Chanpory Rith
Jul 10, 2008
I’m seeing a lot of design portfolios with titles like “Beyond Imagination” or “Passions” or “Reflections” or “Curiosity.” With all these vaguely conceptual names, it’s like taking a nauseating stroll through the Macy’s perfume department.
Instead of titling your portfolio like the latest celebrity scent, why not just use your own name? Here’s my rationale:
When applying for a job, you want your potential boss to remember one thing—your name. They are hiring you, not “Beyond Imagination” or “Passions” or “Reflections” or “Curiosity.” In short, your name is your brand. Presenting any brand other than your own creates confusion and dilutes your name.
So don’t be tempted to overbrand everything. Keep your portfolio simple, and don’t bury your own beautiful name. Love it. Own it. Flaunt it.
27 Comments
Kevin Bondelli
6:42 am
Great point. When I first started my blog a couple people told me that I needed to come up with some clever name for it. I figured that using my own name was the best way anyway. Now I can forward this post on to anyone else who nay-says self-named blogs and portfolios.
Sonny Parlin
7:44 am
Or….
You could setup your surname domain name to forward to your ultra cool named portfolio site.
David Airey
7:56 am
I’ll chime in with a ‘well said’.
I was one of those people who started out with a generic name. Thankfully I grew tired of it. Fast.
Albert Ellenich
9:23 am
This is such great advice! I adopted the use of my name years ago to promote myself and developed a logo to go with it. Over the years, fancy names may lose favor, but my name and logo have weathered any career transition or industry change thrown at it!
Peter
9:43 am
“Passions” … LOL! For real?
Taylor Wright
9:45 am
It’s easy to say when you have a fancy dancy name like Chanpory Rith, but what about the John Smiths and Jane Plains of the design world?
Matt
4:07 pm
I have tried to get my name as a domain but it’s taken and I don’t want to have to go to other domains like .net and .info, etc.
Tracey Grady
4:40 pm
I’d be asking questions about any designer who has to put a “title” to their portfolio. The work should stand on its own. It’s a personal choice if someone wants to give a different title to their blog, and that’s fine. In my case, my name identifies my business, website, blog and portfolio. I like the consistency.
If you’re in a situation like Matt and have trouble obtaining a domain to match your name, it might be worth varying the domain search eg johnsmithdesign (won’t work well if your name is very long) or jsgraphics or similar. Or you could see if the current owner of the domain you want is willing to sell it to you.
Chad Coleman
4:48 pm
Heh. Great rant.
I’ve been struggling with this very issue, but I couldn’t get my name as it was taken. So I cheated and used a subdomain as part of the whole. http://c.hadcoleman.com
Berkturgler
3:10 am
What if your name is Berkturgler Dumpsmell Jnr?
CPG
3:30 am
It’s better and more funny to create a complete new identity. My boss even know who is CPG !!! Now you know it too… I agree, it’s difficult to find a great domain name.
Make it simple, make it better…
Bb
8:50 am
Who would forgot that name, BD Jr?
“Passions?” haha…That’s not a portfolio, that’s a soap opera! (no, really…)
Zaoris
9:13 am
This is one good advice and a very good article. But depends on the taste. Personally, I don’t mind my name for my portfolio but for some people there are some problems. @Berkturgler: Some abbreviations could do the trick ;-)
d
10:20 am
What does it matter. If your work is good people will remember you.
If you use your name and you want to make your portfolio stand out you still have to do a branding exercise. If you are submitting your portfolio to a become an in house designer then url will be on your resume.
Like others mentioned it can be hard to get your name that doesn’t have a less well known .whatever. If they can’t remember the extension then you are out of luck too.
A name that’s easy to spell and is memorable and represents you, your spirit or style is probably better in the long run. You could also just buy two names and forward them both to the same address and give them out according to your audience.
Chanpory Rith
11:54 am
@Taylor: if you’ve got a plain name, you can liven it up by how you visually treat the name. You might also add a middle initial. Like John K. Smith. “Taylor” is an unusual name so you don’t have to worry about seeming plain. If you really hate your name, or are too embarassed to use it, then it’s a simple process to get it legally changed. :-)
@Matt: you might try domain name variations such as hellomatt.com, mattisme.com, heymatt.com, dearmatt.com. etc.
@Berkturgler: I’d get a legal name change ;-)
Trevor Twining
12:44 pm
When I started freelancing, lots of people gave me the ‘clever name’ advice, but I countered that they have to deal with the boss of clever name company at some point (namely me), and that’s who they will develop the relationship with anyway.
It was the best thing I could have done for my work.
Rauf
4:28 am
I think it is difficult for people to remember the spellings of name like. Having general name like smart web or cool designs are easy to remember. Name can be display on the home page. this is what i think :)
Matt F
4:44 am
Well maybe that’s okay for you, but I am Double Supercool, so, y’know, I win . . . ;)
Seriously, every job I have gotten in the VFX industry, they have mentioned my website name as being something that stood out and was remembered.
Tom
9:57 am
Wow I spent like a month trying to think of a great name for my portfolio, but I couldn’t think of one so I just used my name. Now you telling me that this was a better decision? Sweet!
Steph
4:01 pm
So what is your personal opinion about someone deciding between using their American name versus their (romanized) foreign name? In my case, I can choose between my American vs. Chinese.
Steph
4:02 pm
The only thing which worries me about the latter choice, is for those unfamiliar with the language will have trouble in pronunciation…
Matt French
7:21 pm
Good point. I worked with a Brazilian guy on our last project and his website was his name. My advice to him was to choose a snappier website name as it was just too hard to remember and pronounce for non-Brazilians, which is a shame because he did great work.
Obviously it’s a balance and would depend on your name.
Adam
9:55 am
I’ve been struggling with this for months. I would love to have my domain name/portfolio be branded as my real name. However, there is another designer with the exact same name as me and has the .com. This other person is a designer that I definitely do not want people to confuse as me (horrible websites that look like they walked out on the 1994 catwalk.) So I think getting the name as a .net or .org would be a big mistake.
So what can I do?
Rename myself? Or come up with some sort of simple non-cliché brand identity and completely pose as that identity? (No mention of my real identity?)
I’m still struggling with a solution. Any thoughts?
Andrew Chang
2:48 pm
Hello.. I randomly ran into this page after 2 weeks of trying to figure out a domain name. Eventually I decided on the same thing of just using my real name. The problem is ofcourse.. there are ALOT of Andrew Changs out there. No designer that I know of and andrewchang.com is already taken. I’m wondering if maybe I should just go with drewchang.com - there aren’t too many Drew Changs around, thats for sure.
Other possibilities are achang.com andrewchangcreative.com
Any other suggestions? Thanks in advance.
Andrew Chang
2:56 pm
oops, sorry for posting so quickly. I was also thinking of achangdesign.com
Just because it sounds like it could be used “this is a Chang design.”
Janet Meas
1:52 am
You are SO Khmer. I can tell by your fancy name.
Well, I’ve always used different aliases and names for my sites and graphics, etc.
But if you google me, they always usually point to one person :D!
Geert Nijs
4:11 am
I’m finding it a harsh task to find a good name. I do not want to go under my regular name because it is a real Flemish name(part of belgium). Maybe i’ll use the first two letters of my first and last name, so it would be Geni. My real name would be pronounced as gayrt. And this women in the Uk pronounced it as ‘jit’.