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Lowercase Company Names
Q: Should a company’s name be
capitalized even when the company logo is in all lowercase letters?
For example, my company’s name is “emeron.” Should I
capitalize emeron when I begin a sentence? How about in the middle
of a sentence? There are two factions in my office, and nobody can
agree on what to do.
You should get this question answered by your firm’s executive
committee, and the answer should become the official company standard
for everyone. In fact, you should begin crafting a standards manual for
all aspects of your corporate communications, so your firm maintains a
consistent professional image. (Intranets are great tools for
distributing your standards manual, once it is created.)
Assuming you stay with the lowercase firm name as your standard, it
should be lowercase at all times – period. However, you must consider
and overcome the problems that not capitalizing your company name will
create for your readers.
Company names are proper nouns and, therefore, start with capital
letters. When your eye catches a word beginning with a capital letter,
your brain immediately interprets that word as special, and you keep
reading without a pause. However, when you read a word that is not
capitalized but not immediately recognized, such as a lowercased company
name, your brain takes a moment – it stumbles, if you will – to
register what it sees. The problem is, any time your reader stumbles, he
or she will be left with the perception that your writing is poor – a
perception you have obviously recognized and are trying to avoid.
I suggest that, when your lowercased company name falls within a sentence, you
choose to set the company name apart by making it bold or italic. But,
again, this should be decided upon by the powers that be, and the
decision should become a corporate standard.
Then you have the question of starting a sentence with your company name
– I suggest you reword the sentence, so your company name is not the
first word. This can almost always be done
effectively.
Bottom line: Let your firm’s decision-makers decide this issue, but insist that all
personnel follow it as the corporate standard.
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