Barton F. Graf, the New York agency whose moniker combined the name of founder Gerry Graf’s father and the big gun in Doom 3, has quietly and officially dropped the number from its name.
Moving forward, agency principals would prefer that you call their operation Barton F. Graf or Barton for short. From the homepage:
CEO Barney Robinson tells us that the agency felt the need to make a change for the sake of clarity, because the abbreviation was getting out of hand.
“The more the name got used, the more people naturally abbreviated it.
Given the original intent of the name was for Gerry to, posthumously, give his dad the company he always wanted to start while he was alive, the important piece to keep is the Barton F. Graf, not the 9000.”
As he told AdAge two years ago, Gerry Graf has always found it a bit strange that his younger brother got the Junior designation–and as Robinson notes, the whole point of giving the shop that name was to honor Barton F. Graf the elder. (We know they’re our competitors and all, but it’s worth clicking on that link for the “Gerry in a high school production of Cats” picture alone.)
The name change will not, as far as we can tell, signify any other shifts in the way Barton F. Graf operates.
Just don’t call it The BFG. That’s a Roald Dahl book.