An on-demand shipping company approached us for an upcoming meeting where they’d be pitching out-of-the-box experiential campaigns to a world class customer. They had the ideas, but lacked the polish.
Our solution was to go simple and bold, combining brand elements like typeface and color, rather than going with an always-awkward pairing of company logos.
With such a primary palette, as well as the client’s spunky concepts, it made sense to develop simple, upbeat illustrations to buoy the vibe. I created a set of abstract packages for subtle effect on the title pages, which the client loved.
As with most pitch decks, a lot of the text had to be redacted to protect the client’s privacy.
The isometric maze gift blanket began as a weekend personal project. The idea was sparked while I was developing our illustration approach for security case studies. The calm isometric look was a combination of professional and approachable that reflected the brand we were building.
As I developed the first round of illustrations, the idea of Cobalt’s iconic robot roaming the halls of an isometric maze continued to nag at me. Finally, one Sunday morning, I sat down with a cup of coffee and worked out the seamlessly repeating pattern.
The look was simple, but striking, enhanced by the electric blue that traveled along the tops of the walls.
I dropped in a robot, and it looked great… but there was so much blue it was oppressive. Solution: an occasional planter with a poof of flowers in bright complementary colors relieved the monotony.
When the time came to discuss a holiday gift for the company, I was excited to share a few ideas that involved the maze pattern, and the concept was received with enthusiasm. Super soft sherpa blankets were produced with the Society6 print-on-demand system, and were a hit with the Cobalt team. It was a delight and an honor to give a little of my time toward what became a heartfelt gift to the entire company.
Cobalt Robotics is a security service powered by robots and human Robot Specialists working together. It’s a new way of using robots and a dramatically new way of doing security.
When I began at Cobalt, we had a very basic visual identity framework: a beautiful logo, colors, a typeface, and an initial brand book by the original designers. We didn’t have enough to hand to media or outside agencies, nor did we have the visual vocabulary we needed to take our next steps with the product, like improving the robot’s UI and building an operations center app for our customers.
By the time I had created our first cohesive set of Brand Guidelines, a couple of colors had shifted, an additional typeface was added, and I had refined the essential elements of our company story.
I did these things carefully: I used the existing guide and materials, studied early documentation, spent time interviewing stakeholders, and applied the provided assets to my first few projects. Only then did I determine exactly what needed to change, and why.
Brand Discovery
Before attempting to direct the brand (i.e. make any major decisions about the existing assets and guidelines), I explored the company archives for relevant notes, interviewed leadership, and led a discovery exercise for the founding team (12 or 13 people, including leadership, at the time).
As part of my research, I focused on better understanding our product and service, as well as the security industry we were targeting. I balanced those learnings with studies on the challenges of cultural acceptance for robotics.
In meetings with leadership, I presented images and phrases pulled from assets in use, or that reflected conversations and notes about the company’s goals and vision, or that I believed would elevate the current conversations. I made notes based on their feedback, adjusted my presentation, and interviewed them again.
The discovery exercise for the entire team began a week or two ahead of a planned internal Town Hall, with a request to everyone for five words that they felt described our identity as a company.
When we met, I had written everyone’s words on index cards. If multiple people chose the same word, each mention counted for another card.
I spread the cards out on a table and invited everyone to organize them in a way that made sense to them. Some gathered same or similar cards together, others created groups and hierarchies.
While participants interacted with the cards, I noted not only what they did with the cards, but also how they responded—to words they had not expected, to repeated words, and to contradictory words (for example, how to reconcile ‘scrappy’ with ‘elegant’? and ‘driven’ with ‘soft’?). There was surprise, delight, and some really good conversation as participants discussed the meanings and priorities of each other’s choices.
I had gathered an abundance of insights; Patterns were beginning to emerge. I kept asking questions and strewing provocations in smaller ways, but it was time to distill my learnings so far.
Documentation
Documentation is not only an essential practice for guiding future projects, but also an elegant and powerful tool I use to process big questions. I begin by creating the loose framework of a proposed story: it’s a first draft, and the aim is to jump start the distilling process.
Knowing, for example, that part of discovering our brand is to understand where we come from and where we aim to go, I create blank pages in a “book” with titles that start out as “The Why” and “Vision”. Onto those pages I dump snippets of what I know so far.
The snippets can be moved to different sections. The titles will certainly change. But by simply beginning to tell our story, I unearth patterns, expose gaps and raise important, clarifying questions.
Having populated the pages of the first Guidelines draft, I went about the day to day of utilizing our visual identity assets to create sales and marketing materials, develop the UI for our online operations centers, and provide our customers with the tools to help introduce Cobalt to their employees and guests.
Now I had context, I had an understanding of our company and product, and I had started to develop informed empathy for our target markets.
Brand Evolution
Colors
The original visual identity designers had provided a palette of primary and secondary colors. As I learned more about our market, our messaging and our internal vision, it became clear we were playing things too cool. Our neutral gray and our icy pink were not helping us introduce ourselves to a cautious industry, skeptical of Bay Area startups and high tech promises.
We needed to dial things to warmer hues, differentiating ourselves not only from the perceived Silicon Valley Disrupter bubble, but also from “enforcer” wannabees and Hollywood’s robot stereotypes. To that end, we also moved the middle secondary blue to a primary role.
Initial colors
Evolved colors
Typeface
The typeface specified in the initial brand book was beautiful, but its high per-seat price would be costly for our flat organizational hierarchy and its numerous content producers. Also, its body copy weight was not going to perform well in text-heavy whitepapers and case studies. I opted to keep it for print headings and subheadings, but chose a complementary free font with a slightly higher x-height to use for body copy and online communications.
