress-directory/wp-content/plugins/wordpress-seo/src/helpers/post-helper.php(72): get_the_excerpt(Object(WP_Post))

This shows that there is an issue with the type cast. PHP is not the most robust language when it comes to typing: variables were not initially typed, and it was only later that it added typing. In order to make the language backwards-compatible, typing isn’t always enforced. As a result, sometimes things can get messy, just like in this case.

As indicated by the crash, the issue is in the file media.php, line 467, and is caused by the fact that WordPress expects an int but received a String instead. If we look at lines 467 and 468, they are the following:

$w = max( 1, (int) round( $current_width * $ratio ) );
$h = max( 1, (int) round( $current_height * $ratio ) );

The Quick and Dirty Fix

The quick and dirty fix to this problem is to just copy the two lines that cause the crash, and edit them, adding the following highlighted code: 

$w = max( 1, (int) round( (int)$current_width * $ratio ) );
$h = max( 1, (int) round( (int)$current_height * $ratio ) );

(int) forces a cast from String to int of the value stored in $current_width and $current_height.

The original two lines can be commented.

NOTE that this is a TEMPORARY fix. media.php is a core WordPress file, which will be overwritten when WordPress updates. This is just a workaround to minimize the posts’ downtime and to not have to solve it in a hurry.

The Source of the Problem

But what is the origin of the problem? In my client’s case, it was an issue caused by some images’ metadata. The metadata was found in the wp_postmeta table (remember to replace wp_ with your table’s prefix).

In particular, the issue was with meta_key =’_wp_attachment_metadata’ and the corresponding meta_value included this bit:

s:21:"elementor_custom_150x";a:4:{s:4:"file";s:75:"elementor/thumbs/vocabulario-n28finnyxfp577dbryx1cf1sdxfehil8rqpe10cq7u.jpg";s:5:"width";s:3:"150";s:6:"height";s:0:"";s:9:"mime-type";s:10:"image/jpeg";}

As you can see, there is a width value of “150” between quotes, making it a String. This is also enforced by the s:3 preceding the “150”. The s:3 indicates that the next value is a String and has 3 characters. This happens again for the height, although in this case, the value is a String of 0 characters (s:0:””).

The quickest way to solve this is by editing the data directly.

The Real Fix

To properly fix it, the meta_value needs to be edited, and replace s:3:”150” by i:150. The same can be done for the height, in this case replacing s:0:”” by i:0. The i indicates that it is an int.

After the changes, the data should look like this:

s:21:"elementor_custom_150x";a:4:{s:4:"file";s:75:"elementor/thumbs/vocabulario-n28finnyxfp577dbryx1cf1sdxfehil8rqpe10cq7u.jpg";s:5:"width";i:150;s:6:"height";i:0;s:9:"mime-type";s:10:"image/jpeg";}

To date, I haven’t yet figured out what caused the problem in the first place, as a few months earlier the image metadata didn’t include the “corrupt” data. My guess is that it has something to do with Elementor; maybe there was an issue with some update to the database data.

The post Dealing with Type Issues in WordPress appeared first on Dandelium Studio.

If you’re already familiar with WP-Portfolio, you can jump to my impressions.

As I run a business creating WordPress websites, it is a must that I should have a portfolio to showcase my work. It’s a way of proving what I can do and generating trust, and for the client to decide whether the kind of work I do aligns with their interests and goals.

A very brief overview of WP-Portfolio

So lately I’ve been looking for a plugin to create a portfolio. One portfolio plugin I saw recommended everywhere is WP-Portfolio. Many even call it the best portfolio plugin. What distinguishes WP-Porftolio from others is that, whenever you create a portfolio item, you can choose from 4 different types: image, video, website or single page. The image, video and website types link only a single item, that is, just one image, one video, or one website. For the website type, it embeds the link into an iFrame, so that the user never actually leaves your website. 

The single page type, on the other hand, is very interesting because it just looks like a page or post on WordPress, and you can add as much information as you want. For example, if you’re a photographer, you can use it to create a gallery of images from a single session. If you create websites, you can use it to explain how the project came to be (see my portfolio as an example). In my particular case, this feature, or something similar to this, was a must.

Unfortunately, WP-Portfolio does not have a free version, and as a result, there is no way of “trying before buying”. WP-Portfolio is developed by Brainstorm Force, the company behind the very popular Astra theme. I’ve been using Astra for a while and I’m very happy with it, so I finally took the plunge and bought WP-Portfolio, together with Astra Pro, in the Essential Bundle).

WP-Portfolio Impressions

My first impression after paying for the plugin and accessing the download page was that the plugin is not updated regularly. This is not a problem by itself, as if the plugin works correctly, why change it?

After installing the plugin, however, I started finding the real issues. It does not work well with multilingual websites using Polylang. The problem? Well, the categories are not filtered correctly in the portfolio page and they all show independently of the language. There are workarounds to solve this issue, but they involve manually listing the categories that should be shown in the filters, to the solution is far from ideal.

