NAMING EXPERIENCE
I am a multi-genre writer, educator, and performer who started a freelance naming and verbal branding service in 2007. Since then I’ve been busy accruing a lot of happy clients. In seventeen years of doing business, I’ve completed over one thousand assignments for more than one hundred fifty different naming and branding groups and dozens of direct clients. Currently I contract to produce names and taglines for new products, businesses, and services, as well as messaging and copywriting work.
Whether you’re a creative agency, a startup, or a multinational business, I can bring a fresh perspective and deliver unique, incisive solutions for your next verbal challenge.
Click here to see a partial list of clients.
Among other things, I’ve developed names for:
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as well as:
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for over 100 industries, including:
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Please see my Services page for a full list of capabilities.
OTHER EXPERIENCE
Of course naming is not the first work that I’ve done with words, though seventeen years of it has certainly gotten this biz rolling. I’d been wordsmithing for over thirty years before I even wrote my first product name. I have a great range of professional experience using language, from touring with Lollapalooza on the poetry stage to teaching creative writing at Rutgers University.
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
I enjoy words immensely. For the eight years prior to starting this consultancy, I’d been teaching college-level courses in composition, literature, creative writing, and critical thinking in schools around New York City, primarily Pratt Institute, Brooklyn College, and Rutgers. At Pratt I was also Director of Writing Across the Curriculum for three years. I have an MFA in Creative Writing from Brooklyn College and a BA in English Language and Literature from the University of Michigan. I’ve also lead many creative writing workshops over the years outside of academia.
POETRY & PERFORMANCE
But I was never a typical academic – I began teaching only after spending almost twenty years as a working poet and performer around the United States. In the poetry world, I’m known for utilizing a very broad range of styles in my work, from formalist to wildly experimental. I’ve also done hundreds of readings and spoken performances, in venues ranging from cafés and libraries, to academic readings, to jazz and punk shows (I used to open for bands such as Fugazi and Big Black) – even a stint as a touring poet with Lollapalooza in 1994. I have six published books of poetry and ten chapbooks, and poetry and prose in over one hundred magazines, journals, and anthologies. To view a few pieces published online, check out an amusing poem called “Breakfast” in The Marsh Hawk Review (p. 71), and two pieces in London Grip New Poetry. You can also read a lot more about my creative work on my personal website, richardloranger.com.
BUSINESS WRITING
I’ve also done a good deal of language work in business, including gigs as a creative consultant for AT&T, a marketing assistant for Microsoft, and a writer for McGraw-Hill/CTB. As well I’ve helped to set up several small businesses, including a literary services biz of my own called Power Unit 17 and have worked with several small presses and publications, so I’m quite familiar with corporate protocol and deadlines.
Want to know more about me?
For a condensed list of naming-related experience, click here to download a PDF of my current Resume.
And for a comprehensive list of language, art, teaching, and administrative experience, click here to download a PDF of my C.V.
I am currently located in the San Francisco Bay Area, and I am available to meet or work on site with Bay Area firms and agencies.
Each one of these facets of language experience informs my approach to naming and brandwriting, from the rigor of research, to metaphor and euphony, to good old-fashioned precision and reliability. If that sounds like what you’re looking for, feel free to call or write with questions of any sort.