Name it like you would introduce a friend

I used to write titles the way search engines prefer them. Material, size, color, then a soft word like “unique” at the end, as if uniqueness were a checkbox. The pieces sold. They also felt slightly orphaned on the page, like they had been introduced by their passport instead of their name.

Then I tried naming a bowl the way I would introduce a person. Not “handmade ceramic bowl 18cm beige.” Something closer to what I would say if a friend walked into the studio: the one that holds morning fruit, the one that still smells faintly of wood ash, the one that leans toward the window when the glaze is wet.

Buyers do not only search for nouns. They search for the feeling they already have and cannot quite label. Your title can meet them halfway. Keep the useful words — ceramic, oak, wool — but let one human phrase sit near the front, where a stranger’s eye lands first.

On Doshe, that first line is often the whole decision. Make it sound like you. Make it sound like the object. If you would be embarrassed to say the title out loud in your own workshop, rewrite it before you hit publish.