In addition to this, it does not offer the possibility of using a Gutenberg block to include the portfolio in a page. You have to use a shortcode. Again, this is not necessarily bad, but it confirms my first impression that the plugin is not kept up-to-date. Most plugins nowadays include both options: a block and a shortcode.

However, what made me decide not to use it on my website was the loading process of the portfolio page. Despite having only one portfolio item, a loading icon was visible when accessing the main portfolio page. I tested the overall loading times using WP-Portfolio and another option (more on that later) and they were similar, but I just couldn’t get past the fact that the loading icon was visible, and I felt that this gave the wrong impression. As a user of the website, I would be very surprised to see a loading icon to later reveal only one item – it would make me feel that the website was slow. And, for some reason, the plugin prefetches the item’s content, which is unnecessary.

Alternatives to WP-Portfolio

If you’re in a similar situation, you may be wondering what alternatives are out there. I can offer two: the first is Visual Portfolio, Posts & Image Gallery, by nK. The free version of this plugin has many more features than WP-Portfolio, including a Lightbox view for the images, and works well on the front-end on websites using Polylang. However, there is a bug on the back-end. Whenever you use Gutenberg blocks to insert portfolio galleries, it only shows an admin bar and does not preview the content. As a result, you need to keep previewing the page or post to get an idea of what it will look like. Note also that they do not officially support Polylang, only WPML.

The other option is to use Powerfolio, a plugin that creates a special portfolio item and includes additional Elementor blocks to show the content. So you actually need Elementor (no need to pay for the Pro version) to showcase your portfolio in the easiest way possible. Using this combination of plugins I found no bugs: I could preview the content while editing it and everything looked good on the front-end. The portfolio item is actually a single page, so it gives me the flexibility and freedom to create each project’s page as I like, with no limits. So, in the end, I opted for this solution. I’m still on the fence about Elementor, as I like to keep my website as “light” as possible, but for the time being I’m quite happy with this solution.

Conclusion

In summary, I would have liked some of the reviewers to mention these aspects of WP-Portfolio that don’t make it as great as it seems. That being said, I think it’s good to be familiar with the existing technologies so I can adapt to the needs of each client, and WP-Portfolio does have a lot of good features. Do you have a portfolio on your website? Have you used any plugins to create it? Which? Let me know in the comments!

The post Why I Cannot Recommend WP-Portfolio – A Review appeared first on Dandelium Studio.

However, coming up with the right business name can be hard. A business name should be easy to remember, easy to spell, easy to say and should not be too detached from the services you offer. A name that’s too smart can be problematic, too. For example, Marianne Cantwell, in the first edition of her book Be a Free Range Human, mentions the example of Jenny Jameson, who started a business to help women ditch their diets and change their lives in the process. Jenny initially came up with the business name of Zero Gravity Life.  The name is so smart – when there is no gravity, your weight doesn’t matter – that it needed an explanation for people to get it. Jenny then changed her name to F*ck the Diets – it no longer needs an explanation, does it?

The Right Name for Your Business

So, when confronted with the problem of finding a name for my business, I ran a couple of Google searches. Unfortunately, I didn’t find any advice that actually led me to come up with a business name that worked, and as a result I turned to one of my main sources of education: books. This is how I found The Naming Book, by Brad Flowers. I decided to read it, and I used it to come up with my own business name. I’ll talk about my own experience with the process later in more detail, but the TL;DR is that I loved it. It’s a lot of work, though.

Overall, The Naming Book is more of a workbook than a book, as it is full of exercises that you should do. The main goal is to generate as many names for your business as possible, which are then filtered in different stages, in order to obtain the best (or close to the best) name. The main premise of the book is that, in general, practice makes perfect (my words) and, as a result, it’s way more likely you’ll come up with a good business name if you generate many names, instead of focusing on generating a single, perfect name from the start.

The book is structured in chapters, including the five which correspond to the main steps in the process: Establishing Criteria, Brainstorming, Compiling Names, Expanding Your Knowledge and Deciding on the Final Name.

Step 1: Establishing Criteria

The title says it all. If you don’t select a set of criteria which your name should meet, then it’s impossible to objectively determine if a name is appropriate for your business or not. Note, though, that naming a company is not an something that can be done 100% objectively.

Some criteria that you should take into account are the following:

Step 2: Brainstorming

As the name implies, the second step is all about brainstorming words or phrases for your business. The starting point are descriptions/facts about your business, and from there, the goal is to generate words connected to the facts. Note that you should write whatever comes to mind, even if you cannot explain why a certain word came up, that is, the connection between the words is not evident.

For example, the word sand may trigger thoughts of beach, summer, water, etc; but maybe for someone else, it will make them think of work or construction. 

