For 30 years, Les Architectes du Nom have been creating brands that make sense*
We won’t pull your names out of a hat, or out of a piece of software! A powerful brand (name / logo / tagline) is a brand that is both relevant AND original: immediately clear on a cognitive level, appealing on an emotional level, and solid on a legal level. We validate our creations upfront on marketing, semiological, linguistic, cultural and legal grounds. This alliance of originality and rigour builds an innovative, dynamic image for your company.
Discover our services, our references, our team, and don’t hesitate to get in touch with us!
Depuis 23 ans, les Architectes Du Nom
créent des marques qui ont du sens*
Nous ne sortirons pas vos noms d’un chapeau ni d’un logiciel ! Une marque puissante (nom / logo / slogan) est une marque pertinente ET originale : immédiate sur le plan cognitif, esthétique sur le plan émotionnel et fiable sur le plan juridique. Nous validons en amont nos créations en termes marketing, sémiologique, linguistique, culturel et juridique. Cette alliance entre originalité et rationalité construira une image innovante et dynamique pour votre entreprise. Découvrez nos prestations , nos références, notre équipe et n’hésitez pas à prendre contact avec nous !
Depuis 23 ans,
les Architectes Du Nom
créent des marques
qui ont du sens*
Nous ne sortirons pas vos noms d’un chapeau ni d’un logiciel ! Une marque puissante (nom / logo / slogan) est une marque pertinente ET originale : immédiate sur le plan cognitif, esthétique sur le plan émotionnel et fiable sur le plan juridique. Nous validons en amont nos créations en termes marketing, sémiologique, linguistique, culturel et juridique. Cette alliance entre originalité et rationalité construira une image innovante et dynamique pour votre entreprise. Découvrez nos prestations, nos références, notre équipe et n’hésitez pas à prendre contact avec nous !
*Ils nous font confiance
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*Services
A brand identity that works
We create brand identities: for products, services, companies, websites, concepts, as well as taglines and logos. On the legal side, we carry out prior-art searches and filings (national and international) to ensure your brand is reliable and built to last.
Over the years and through many projects, we have developed a solid, proven methodology to guarantee the relevance, creativity and legal validity of your future brand identity.
Our 6-step process ensures your project unfolds in the best possible way:
- Drawing up a thorough, precise brief
- Creating 200 gems with our hive of creatives and their tools
- Marketing, legal and linguistic filtering and validation
- Selecting a shortlist
- Creating the logo and signature
Legal clearance and filing
A viable, reliable brand
To maximise the quality of our work and provide you with a lasting identity, we systematically validate our creations beforehand, across several dimensions:
Marketing validations
Our creations are tailor-made for your project and fully aligned with your brief. Every creation is methodically argued and put into context to inform your decision, so that together — carefully and with perspective — we can draw up a shortlist (see our Twingo case study).
Linguistic and cultural validations
Drawing on an international network of multilingual linguists, we assess how well our creations will be received in each target language. This is a multi-layered validation: pronunciation, comprehension, aesthetic appropriation, and also the positive or negative connotations that may arise depending on different cultural contexts (history, current affairs, traditions, colloquial expressions, etc.).
Legal validations
All our creations are pre-screened through an identical-mark search across the WIPO classes defined in your brief; your favourite names are then put through a more in-depth prior-art search to identify those with the strongest legal standing.
A narrative setting for your brand
A brand name is the key that opens onto a story — a narrative carrying values and emotions capable of winning over your prospects.
This is why we create stories, beautiful stories, for your brands and their customers.
We draw on the values of your company and your brand, on its history or that of its founders, to shape the elements of a founding narrative — one that explains and projects forward, expressing and illustrating the brand’s values, its promises, its deepest nature.
This narrative work comes upstream in the communication process: it sketches out the broad outlines, anchors the foundations, and feeds them with rich, expressive contextual material as well as language and imagination, so as to give real substance to your communication.
A brand that communicates
We design and create your communication tools across different channels:
- Website / brand pages on media platforms and social networks (LinkedIn, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram…)
- Brochures (print and digital)
Corporate stationery (business cards, letterheads, etc.) and email signatures
A clear, defining brand
We support you in an in-depth reflection on your brand: its strengths, its weaknesses, and the opportunities to evolve it and accelerate its development.
We formalise its founding elements — identity, attributes, mission, values, promise, storytelling elements — in a comprehensive document that helps you stay the course and keep your efforts focused.