Our Story
In order to introduce Cobalt to the media and external vendors, I broke our company story into three parts:
The Facts (describing our product/service)
The Story (our “why” and our values)
The Intent (our vision)
By now, much of what is included on those pages is increasingly public knowledge. That said, it is more valuable than ever to present these ideas as a somewhat formal narrative.
On the pages that follow that narrative, the story becomes increasingly abstracted—from words to images, and then to the essential colors and forms of our visual identity.
The rest is pretty standard: color values, photography rules, a section on brand voice, etc.
Going forward
Cobalt has evolved and the market has continued to mature as its exposure to robotics increases. We have expanded the types of customers we serve to include malls, warehouses, and stadiums. Most importantly, we are fulfilling more than the basic security guard role (“observe and report”), and demonstrating value in roles such as mobile kiosk, remote concierge, remote evacuation assistance, and on-call hazard monitor.
We’ve already begun testing messaging to reflect these changes, and it’s time to also address them in a new edition of our Brand Guidelines.
When I began at Favly, makers of a new social referral app, there was already a first-round website, a nearly-complete iOS version of the app, and a logo. While there was a rough styleguide, the logo and its uses had evolved since it was created. All resources were now focused on the iOS launch.
For more details about my product design work for this company, see Favly, Inc. Product.
Brand Discovery
To create a system, a coherent visual identity, and to begin delivering materials that would best serve our goals, I began with a brand discovery process, and spoke with each founder to get a feel for their vision. The resulting document—The Favly Story—was not only a valuable resource for myself and new hires, but was added to the fundraising arsenal.
Styleguide
Once I had confirmation from management that The Favly Story reflected the company’s principles and vision, I began the first draft of the styleguide. This was a more conventional document, but I used excerpts from the Story to reinforce the reasoning behind various style rules, such as the use of gradients and copy tone.
Multi-platform Design
With the beginnings of a system in place, my design team revisited the company’s marketing materials and landing pages, as well as the product itself. In print, on the web and in mobile app environments, we generated visuals that are a dynamic balance of consistency and vitality.
Other fundraising support included a deep overhaul of the slide presentation to reflect the app’s core ideas with greater clarity and professionalism.
Email design and notification strategy
One of my most challenging projects was working closely with the Director of Marketing, the planning and implementation of about fifty emails. Most of these were critical moving parts of the product, and an indispensable step in earning new users to grow our traction. Tight on resources, I designed a simple base template and commandeered wall space to map and track the emails. We co-planned, co-wrote, and co-strategized every piece with the intent to maximize the potential of these touchpoints.
Back to the Future Electrics is a new electric bike distributer. The client wanted to take inspiration from the past, as well as from the idea that electric motors are an idea whose time has returned.
During the kickoff meeting, he mentioned the possibility of pop-up shops, and a vintage step-van he had his eye on. One of my challenges was to gracefully integrate a jagged electric bolt into the flowing script.
No surprise (to me) that our corner of the world was among those designated by Mayor Eric Garcetti to be a Los Angeles Great Street.
As a member of the Pico Great Street Collaborative and the PGSC Urban Design Committee, I’m drawing from the neighborhood’s diverse social and architectural identity and contributing design input to facets including signage, infographics and grant applications.
My strategy has been to first lock on to the existing Great Streets visual identity, and then gradually evolve that toward reflecting Pico’s unique qualities. This allows the initiative to leverage public recognition as support and funding are developed, and more importantly, to listen carefully: it’s both our pride and our challenge to be one of Los Angeles’ most culturally and racially diverse communities.
The infographic below was adapted for use as a poster in participating shops, as an online outreach tool, and as a supporting document in grant applications.
Because this is a volunteer project, I am delivering assets as the need arises, rather than as a pre-packaged system. All the better to allow a complex identity and its future vision to be discovered, defined and redefined over time.
The Undercard Show is a new Thailand-based media channel, focusing on lesser-known, up-and-coming mixed martial arts (MMA) contenders. Expat founder Jeffrey Murphy is deeply immersed in the culture and needed a bold face forward that also reflects the grit, camaraderie and untamed atmosphere of living and training in Phuket.
I researched the pro and amateur MMA industries, getting a feel for their cultures, shared aesthetics, and values. I also connected directly with undercard MMA athletes—dedicated men and women who are always training and living for their next match.
For the Undercard identity, I proposed a shape we could beat up and push around, and that wouldn’t take itself too seriously. I expect (and want) it to be scraped, torn and of course, animated. I found inspiration in 70s action shows, as will as Shinichirô Watanabe’s brilliant animated series, Cowboy Bebop (1998-2001).
As Jeffrey pulls content together, I designed, coded and uploaded a simple (and responsive—different background photos display on different platforms) splash page, and wired the signup form to an email list. Most site users are, and will be, visiting from their phones.
The Camp Forever brand is a new project from Tamara Muro, founder of Velvet, the award winning New Orleans espresso bars and vintage trailer pop-up shops. Inspired by a three-month unplugged stint in the Southwest, she conceived the new business name, as well as the brand-defining statement, your tribe is your home, and got in touch to discuss the visuals, including logo and ecommerce site.
We decided to use Shopify, which is theme-based. Tamara agreed to my recommendation of a well-built and feature rich theme, which allowed the team to quickly become self-reliant, but still left plenty of room for code-level customization of the design.
A selection of social media posters created for a neighborhood café.
I took the food and kitchen photos, researched the others, established the brand tone and wrote/found the copy.
Documentation is not only an essential practice for guiding future projects, but also an elegant and powerful tool I use to process big questions. I begin by creating the loose framework of a proposed story: it’s a first draft, and the aim is to jump start the distilling process.