Note that there is no filtering in this stage. If you’ve never been in a brainstorming session, you should know that the goal is to generate as many ideas as possible, without judging any of them or filtering them in any way.

Step 3: Compiling names

After generating the words and phrases in the previous step, the next goal is to come up with business names, using these words as a starting point. Brad Flowers proposes generating names considering the following:

• Real words
• Foreign language words
• Compound words
• Phrases
• Blended words
• Made-up words
• People and place names

So the idea would be generating real words first from the words in the brainstorming exercise, then generating foreign language words, and so on. As a result, you’ll end up with a great variety of possible names. Most of them will be bad, but that’s fine – in this stage there is no judgment and no filtering.

Step 4: Expanding your Knowledge

Step 4 is similar to steps 2 and 3, as its goal is to increase the list of possible names. However, unlike in the previous steps, in this case you’ll have “external” help. The idea is to check thesauri, encyclopedias, literature and even mythology names to come up with more interesting options.

Step 5: Choosing the final name

The goal here is to decide on the final name for your business. The main criteria which you can use to filter the options are the following (as explained in the essay “How to Launch a New Product”):

• The name should be simple, short, easy to pronounce and write, and avoid bad associations
• It should be legible
• It should sound harmonious and clear
• It should be easy to remember
• It should be original, to avoid confusion with other businesses or products

Apart from this advice, you should also take into consideration the criteria you defined in Step 1 of the process.

What’s Next?

The book does not end after Step 5. In fact, it offers some tips and strategies on what to do if haven’t come up with a final name after following the process, and then briefly talks about topics such as copyright and trademarking, establishing the brand’s perception (tag line, values) and different options to consider when going from name to logo.

How I came up with the name “Dandelium Studio”

Before getting Brad Flowers’s book, I had a couple of names in mind. However, when I ran them with some friends and family, they advised me to keep looking. I honestly don’t think that they were terrible names, but they certainly could be better.

So I decided to look for a book to help me. I can’t remember why I chose Brad’s book and not another – but it had good reviews, I read the free Kindle sample, and I decided it was worth checking.

The whole process took a while. I bought the book on November 18th 2021, and didn’t come up with a name until December 31st, and even then I wasn’t 100% sure about my choice. 

Apart from the usual challenges when coming up with a name, in my particular case I had to find a name that worked in three different languages – Catalan, Spanish and English, as I wanted a trilingual website. Catalan and Spanish are both Romance languages, and as a result, many names would work for both languages. But this is not the case for English. Another challenge was finding a name whose domain was free, so that the business name would match with the domain – this was important to me.

I ended up with some names that I liked, but most of them were common words and the domains and the corresponding social media accounts were already taken. One of these was Dandelion Studio. I really liked using the word “studio” because I felt that it gave me the freedom to evolve my business into other areas in the future, if I wanted to. In addition to this, although it’s an English word, it’s very similar to the Spanish or Catalan equivalent (estudio / estudi). And there is a top-level-domain with the word (.studio). 

On the other hand, a “dandelion” is a flower that is usually associated with wishes. Tradition has it that if you blow on a white dandelion while wishing for something, your wish will become true. I also like the idea of associating my business name to achieving the clients’ goals.

So, since Dandelion Studio was already taken and I couldn’t use it, I decided to reapply one of the techniques in the book, which was to create made-up words from existing ones. In this case, I went from “dandelion” to “dandelium”, creating a made-up Latin word that I think it’s relatively easy to remember, say and it works in three different languages.

Conclusion

I’m very happy that I found Brad’s book and decided to make the effort and work through all the exercises. At times it was hard, and I wouldn’t recommend trying to work on the exercises for long stretches of time, as it can feel frustrating and your creativity be affected by it. Just do the work, don’t be in a hurry, and have breaks. Remember that in my case it took me a month and a half to finish the exercises – it may take longer if you’re working full time on another job.

I wholeheartedly recommend The Branding Book to anyone who is struggling to name their business or who wants to come up with a name by following a proven process. Be aware, though, that in order for this work, you need to put in time, effort and it may be hard at times. Do not hesitate to ask for help if you need it, too. In my case, I had to ask my husband for help in one of the exercises, as I couldn’t come up with anything relevant. His suggestions helped me move forward with the process.

In any case, though, bear in mind that as your business grows and evolves, there’s a chance that you’ll want to change your business name. This is fine and normal. For this reason, although it’s good to find a name that works for your business, don’t try to look for perfection – it doesn’t exist. What may work at one point, may not work later down the line.

I hope that this post has given you some ideas to start working on your business name, and helped you decide whether the book is worth getting. Remember that this is just a summary and review of its contents; the book itself is full of advice and tips on how to go about the five steps outlined above.

And for those of you who already have a business name, did you follow any particular process, advice or book in order to find your name? Are there any tips or strategies that you would like to share? Please do so in the comment section below!

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