A coherent, powerful brand portfolio
We design and develop brand architectures for our multi-brand clients, identifying the structuring axes of a brand portfolio, clarifying the hierarchies (parent and sub-brands, umbrella brands, range names and product names), and creating or evolving the naming elements that make these relationships self-evident and express their fruitful synergies.
Anticipating and analyzing the competition
We have developed and maintain a brand observatory that allows us to carry out, on your behalf:
- Sector trend studies
- Competitive environment analyses
Forward-looking studies to anticipate the future of your brand
Precise, controlled communication
We carry out a communication audit for your company, gathering all the discourse surrounding its brands and their competitive context. This audit covers competitors’ messaging, press coverage (both general and specialist), institutional discourse (associations, public authorities, etc.), and of course the brand’s own communication tools (advertising, information brochures, catalogues, magazines, newsletters, blogs, chairman’s statements, etc.).
This factual, analytical focus provides a clear picture of where things stand, highlighting the improvements to be made, the themes to claim, the opportunities to speak out, and how to align communication tools in both substance and form.
Bringing teams together around a shared project
We organize creative sessions and group brainstorms for our clients, bringing your teams together and, where relevant, involving our own consultants or outside experts in the relevant fields. This is particularly valuable for internal competitions when searching for a brand name or tagline.
We also provide coaching on the challenges of brand mastery — linguistic, marketing and legal.
Une marque opérationnelle réussie
Nous créons des identités de marques : produit, service, société, web, concept mais aussi slogan et logo. Sur le plan juridique, nous effectuons les recherches d’antériorités et les dépôts (national et international), afin de vous assurer une marque fiable et pérenne.
Nous avons développé, au cours des ans et des projets, une méthodologie solide et éprouvée pour garantir tant la pertinence que la créativité et la validité de votre future identité de marque.
Notre process en 6 étapes-clé permet de dérouler votre projet de façon optimale :
+ Établissement d’un cahier des charges exhaustif et précis
+ Création de 200 pépites avec notre ruche de créatifs et leurs outils
+ Filtrages et validations marketing, juridique, linguistique
+ Choix d’une courte liste
+ Création du logo et de la signature
+ Sécurisation juridique et dépôt
Une marque viable et fiable
Afin de maximiser la qualité de notre travail et de vous fournir une identité pérenne, nous validons systématiquement nos créations en amont, sur plusieurs points :
Validations marketing
Nos créations sont conçues sur mesure pour votre projet et en parfaite cohérence avec votre cahier des charges. Toutes nos créations sont méthodiquement argumentées et contextualisées pour éclairer votre choix en vue d’établir avec soin et recul une courte liste à vos côtés (voir analyse de Twingo).
Validations linguistiques et culturelles
En nous appuyant sur un réseau international de linguistes polyglottes, nous identifions le niveau d’acceptabilité de nos créations dans les langues de réception. Il s’agit d’une validation à plusieurs niveaux : la prononciation, la compréhension, l’appropriation esthétique, mais aussi les connotations positives ou négatives en fonction des différents contextes culturels (histoire, actualité, traditions, expressions familières, etc...).
Validations juridiques
Toutes nos créations sont pré-filtrées par une recherche à l’identique dans les classes Ompi définies au cahier des charges, puis vos noms favoris sont soumis à une recherche d’antériorité plus poussée afin d’identifier ceux ayant la meilleure robustesse juridique.
Un écrin narratif pour votre marque
Le nom d’une marque est la clé qui ouvre sur une histoire, un discours porteur de valeurs et d’émotions apte à emporter l’adhésion de vos prospects.
Nous créons ainsi des histoires, de belles histoires, pour vos marques et leurs clients.
Nous puisons dans les valeurs de votre entreprise et de votre marque, dans son histoire ou celle de ses créateurs, les éléments d’un récit fondateur, explicatif et projectif, qui expriment et illustrent les valeurs de la marque, ses promesses, sa nature profonde.
Cet exercice narratif intervient en amont dans le processus de communication dont il dessine les grandes lignes, dont il ancre les fondations et qu’il nourrit d’éléments contextuels riches et expressifs ainsi que d’éléments de langage et de rêve, afin d’incarner votre communication.
