Pita Chips and Hummus, Let's Be Friends FOREVER. Until I Eat You.

So I'm sitting here, eating my yummy lunch of pita chips, hummus and Italian wedding soup thinking how ridiculous it is that the whole bag of mini-pitas I bought was $1.75, and how quick they toast up and make the equivalent of $5.00 worth of a bag of pita chips. Being fugal has never been more delicious. And it's probably healthier too. That being said, I've been thinking about other things than delicious frugality today, the main thing being branding.

Frankly, I'm at a bit of a loss. I'm trying to work on this whole business plan thing for getting my designs out there to sell and making a name for myself, a brand. And right now, my working business name is ... horrible. I hate it. It's so... cute. I mean, it sounds like a company that makes jewellery in a small town and sells it at a gift shop. Which is, ironically, exactly what I'm currently doing but that's not the point! I want a name that will grow with my designs, and that feels accessible to the people I design for. Right now, the only saleable pieces I have are my Jellyfish earrings, which are fun and whimsical, and the current name I'm using for my "company" -- Little Biggs Designs -- suits them in a silly girly way. But what about when I start getting some saleable pieces of say, the Cream Soda Shorts? Or the Wrap Skirt? Little Biggs Designs is just not a name that speaks to me, and I don't think it speaks to my customers either.

I've been thinking a lot about my client, who I am designing for. And honestly, my niche is in the semi-geeky quirky girl, the kind of woman who cares about her appearance, but doesn't give a shit about what's "on trend" exactly. She's the kind of girl who would wear a corset as street wear, who wears retro head phones while listening to classic rock, who paints her nails to glam up her look, and then lets them chip away rather than removing it. It might be said her style is a little laissez-faire, and layers are her friend. She loves piercings, and tattoos, yet would still gleefully raid her grandmothers closet for vintage pieces of awesome. My client loves the idea of reclaimed clothing, and organic cloth, but will still wear polyester if it's rad enough. She also says rad. And she is a living rainbow.

Then it occurred to me, I am designing for myself.

And I'm a bit of a hipster, aren't I?

But anyway, after thinking a lot about that, I'm trying to come up with something that speaks to me on a few different levels. I've been getting a lot of ideas from people in my life, well input more than ideas. A lot of the input has been helpful in finding a direction, but some of it is derailing me. And now I'm a little stuck. A friend of mine who works in web design and print design gave me a few pointers on dealing with the internet, and how I want to make my business name something Google searchable, related to the product I'm selling. His exact example was "if someone is looking for edgy awesome earrings, and they Google that the first thing Google will pull up is EdgyAwesome Designs giving it most points for relating to the search." My current business name will not come up in that search, unless I inundate the site itself with text that says "Edgy" and "Awesome" all over it. Which I am not adverse to doing.

Right now, I'm stuck on one idea I'm particularly fond of, but it has nothing to do with anything I've made. But it sounds artsy and I kind of like it.

Maybe I should just call my business Terribly Titled too, because I apparently am no good at titles...