I usually have trouble naming things but in this case it was fairly easy to come up with one.

The first thing I did was to check a thesaurus for words that represent the inconsistent and fickle nature of the product’s ‘personality’.

Out of these Temperamental really stood out as it incorporates the concept of something inconsistent and annoying, implies that the product is something playful and contains the words ‘temper’ and ‘mental’ to further reinforce the concept. My doubt with this as a stand alone name is that it doesn’t really convey that it’s a toy but in context and with a brief strap-line there will be no problem explaining what it is in the same way thousands of brands do.

My business will produce an electronic toy aimed primarily at the gift market. The toy will take the form of a tactile sphere and feature a small LCD display and a number of sensors. Using the data from these sensors it will display complaints about its environment on the display. It is up to the user to make the device happy.

The idea is based on an earlier project for DAT301 (Realtime) and the feedback received after presenting it. I felt that it could be converted into an interesting product and incorporate new game-play elements, such as making it possible for the device to have a happy state, the challenge being to achieve the correct balance of a number of environmental factors.

If the ball is too hot it complains about the heat on the display, if it’s too cold it also complains using its large array of phrases. The main environmental factors it could sense are temperature, light, proximity and orientation.

For my business I want to focus around this single core product and hopefully in the long term branch off from it with a range of products in the same vein.