Une marque qui communique
Nous imaginons et créons pour vous les outils de votre communication pour différents canaux :
+ Site web / pages de la marque dans les medias et sur les réseaux sociaux (Linkedin, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram…)
+ Plaquette (print et digitale)
+ Papeterie d’entreprise (cartes de visite, en-tête de lettres etc.) et signatures de mail
Une marque claire et référente
Nous vous accompagnons dans une réflexion de fond sur votre marque : ses atouts, ses faiblesses, ainsi que les opportunités de la faire évoluer pour en accélérer le développement.
Nous formalisons ses éléments fondateurs : son identité, ses attributs, sa mission, ses valeurs, sa promesse, ses éléments de storytelling, dans un document complet qui permet de garder le cap et de ne pas disperser les efforts.
Un portefeuille de marques cohérent et puissant
Nous imaginons et mettons au point des architectures de marques pour nos clients multi-marques, en identifiant les axes structurants d’un portfolio de marques, en clarifiant les arborescences (marques mères et marques filles, marques ombrelles, noms de gammes et noms de produits) et en créant ou faisant évoluer les éléments de naming qui permettent de les rendre évidentes et d’en exprimer les synergies fécondes.
Anticiper et analyser la concurrence
Nous avons développé et maintenons un observatoire des marques qui nous permet de réaliser pour vous :
+ des études de tendance sectorielles
+ des analyses de l’environnement concurrentiel
+ des études prospectives pour anticiper l’avenir de votre marque
Une communication précise et maîtrisée
Nous réalisons pour votre entreprise un audit de communication en collectant tous les discours qui sont portés sur ses marques et leurs contextes concurrentiels. Cet audit comprend l’étude des discours des concurrents, de la presse (grand public et spécialisée), des institutions (associations, pouvoirs publics, etc.) et bien entendu des outils de communication de la marque elle-même (publicité, brochures d’information, catalogues, magazines, newsletters, blogs, mots du président, etc.).
Ce focus factuel et analytique permet de faire un état des lieux et de pointer les améliorations à réaliser, les thèmes à préempter, les opportunités de prises de parole, et d’aligner les outils de communication aussi bien sur le fond que sur la forme.
Fédération des équipes autour d’un projet commun
Nous organisons des séances de créativité, des brainstormings sous forme de travail de groupe pour nos clients, en réunissant vos équipes, en y intégrant le cas échéant nos propres consultants ou des partenaires extérieurs experts dans les domaines pertinents. Particulièrement intéressant lors de concours internes pour une recherche de marque ou de slogan.
Nous vous accompagnons aussi à travers un coaching sur les enjeux de la maîtrise de la marque dans les domaines linguistique, marketing ou juridique.
*References
- Tout
- B-to-B
- B-to-C
- PME
- Institutions
- Partenariats
- Signatures
*Team
Benoit Saint-Hilaire
Founder
Benoit Saint-Hilaire is a lover of language — a keen connoisseur of its history, its structure and its countless manifestations, not least in the world of brands. His strong intuition for words, their aesthetics and their meaning, combined with a passion for brand identity, led him in 1996, after a postgraduate degree (DEA) in linguistics, to found the brand consultancy Les Architectes du Nom (ADN). He is a member of the “Sens, Texte, Informatique et Histoire” research team (Paris IV Sorbonne), lectures in various marketing-management master’s programmes, and has authored an original body of thinking on the world of brands, resulting in various publications, talks and seminars (La marque : créer et développer son identité, published by Vuibert).
Education
• Bachelor's degree in Literature (Licence ès Lettres) • Postgraduate degree (DEA) in semio-linguistics – Sorbonne, Paris IV • Member of the "Sens, Texte, Informatique et Histoire" research team – Sorbonne, Paris IV
Career
• 1992–1996: Creative Director – MEDIAWARE / London • 1996: Founded the brand consultancy LES ARCHITECTES DU NOM
Other
• Teaches at various business and communication schools • Guest lecturer in marketing-management master's programmes • Author of original thinking on the world of brands, resulting in various publications, talks and seminars
Francis Gosset
Strategy & Branding Director
An engineering graduate of Arts et Métiers, Francis began his career as a “Gadzart” at Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) before moving into design, first at Team Créatif, then at Landor Associates, and later at Malherbe Retail Design, where for 17 years he led numerous projects: Casino, Intermarché, Fnac, Carrefour Planet, L’Occitane en Provence, Aelia, Altarea-Cogedim, as well as international projects (Japan, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, etc.). He then worked on the Jihua Park project in China (the world’s largest commercial real-estate project, combining shopping, entertainment, sport, restaurants, a conference centre, and more) and for Lagardère Travel Retail (the new international Relay concept for major train stations and airports, etc.). For several years now, he has focused on branding projects alongside Benoit Saint-Hilaire (Les Architectes du Nom). Francis has given talks around the world (Retail Asia Expo in Hong Kong, Euroshop in Düsseldorf, Popai Brazil in São Paulo, Créativité Montréal, the Tetrapak Convention in Casablanca, and more).
