Place Naming is a Tactic for Placemaking

Place naming is a tactic for placemaking, one of a large menu of tactics available to those involved in place-making design and/or operation.

Naming conventions, including the place and feature names and naming hierarchies, play a critical role in a project’s early strategic marketing and initial brand equity. Naming conventions are an interesting aspect of placemaking and experiential design, and experiential branding for that matter.

Naming places, and parts of places, should not be a casual thing – as much fun as it can be. All names should be placed in a place’s naming hierarchy, which then guides what role each name element will play in overall brand-building and management. This is true even for names of minor things – such elements work their way into the lasting mind memory (or place-mapping) of a place – even if subconscious.

Names should be related to the “big idea” that is behind the place or the place’s guest experience, but each name does not have to hit a bulls-eye. Each name can simply paint all or part of various aspects of the overall place-brand picture. By relating names to the Big Idea, in some way, we uphold the current and re-positioned brand equity.

Place naming nomenclature and hierarchy are as important to placemaking as spatial organization and aesthetics, due to the resonance of “place memory.”

We should recognize that the region in which a facility or place is situated, can be an overwhelming aspect of a place’s aura. This can create a trap to creative place naming. Example – any place in Colorado (USA) – in such an instance, while we should would want to avoid all the naming traps of Colorado, we must remember that part of the Colorado aura is its spirit and essence of the West.

It is this spirit that we might want to capture for a specific place, but at the same time leave the cliche of mining towns, faux cowboys, behind. The same might be argued for Dubai, where many trite Arabic, desert, and Gulf nomenclature can be evoked – the challenge again is to reach for the unique, the special, even the sublime.

There is a wonderful subtlety and indelible quality to place-memory, that can be important to naming and branding. We may know a place as The Lodge, or The Plaza, or The Met – very simply names without obvious branding. However, if the place that is conjured up by the name is quite wonderful – a simple name may carry powerful branding capacity.

A simple name such as the Green might be used (along with some back story) to conjure up a sense of community, family, friends, the environment, and the like. And such simple names may have terrific double meanings that are useful such as the environmentalism and natural qualities that a name like the Green conveys. Double meanings are wonderful.

Keeping it real, keeping it authentic in some way, are good guidelines in naming. There is little question that part of a place’s existing Brand Equity is potential experiential authenticity – it’s realness.

In naming it is useful to avoid names that sound like typical developer attempts – names that give the patina of real estate project as opposed to real place. If we’re building a town or a real place, piece by piece, the naming can and should reflect this.

At all times in name selection, we must remember how people actually use and refer to place names. People tend to shorten names when they can. But a proper full name is essential at the same time, since in using the shortened name, people are often conjuring in their mind’s eye, the full name and the destination place.

Hierarchy is of course vital in naming. All names are not the same. The hierarchy begins with the name brands and logomarks of a region and place, then proceeds through various levels to matters as detailed as festival names and promotions ideas.

Major Places, Parcels, and Projects. The major parcels, locations, and/or projects making up a place should each embody a core dimension of the positioned brand identity. An example of such dimensions are listed below. Some of these apply equally to self, as well as to our relationship to the physical world.

— Individualism
— Adventure
— Discovery
— Achievement
— Renewal
— Support
— Celebration (of self, family, friends, community, spirit)
— Place of Embarkation

Thoughts on Some Place Types and Hierarchy

Place naming is a tactic for placemaking.

Town Center/Regional Hub Type Project Naming. A town center itself and its principal places, occupy a special role in place naming and place branding processes. A Town Center is one place where virtually everyone can gather, visit, spend time, and enjoy the communal life. It is here where the place branding should be best revealed, and most viscerally experienced.

The get-ability should also be at its most evident stage – almost subliminal. Staging areas for activities may imply many basic notions of gathering, of community, of neighborliness. Activities areas, internal routes, and the like, or passages, may imply both the physical act of passage, but perhaps the experiential rite of passage as well. And the Town Center itself, perhaps, could be about the role of the brand in your life, and the names there should reflect this.

Signature Place Features. These are hard to identify in advance, but we know them when we create them. These are the gondolas, the bridges, the clock towers, and the like – the signature features that when done well – strike a chord with guests. These are the staccato of experiential design – of place making.

Streets and Roads. Streets and roads are where we find ourselves each day, as we move around a place. Using these routes, it is a time when the views, the curves, the sense of the place truly emerges. It can be terrific at times to use Streets and Roads as the time to remind ourselves – to Celebrate – our natural environment. Since Streets and Roads are truly one of man’s material impacts on the environment, the Streets and Roads naming strategy at its best, could be a means of reconciling our unsettling presence in otherwise natural environments.

Venues. We would recommend that with venue names – the stores, restaurants, and nightclubs – that every attempt be made to link with notions of the experiential design of the overall place, but in ways that are 1) regional, if possible, 2) personable, 3) are not shy of requiring some backstory to get. An example – over in Crested Butte, Colorado, there is the backstory of Cousin Jack’s, a true story that is a testament to Crested Butte’s rugged individualism and reliance on family and community. There is a feeling of base camp sensibilities in the Cousin Jack story and such a name is a great example of a storied local term that would make a terrific venue name.

In the end, it is within the venues that we will all spend much of our time. We should make sure that each venue name is fun, memorable, and relates to us in the most personable way we can imagine. Continuing with this example, such venue names can also carry the sensibility of only in Crested Butte if possible. This is where we have the chance of truly wrapping our guests with the aura of our repositioned brand – and drive the perception of our uniqueness, home.

Events. If we all do our work right, a new place will truly become a place of events, for events, and of festivals. A place for people to get together – for community to emerge. As part of experiential design for a place, events create the traditions of place, part of the fabric of enduring memories that we all enjoy. We always recommend that Events, where possible, convey simply a sense of the spirit of the place. So within the framework of an overall place naming hierarchy, names can be selected that convey the unbridled possibilities of the place. One way to view the naming of Events, of festivals, is to think of it as the time when the place is quite literally inviting the outside world to visit. When we invite someone to our home, it is our hospitality, our role as hosts, and our intention to show you a good time, that is on our minds.

It is useful to have this in mind as event and festival names are derived and selected, and when such activities are conducted. Obviously, with events, all of these sensibilities must be tempered with the marketability of an event name.

If the naming process can hold to the above hierarchy and conventions, it is quite likely that the special identity we seek with a particular place naming strategy will succeed. In the end, a place brand identity is about EVERYTHING that you, as a brand, do.

Your guests and customers come to know your brand by the way you reveal yourself at each touch-point you provide. Naming is one such touch-point.

Place Naming is a Tactic for Placemaking