Why Urban Matter ?
My project partner, Valeria who is working with me on Silent Lights, asked about the name ‘Urban Matter’. I couldn’t remember exactly why we started calling ourselves that. I did remember that my friend Aaron had brainstormed with me regarding the name, few years ago and I found our chat transcript today. Just realized that his suggestion was ‘urbinform’. I think, it turned into urbanmatter after more conversations around ‘inform’ and ‘matter’. Matter felt more universal and had materiality to it versus inform which felt more data driven. This conversation that happened on 27th April 2009 with Aaron around urbinform is interesting too. Here goes –
5:48 PM me: which name do you like the best? urbanation, urbaninform , urbanmatter, urbanarc
thinking of a name for my company
5:52 PM aaron: hmmmmmmmm
urb-in-form
me: ah
5:53 PM all broken up huh
hmm
aaron: no not really just use dit to show the over laps sucha as
1) urban form
2) urban inform(ation)
urban in formation (forming)
5:54 PM 4) informing urbanity (implied)
i like!
me: hahaha…me too
i like the urbaninform and iterations of it the best
5:55 PM aaron: yep
me: the domain name for urbaninform is taken
aaron: i think its closer to your attitude/ethic as well
me: so maybe will use an iteration
aaron: thats why i sed urbinform
instead of urban its urbin
sounds the same
5:56 PM and is easier to say thanurban inform
jusst urbinform
me: ah..that might be availbale
5:57 PM haha…rick likes it too
aaron: yep
word
me: thanks
aaron: my pleasure!
thanks for asking me!