Method

As a pregnant Method designer, I was lucky to be able to avoid a girly or boring work baby shower and instead have a baby naming shower. I had decided upon a first name, but was still stumped for a middle name. After a short succinct ideation session, as the client, I had hundreds of options, and came out with the perfect middle name for my baby girl.

Session Nuts-and-Bolts

1. The client (parent) starts with a creative brief. Identify the family brand and any other guidelines. Identify attributes desired for the name and the baby. It’s also critical to generate name categories which can be areas of interest of the parents, with some sample names. Our categories included Colorado, travel, music, and foodie.

2. The facilitator (thanks Sarah!) pulls together fun and personal images and facts about each category to stimulate ideas.

3. During the session, the facilitator reviews the creative brief then goes through the images and tidbits of each category. All participants are given stickies to write down any names that come to them.

4. The client identifies and prioritizes the stickies with potential workable names.

5. The entire room votes and narrows down to the ideal name. It’s helpful to read the entire name out loud. It’s nice to make this a participatory vote. A smaller set of 4-6 names can then be further evaluated by the client.