Amplify your style.

We like to think of ourselves as somewhat hip. Trendy without being fashionable and pretentious. Imagine our delight when we were approached by Crosley Radio, a global brand with all the qualities we imagine we have.

Crosley sells its audio equipment around the world, with a major US presence in Target and Urban Outfitters. Although it’s recognized as a premier brand for the way it looks (their stuff sounds really good, too, we might add), their graphic brand and website fell far short of the bar they represented emotionally to consumers (cool stylish brands need to look cool and stylish, right?). They also recognized how important it was to connect with their market through social media — and not in the usual topical way, but by integrating an appropriate presence into their brand.

Now, we don’t claim to be great at everything, but if there’s one thing we do really well it’s making cool stuff for people to carry around and have near them where they live and work.

Most of what we make is based on sharing music — because we got started in this business based on the realisation that sound is probably the easiest and most enjoyable way for people to share their personalities. So we design and build things that not only let people play their music wherever they are, but allow them to share a little bit extra about their senses of style as they do it.

Starting a movement.

There are cool clients, there are prestigious clients, and there are cool and prestigious clients. Louisville Ballet most definitely falls into the last classification — and if you’ve ever had the opportunity to work with the dancers up close, you’d also find out they’re awesome people, because everything they do leaves you amazed. Speechless. Inspired.

Live Digitally.

We’re going to namedrop here and casually mention that we were selected by Seagate to develop a new brand on behalf of their burgeoning Data Recovery Services division. As a result, Pixel8 was born.

The shortest version possible: As you know, pretty much everything digital has memory of some sort (Seagate, in all likelihood, made the drive in the device you’re using right now). As you also know, shit happens and devices fail — quite often because they got dropped down toilets, run over by cars, or exposed to zealous Hibachi grill owners. Pixel 8 exists to bring those data back from the dead. We named the company and developed the identity along with all the attendant material and packaging. We currently create all the marketing material, including all the digital advertising, and build them amazing websites, including the one you’re not currently allowed to see because it’s still in development.

A long tradition. Or one helluva-long fad.

Being in Bourbon Country, as folk call it around here, we get a lot of requests to work on whiskies and liqueurs. But imagine our pleasure when we were asked to work on SoCo, one of the world’s most famous brands. But that was sort of the rub . . . as famous as the brand is, nobody really knew what Southern Comfort stood for, whom it was designed to appeal to, or even how to drink it.

Our job was to develop a global website as well as five sister-sites for other countries, each customizable by location. But above all, we were asked to create a clean, beautiful site experience that answered the fundamental questions “What is Southern Comfort?”, “Who drinks it?”, and “How should it be drunk?” — and all in a way that appealed to and was understandable by almost everyone in the world.

Hey, you, Mister Man. Strutting your stuff, walking tall, the 24-year-old cock of the walk. Yeah, we see you in your tailored pants and thrift-store shirt, head held high, catching some beats, cruising the mean streets of Albany. We know the way you roll. We embrace the things that make you cool. We salute your comfort.

You with the devil-may-care smile and goddess self-assurance. We know who you are and what you stand for, slipping and grooving your cool stuff in Detroit. We’re digging that 33-year-old sense of style, that vibe you take for granted. We know the way you roll. We embrace the things that make you cool. We salute your comfort.

Yeah, you’ve got it. You know who you are. You know what makes your 44-year-old-self so unique, so assured. You’re in the crease with that relaxed bring-it-on flair, that one-and-only laid-back-dialed-in-but-quintessentially Melbourne style. We know the way you roll. We embrace the things that make you cool. We salute your comfort.

When it comes to helping kids in crisis, there’s no place like Home.

Home of the Innocents: what a perfect name. They represent almost everything wonderful about Louisville — which is a good thing, because that’s exactly how we ended up communicating their core value. Like so many large and complicated nonprofits, they had too much to share — the depth and breadth of what they do is simply overwhelming. So every time they try to connect with people, the details invariably get in the way of the broader, more important message: That they’re a place of immense compassion and service to children in crisis.

Rather than “rebranding” them, we instead repositioned the Home of the Innocents brand. We realized that the best way to share their meaning was to connect it directly to Louisville’s reputation as a caring city. Using the foundational words “The Heart of Our City,” we combined a number of moving parts, including the pre-existing heart icon, their location, their significance as one of Louisville’s founding citizens, and their embodiment of community compassion.

Our City. We cherish fairness, we embrace equality, we believe that health and prosperity are things everyone should be able to enjoy. And so, when we see inequity or misfortune, when we witness injustice or adversity or tragedy, we come together as Louisvillians in a spirit of compassion and care to make things better. It’s what we do and who we are. It leads us. It informs us. Above all, it defines us.

See Louisville, Share Louisville.

When the Waterfront Development Corporation came to us asking for help on a nonprofit’s budget, we dove right in (see what we did there?). But unlike everyone else in the business, we weren’t content just making a new site for an old boat. We looked at the WDC’s business model and saw that, actually, there are two boats, and that the Spirit was an important revenue source that wasn’t being leveraged through its marketing strategy. It was always the runner-up to the Belle, a “second choice,” and therefore an inferior selection when looking for entertainment.

We completely rebuilt their brand from the bottom up, making it about enjoying Louisville from the river. This involved a thoroughly new marketing platform and graphic position, along with a full exploration of advertising and communication assets. And we did it all for the same low budget.

Give back, Jack.

United Way is a national brand. It’s also a brand that, like many brands in the large-nonprofit category, gets abused when taken to the local level — and we don’t just mean graphically, we mean in terms of what it stands for. As a firm that’s committed to defending the high ground, it’s important to take brands back to their source, which is what we did with MUW — a brand that represents community and unity.

In addition to better positioning the brand, we also had to deal with the local brand changing itself operationally; rather than being a “clearing house” for funding, which it had been viewed as traditionally, it was morphing into a comprehensive community resource, a partner to whom anyone could turn for help with early childhood, youth, health, or financial support. We needed to build a place where people could come and be heard, where they could learn, and most important, where they could contribute.