- Studio
- About
Four people have written every Velabu name since 2014, and none of us draws logos.
Velabu is a naming consultancy in Austin, Texas, not a design studio wearing a naming hat. Eleven years, one narrow scope: names, taglines, tone-of-voice guides and rename audits, printed, screened, and handed over in weeks instead of months.
- Founded
- 2014, Austin, Texas
- People
- Four — a strategist, two writers, an editor
- What we skip
- Logos, color systems, full identity work
A small naming studio, not a holding company
Velabu is a naming and brand-language studio trading as Velabu at velabu.com, based in Austin, Texas. The studio works from 31 River Road, Suite 4, Austin, Texas 61698, United States — a real office, not a virtual mailbox, and the address the printed booklets actually ship from when a client wants a physical copy in hand.
It has run continuously since 2014, which puts it at eleven years old as of this writing. That is long enough to have named businesses that have since been sold, renamed again by someone else, or are still running under the exact word we handed over on day one — we don't track which, since a name is the client's property the moment it's paid for, not ours to follow.
Names, taglines, and a knockout trademark screen — nothing drawn
Velabu writes company names, product line names, taglines and short brand text, tone-of-voice guides, and rename audits for a business that has outgrown its current name. Every finalist name gets one knockout pass against the federal trademark register before it reaches a client — a screen for the obvious, direct conflicts, not a substitute for the search an attorney runs before you file anything.
We do not draw logos, build color systems, or design full visual identities, and never have. A client who needs those gets a written naming brief and a referral to a designer, at no extra charge and no cut taken. This studio also does not offer legal trademark clearance, does not guarantee a name will clear a full search, and does not do the deep-discovery, multi-month brand strategy engagements a larger identity agency runs — the whole pitch is that a naming-only shop moves faster because none of that sits in front of it.
Work ships as documents: a shortlist with a rationale sheet, a pronunciation note, a printed tone-of-voice booklet, or a written case for keeping or dropping an existing name. Everything is printed at least once during the process, even when the client only asked for a PDF, because a name read aloud from paper sounds different than the same name read off a screen, and we test for the paper version.
How the studio got to four people
Velabu started in 2014 as one naming strategist taking on projects that identity agencies were passing along without much interest — the client who just needed a name, no logo, no rebrand, and didn't want to pay for a six-week discovery process to get one. That mismatch turned out to be the whole business. Agencies wanted the logo work; nobody wanted to just write the name well.
Two writers joined over the following few years, both hired for the same reason: they could read a name aloud and hear where it would fail before a client ever tried to say it on the phone. The fourth seat, an editor who runs the trademark knockout screening pass on every finalist, was added once the studio's volume made a dedicated screening step worth having rather than folding it into a writer's week.
The studio has stayed at four people since. Growth was available — naming work scales the way any small writing shop's work does, by hiring more writers and taking on more projects at once — and we turned it down on purpose, because a bigger roster means more names getting written by someone who wasn't in the intake call, and that's exactly the gap that produces a name nobody can actually say.
Who reads your brief and writes your name
No account managers, no project coordinators. The person who takes the intake call is one of the four people who will write, read aloud, and screen the name that reaches you.
Runs the intake call
Started the studio in 2014 and still takes most first calls. Writes the brief, sets the register, and makes the final judgment call on which twelve names survive the read-aloud stage.
Builds the working list
Works the brief into the first half of the sixty-name list — the compounds, the borrowed-language coinages, the ones that sound obvious only after someone else has already said them.
Builds the working list
Works the brief independently into the second half of the list, then sits in on the combine so no single writer's blind spot decides what makes the cut of twelve.
Runs the knockout pass
Runs every finalist name against the federal trademark register once before it reaches a client, and is the one who tells a client plainly when a name needs an attorney's full search before they spend money on it.
The refusal list, and why each one is on it
A studio that says yes to everything ends up doing all of it badly. These are on the list on purpose, not because we ran out of time to learn them.
We do not draw logos
Never have. A naming studio that also draws marks is really a design studio, and design studios revise logos for weeks — that's where the two-to-three-month timeline other agencies quote comes from. We stay out of that cycle entirely and write a brief the designer can act on instead.
We do not offer legal trademark clearance
Our knockout screen catches an obvious conflict. It is not a substitute for the search a trademark attorney runs, and we say so in writing on every project before the final four names ship. Anyone who tells you a naming studio can clear a mark for legal use is skipping a step you'll pay for later.
We do not run unlimited revision rounds
A sprint includes one working list, one read-aloud pass, and one round of finalist revisions if the first four don't land. Unlimited rounds sound generous and mostly produce a client who keeps moving the target instead of deciding. We'll tell you when a project needs a second sprint instead of a seventh revision.
We do not guarantee a name will clear every market
A name that's clean in the United States can still collide with an existing mark elsewhere, or carry a meaning in another language nobody on a four-person Austin team happens to speak. We flag what we can catch and say plainly what we can't.
Call, write, or send the brief straight through
Call +1 (648) 555-1724 or email office@velabu.com and you reach the same four people named above — there is no answering service and no account manager reading your message before we do. Both are checked on business days, and a brief sent through either one gets a reply within one business day.
The studio is at 31 River Road, Suite 4, Austin, Texas 61698, United States, if you'd rather put a brief in the mail or drop off reference material in person. For the full inquiry form and every field it takes, see the contact page.
See what each format actually includes.
Five formats, each with its own price basis and its own deliverable — no bare list, no guessing what's inside.