Education
• 1984: Engineering degree from Arts et Métiers (ENSAM ParisTech) • 1986: Arthur Andersen University (Saint-Charles, Illinois) • 1991: Sup de Luxe Cartier
Career
• 1986: Arthur Andersen • 1988: Team Créatif • 1994: Landor Associates • 1997: Malherbe Retail Design • 2017: Diamart Consulting • 2017: Independent (Francis Gosset Conseil) & ADN
Mathilde Leproust
Head of Research
With her postgraduate degree (DEA) in culture and social behaviour, Mathilde Leproust has a passion for research and social interaction, analysing perceptions with a jeweller’s precision. Surveys and qualitative analysis, name testing, focus groups… research has found in her an unrivalled gift for synthesis.
Ingolf Rehbein
Client Relations Manager
After studying linguistics and philosophy and completing a doctoral thesis in English literature, Ingolf Rehbein worked as an executive recruiter across Europe and China, then as Sales Director for BlueRock Ltd in Ireland. A multilingual professional with an international background, Ingolf joined ADN as Client Relations Manager for the Lyon region.
"La marque : Créer et développer son identité" by Benoit Saint-Hilaire
Today, it is no longer realistic to expect to sell a good product without a good brand. Amid the vast, sometimes discordant chorus of twelve million “living” brands worldwide, it has become essential to bring a company’s identity to life through a strong, original brand.
This book first explains the concept of a brand and the elements that make it up, since understanding what a brand is — and everything it involves — is a good way to master the creation of your own. It then details the stages of building a brand identity, the parties involved, the processes set in motion, and the consequences that one choice can have compared with another. Finally, to protect this creation, it describes the legal process of registering a brand, whether nationally or internationally.
The book is usefully rounded out with a list of 600 names, each more original and creative than the last, to fuel the thinking of anyone building an identity — whether an entrepreneur, product manager, marketing director, SME leader or communications director.
*Resources
Throughout the creative process, your project director draws on a wide range of resources:
- our original, prolific creative team
- 76 dictionaries covering the world’s languages
- 35 encyclopaedias
- 3 thesauri of concepts, keywords and interconnections between notions
- Markotek©, our database of 105,000 names and 8,000 taglines generated by ADN over 30 years
- Etynome©, our database of 3,250 Greek, Latin and Anglo-Saxon roots
Where relevant, our proprietary generation software, Name Up!©
- For identical-sign checks (name, logo, tagline) as registered trademarks, we rely on the databases of the INPI, the French public body responsible for trademarks, designs and models, founded in 1902; and for in-depth prior-art searches in France, Europe and worldwide, on the databases of Compumark, our partner present in 135 countries, whose records list the 15 million trademarks that have been in force worldwide since 1946.
- To check our creations as French company names, we search the databases of the National Trade Register: infogreffe.fr. Note: company names are not directly governed by trademark law. A company name is deemed to be protected simply by virtue of its existence. For instance, the name “Renault” appears in 2,375 entries in the French Trade Register. Nevertheless, for the sake of legal, communications and institutional awareness, we believe it is important for you to know that such names exist in the business world.
- To check our creations as domain names, we search the registries of ICANN, the international (US-based) body responsible for all internet domain names and extensions.
Finally, for a thorough understanding and institutional command of your brand identity, we run an internet scan of the names on the shortlist we have drawn up together. We carry out this scan across 5 concurrent, complementary search engines, providing a comprehensive picture of the linguistic or commercial existence, worldwide, of the name you are about to adopt: Qwant, Google, Bing, Yahoo and StartPage.
