Observation of Titles of Collections

As I was browsing through different collections, I kind of noticed that some titles kind of struck a nerve or two (in a good way, of course) on my overall mortal-ness.

One particular was drey's Fantasized Telekinetic Obliteration. While I was browsing through drey's different works, Fantasized Telekinetic Obliteration made me just say in my mind, "How did he think of that title?" Then looking at the collection, I did feel it. I felt like if I had telekinetic powers and used them on my enemies, I truly felt like this is how I would picture happening to the bad guys trying to harm me.

After those few minutes of musings that I had telekenisis, it struck me that, do collection titles have really an effect if a collection will mint out or explode on secondary. This lead me then to browse more on fx(hash) and look for more titles that will make me pause.

So I started with the collections listed on the all-time list in the Marketplace section. Well, the most ones that appealed to me were (kinder)Garden, Monuments, A Bugged Forest, Dragons, Contrapuntos, Proxima, Waiting in Afton, Southern Gothic and Traveler.

The word "kinder" really tugged something in me because it really gives a kiddie appeal to the artwork in reference to Garden, Monuments. A Bugged Forest on the other-hand, although refers to a bug in terms of coding and stuff, but when you look at the collection, you'd really feel that the forest is like infested with bugs. A real witty play on words there. Aside from very artistic outputs from Mister Zancan, the titles were also well thought out. Just hats off.

Now, Dragons alone as a word and be used as a title may be awesome to hear but you could also say for phoenix, manticore, cyclops and other mythical creatures. My point is it is associated with a mythical creature but doesn't really as a word could summon something special on ones personage. The title couldn't be that spectacular as I'm sure there are other works titled Dragon, however, the appeal of the title "Dragons" manifests when you look at every iterations of Dragons. You can feel the majestic-ness of each iteration and you can just imagine and feel the whole mythological creature coming to life by just seeing a part of it. That's why I won't be surprised if it goes to 50k.

Contrapuntos, of course, sounds Spanish. But if you enunciate it aloud, it really does have a nice ring to it that you'd like to say it again and again. I guess Contrapuntos, especially when associated with msoriaro, it's just a recipe for good art investment.

Proxima, for me, also have this ring to my ear when said aloud in any combinations of the syllables. You can say "Prok-sima" or "Proks-si-ma and both sound so "artsy" good. Well, I love futuristic artworks, so this is really one of the pieces I'm eyeing to have in the future.

Waiting in Afton, now this is really good because it somehow conveys a story just upon reading it. It's like hinting that the author was waiting in Afton and then something big happened, God knows what. It just tickles the imagination really tht something eventful went down in Afton. Well, at least that's how it came on to me. This title can somehow evoke speculations on the reader alone without even looking at the artwork.

Southern Gothic, for me, was aptly titled. When you look at the iterations, and you'd see blood stains on some pieces, it really spells eeriness and really gives that Southern ruralness tone to it. Actually this reminded me of the movie "Children of the Corn." I don't remember the full movie now as I watched it 30+ years ago. But to this day I still remember those cinematic shots of those eerie cornfields from the movie.

Traveler on the otherhand, gives you a vibe that you can teleport to other places. It didn't give me the vibe of a time traveler, but just being able to go anywhere.

Oh, yeah, Take Wing also, in my opinion, is a title that really sets the story for the whole collection. When you look at the iterations you can just feel like you're ready to takeoff or that you have wings and you can fly. Take Wing reminded me too of the story of Icarus from Greek mythology.

Well, of course, mostly, most artworks are aptly titled or have a connection to the collection itself somehow, but I'm just saying there are really artworks that can evoke something just from seeing the name of the collection.

I remember minting some or buying on secondary because I liked the title and then looking at the iterations further bolstered my resolve to mint/buy the art like Barnett's Blackboard by Geoffrey Crayon, Fêlure by Julien Pradet, Noisy Garden by CCDDBB, and Rosemandy by Shengkai.

Probably, I could go on forever, but here are some cool titles that I think that really added more to the appeal of the collection:

Mythic Latent Glitches

Weird Wide World

Gossamer

Designatori

Plottable Train Stations

Tumble Down Light Factory

Secret Staircase

Hoppler

Skravert

Protein Pelt

Turner Light

Aimless Obscure

NeonSpaghetti

Aspergo

Mezcal

Well, I guess, the point of this article is to help artists think better titles for their collections. I just observe that a title is a very effective tool to make collectors take a closer look at particular artworks. Like if I'm looking at the incoming page, the first thing I look at always are those with cool and nifty titles. Also, as I observe the discord sales feed, the ones with thought provoking titles are the ones that cling to mind more, so by the time I have loaded up some tez and looking out to buy to add to my collection, what I would remember top of the mind are the ones with the very memorable titles.

Like any marketing tool, the thing that is gonna be most associated with a product, in this case the artworks, will be the title. But of course serious collectors won't really care actually about titles if the artwork is that good. Art is art as they say. However, most on the all-time top list is that they have a really more collection-defining titles than generic ones like say "fractal (whatever)" or "fx(something)" or "generative whatever."

Another thing to point out also like I would have loved the title Julia's Magical Bulbs, but when the Second, Third and Fourth powers were added, it became too long. Again, the point is to have something to be remembered top of the mind, so having a very long title kind of dispels recall. I think too much length just makes it harder to process in the minds, so automatically the brain discards long ones too, even if they have well-thought-out titles too.

Thank you for reading. Hope my little observation is useful.