Good morning Ed. I have read several threads about makers marks. You have always been clear on what you think about it. I have to say I totally agree with you. Ok,,, say you are a good Norwegian with a last name 3 miles long. lol,,, Then what? Run it down the spine.
Sorry I didn't respond sooner..... been teaching a class all week, and we've had some long days. Anyways..... a long last name does create some challenges, but I think it's still very important to relate the knife/mark with the individual's name..... it requires a bit more thought, you can shorten the marks in some way, which is the easy part, the challenge comes in that you want to create an association of the mark, and the specific name it refers to. In some ways it's similar to the challenges that an individual faces when they choose to use a logo, but not as difficult. EVERY chance you get, to show the actual name, along side the mark. For example, in your signature block on forums such as this one.... and even on your email signatures blocks. The idea being that you want to make the shortened version of the name (the mark), and the actual name synonymous with each other..... when someone sees the shortened name/mark, they think of the name.
Now don't confuse that with associating a logo with a name, which is MUCH more difficult, and takes MUCH longer. I'll use myself as an example.... if you look at my signature block on any forum or email, it always contains "Caffrey", "The Montana Bladesmith" and my URL. That creates the association with knives that are marked "CAFFREY". I admit that I am fortunate in that there are is no other "CAFFREY" in the custom knife world, but if their were, my knives would be identifiable by the "MS" on the reverse side.
Some might read what I've said and surmise that there would be no difference if they used some logo (without any name in it) and associate it with a given surname..... You can try, but for whatever reason it is simply a MUCH longer and harder road to do so, versus using a name, or a part thereof. It's just easier for the human brain to associate a part of a name, with a full one. For example if your name happened to be "VANDERKOFSTONSON" you might mark you blades with "VANDERK", that's the same amount of letters as my full last name, easily fits on any size blade, and if someone where to type "VANDERK" into a search engine, the auto spell would likely bring up "VANDERKOFSTONSON" somewhere on the first page of results. It's all about making yourself as easy as possible to find to the general public. Of course there will always be the stubborn ones out there, who insist on using some whacked out logo on their knives, but they generally end of wondering why nobody knows who they are, or that they make the knives with the whacked out logo on it..... again, if they can't find you fairly easily, they can't/won't be buying any knives from you. Whatever you decide to use as a "mark" on your blades, if you just take the time/effort to think about what the intended purpose of they mark is (to identify your knives with you specifically, and make it simple for a stranger to find you), and push aside the emotional/what you think is cool part, it's not too difficult to come up with a useful, viable mark for your work.
