Afterword

Title: Your Secret Weapon

A title can magically transform artwork into a story. Yet many artists miss out on this great opportunity by being too generic or too obscure in their titles. There’s nothing essentially wrong with Untitled #3 or Mary Thinks of Blueberries While Listening to Bach, but they don’t necessarily help the viewer connect with a piece of art. Instead, build a bridge between yourself and your audience by taking the time to come up with meaningful titles. Here are three of my favorite titling tips:

Use an Adjective That Describes the Main Character

This is a really fun way to title your work because it helps audiences immediately identify with your protagonist. This lone girl in her yellow bikini is diving right into the ocean, bravely seeking whatever treasure she might find.

Create a Play on Words

In this painting, I used the ruler to come up with the title. I thought about other meanings of the word “rule” and ended up by saying something meaningful about the idea of ruling itself—namely that love, rather than power or control, can be a governing force.

Refer to Music and Lyrics

The beauty of using music for a title is that it often evokes the entire song. When I think of this piece of music—”Two of Us” by The Beatles—I think not just of the title, but of other lines from the song like, “You and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead.” The absent lyrics actually tell the story of this mother and son remembering the roads they’ve traveled together.