It seemed like a good at the time
Although I don’t consider myself a master wordsmith I do like clever wordplay. Something catchy that will stick in someone’s head. A few years back I honestly thought I hit the target with my own company name. That is, until people started saying the name.
When coming up with a catchy name for my voice over company I wanted to convey a professional image. I needed to communicate what it was I did. Hey?! Image! Voice imaging. Yeah! Radio and television station imaging is part of what I do. How am I different? My voice imaging is unique. I have an edge over the competition. Wait a minute! “Image with an edge”. Hmmm? Nice ring to it. Let’s create a hybrid word and….VOILA! ‘Imedge’. It was the birth of IMedge Communications. I thought to myself, “that’s pretty cool”.
One word of advice: do a test flight with that new name before you start printing up stationary, labels, business cards and CDs! Instead of asking people’s opinions on how slick the name looks or if they like the play on words, ask them to say the name out loud.
For the past several years I’ve gotten used to 95% of the people who call ask if they’ve reached “EYE-medge Communications”. I never bothered correcting them because I figured it was my own bloody fault. Why should I assume that someone would know the clever little twist I put on the word “image”.
I think I found a solution to the issue. With the help of a designer friend of mine we simply changed the font on the company name and moved some capitalizations around. Pretty radical stuff, huh? We figured the culprit was spelling “imedge” as “IMedge”. I simply wanted to isolate the word “edge” and look at all the grief I put myself through and felt compelled to share with you.
If you’ve visited this site before, you’ll notice the company name has recently adopted a much hipper font. We also changed the capitals from the “IM” to just the “E”. The only place I didn’t change the font or the spelling is at the top of this blog page. Call me a sentimentalist.
I’d like to get your feedback with an informal survey. Tell me which spelling and style communicates the ‘image’ pronunciation better: imEdge or IMedge? Regardless, I will continue to be an edge above the competition for voice imaging, corporate imaging, radio imaging, television imaging and anything else that requires me to utilize my voice.
Thanks for letting me voice my concerns.
(ED. note: I wonder if U2 guitarist “The Edge” ever considered the implications of his name selection?)