For many years Filofax used town/city names to name their organisers. There is a huge list of them and a map to help pin-point the locations.
Some names go well with organisers, for instance the Kendal. Kendal is a town in northern England, it is a 'rugged' sort of place and it has higher than average rainfall, so the oiled leather of Filofax Kendal seems fitting for that name/model.
The Filofax Eton, Eton is famous for Eton College, a fee paying private boarding school. So the high quality Filofax Eton models released in deluxe leather seem to fit with the image they wanted to portray with that model name. You get the idea.
Gillio uses Italian words for their model names, but some don't make a lot of sense if you translate them back in to English!
- Amica - Friend
- Mia Cara - My dear
- Compagna - Mate
- Appunto - Just. Although Google translate also offers 'Note'
- Giramondo - Globe trotter
Van der Spek has the Nomad, which Janet and I named! for their Travellers Notebook. Codex for their Notebook covers.
How do Filofax think up the names? Do they get a mixed bunch of people who have never met each other in to a conference room somewhere and give them the full on marketing presentation and demonstration of the products before lunch. Then have to sit down and come up with a name.
Lunch is a bit overdone.. the poor office assistant didn't know what to order, so they went over the top and ordered everything off the menu... resulting in everyone 'grazing' off the remaining food all afternoon... any one smiling and nodding at this point knows exactly what I mean!
Some names like I've highlighted above were obvious and easy picks... but how did they arrive at 'Apex' ?
At least they didn't name any after motorway service stations... the Filofax Leicester Forest East sounds pleasant to people who have never visited the famed service station on the M1 Motorway!
I think I would call a model 'Another one' just so I could watch people go in to stores and ask for Another one please.... Another what? !!
What name would you call a new Filofax Model?
Now, call me cynical, but I have a feeling that the Malden wasn't named after the small and nondescript town near Nijmegen in The Netherlands. What's the betting that it's a Googol/Google-like situation - they intended to name it after Maldon, Essex, made a spelling mistake/typo, and the rest is history?
ReplyDeleteThere is New Malden in Surrey!
DeleteI was gifted some Maldens for my 50th birthday because I was born in Essex and my parents lived near to the famous sea salt producing town!! I giggled because there was a celebrity trend a while back for naming their children after places like Manhattan. I was thinking of Leicester Forest East Beckham here Steve. I loved living in Chichester, so that would be a lovely name for me for a Filofax. Maybe some Italian or German musical terms would work. The Presto, the Adagio, the Andante, the Rubato. Hmm, maybe you have guessed by now that this is spoken by a musician and music teacher. Only trouble is, car manufacturers have got there first with that idea.xx
ReplyDeleteI like your musical term idea for naming. Lyric and Aria would be good ones I think.
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