Process

Every cre­ative agency from PR Co.s to inte­rior design­ers fol­low some ver­sion of the same 3–7 step ‘pro­pri­etary’ design process. Us too. But in our 10+ years we’ve devel­oped an approach to it that makes us special.

It’s called Design Think­ing. And it’s spe­cial because it brings out the best in all of the ingredients.

Beer: Speed dat­ing for design partners

Lawyers give you the first hour free. We’ll buy you a drink. We’ll chat about your prob­lems in gen­eral terms and share our thoughts on them. Chances are you’ll be hooked on us and want more of our insights and enthu­si­asm. If that doesn’t prove to be the case, then we’ve dis­cov­ered you have no taste just in time, we’ll call the wed­ding off and go our sep­a­rate ways.

Couch Ses­sion: Read­ing between the lines

The longest jour­ney begins with a sin­gle step, but that jour­ney may never end if you set out in the wrong direc­tion. Our jour­neys begin with an in-depth dis­cus­sion about your aspi­ra­tions. Under­stand­ing your moti­va­tion points us in the direc­tion of your needs and keeps us on the same page from the begin­ning of our saga to its happy ending.

Def­i­n­i­tion: Deter­min­ing the scope of our relationship

Now that we’re famil­iar with your inner­most desires and chal­lenges, we pri­or­i­tize them and cre­ate a plan to address them. The plan defines the tools, exer­cises and para­me­ters that will bring the design process to life.

Research: Suss­ing out the conversation

Inter­est­ing solu­tions come from inter­est­ing prob­lems. And inter­est­ing prob­lems are rooted in insight.
We get at the insights by uncov­er­ing pat­terns and truths in your target’s world. By under­stand­ing their val­ues and moti­va­tions. This is where your project shifts focus from what mat­ters to you to what mat­ters to them.

Strat­egy: Plan­ning to influ­ence the conversation

Turn­ing insight into action. Armed with our insight into your prospect’s val­ues, we ascer­tain which of your touch-points offer the most impression-forming influ­ence on them. We decide how to tell your story most effec­tively in each medium.

Design

Start­ing with the user expe­ri­ence, we work back­ward to cre­ate com­mu­ni­ca­tions that are note­wor­thy, engag­ing, use­ful, usable, mem­o­rable and share­able. The strat­egy comes to life as we solve visual, social, expe­ri­ence and inter­ac­tion questions.

Devel­op­ment

Build­ing, coör­di­nat­ing, pro­duc­ing. Designs are imple­mented, tested and iter­ated as needed. A solid foun­da­tion serves every­one in the long run and we have the print chops, web know-how, and minu­tiae fix­a­tion to build it.

Review

We debrief, review­ing our met­rics, assess­ing our processes, results, and oppor­tu­ni­ties going for­ward. Have our pri­or­i­ties changed? How can our new insight help us evolve?