All our linguistic validations and assessments are carried out by native-speaker linguists who are also trilingual (native language – French – English). Beyond the languages spoken in-house, we have carried out linguistic validations or assessments in the following languages:
- Major European languages, including Slavic dialects
- Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian
- Latin (we created a Latin tagline for Fenix)
- Turkish, Brazilian Portuguese, Mandarin (for the Fiat Linea)
- Urdu and Farsi for Guerlain
- Russian, Japanese (fluency in all three writing systems), Classical Arabic
For any other language, we call on our network to find reliable solutions within three weeks, with triple validation
– Italien, italiano, イタリアの, Italienisch, italian, Italiaans,
– Japonais, 日本語, giapponese, japanisch, japanese, japans
– Allemand, Deutsche, tedesco, ドイツ人, german, Duitse
– Anglais, english, inglese, 英語, engels,
– Néerlandais, Nederlands, olandese, オランダの, dutch, Niederländish
– Français francese, フランス語, Französisch, french, frans
Une équipe dédiée + des ressources propices = des résultats optimaux
*Nos offres
Pack Start
An agile brand creation package
For Lab-mode projects, SMEs, urgent briefs, or start-ups ahead of a funding round, we designed Pack Start: a compact, accelerated service to create, validate and roll out an operational brand, delivering:
- An operational brand block, validated on semiological, marketing and legal grounds
- A shortened timeline: 21 days
- A budget suited to the constraints of SMEs or “internal” projects within large groups
What’s included:
- Creating a brand, product or programme name
- Drafting the brief
- Rationale and argumentation
- Identical-sign filtering
- INPI France, 3 classes => 80 names
- Creating the logo and tagline
- Tagline creation => 30 taglines
- Logo creation => 6 logos
- Prior-art search => 1 name
- Filtering / Validation (legal and internet checks)
- Scan of .fr, .com, .eu, .net domains
- Check against the Trade and Companies Register (RCS)
- Internet scan (Google searches)
- Shortlist => 5 names
- Finalisation
- Prior-art searches
- Assembling the brand block
- Delivery of master files (Illustrator, Acrobat, etc.)
Filing the identity in France => 1 brand block
- • An operational brand block, validated on semiologic, marketing and legal grounds
- • A shortened timeline: 21 days
- • A budget suited to the constraints of SMEs or "internal" projects within large groups
What’s included:
- • Creating a brand, product or programme name + Drafting the brief + Rationale and argumentation + Identical-sign filtering + INPI France, 3 classes => 80 names
- • Creating the logo and tagline + Tagline creation => 30 taglines + Logo creation => 6 logos + Prior-art search => 1 name
- • Filtering / Validation (legal and internet checks) + Scan of .fr, .com, .eu, .net domains + Check against the Trade and Companies Register (RCS) + Internet scan (Google searches) + Shortlist => 5 names
- • Finalisation + Prior-art searches + Assembling the brand block + Delivery of master files (Illustrator, Acrobat, etc.) + Filing the identity in France => 1 brand block
Pack Storm
The participative solution
Pack Storm is a smart solution for finding your brand name in a single day. It was designed for:
- • Shoestring budgets
- • Super-urgent briefs — "we needed it yesterday"
- • Business plans that didn't budget for a "brand name" line item
- • SMEs or entrepreneurs who want to actively take part in creating the name
We send a senior consultant to your premises to run a 3-hour brainstorming session with you on site. This service includes:
- • The production of dozens of names
- • Names refined and polished by our consultant
- a short-list of 5 names
- • Identical-sign legal filtering of these names
- • Help with the final choice
The price of this package? That’s the pleasant surprise waiting for you when you give us a call 😉
Following this service, we can also provide:
- • An in-depth legal prior-art search on the chosen name
- Tagline creation
- logocreation
- Filling your brand block France and internationaly
*The Word Demo
The "Twingo" case
The name Renault Twingo has an extraordinarily rich range of meanings and calls up an impressive number of positive connotations. Not only does it bring together three popular dance names (Twist, Swing and Tango) that speak to mobility and pleasure, it also blends the words Win and Go into a shorthand that invites adventure and success…
Morphology
[TW-] British-sounding opening = composure and reassurance
[-GO] Mediterranean-sounding ending = warmth and sunshine
Evocation and denotation
Bingo = a "winning" game Twitter = light, everyday communication (bird chirping)
Evocation and connotation
Evokes the Twist, the Swing, the Tango.
Connotations of dance and celebration.
Cryptography
Win = to win: positive
"Oui" ("yes"): positive
Go: positive
Twin = "twin": perfect for a small two-door city car
Strong fit with…
- the product
- the launch campaign
Phonetics
[t] + [g]: energy…
[w] + [n]: …and softness
Intuitive perception
Fun, original and modern
Logo design
Round and sofr
*Presse coverage
