In praise of the second draft
First drafts get all the romance. The second one does the work.
Our Journals
Strategy, craft, and a few articles we just felt like writing. From our founder, team, and a few friends.
176 Articles
Forms of proof
Social proof has a hierarchy, and most brands camp out at the bottom of it. A field guide to evidence that doesn't…
Things we just felt like making
Not everything we make has a client attached. That's on purpose, and it might be the most practical thing we do.
The spreadsheet has its own spreadsheet
A confession about trackers, naming conventions, and why the dullest documents in the building do the most creative work.
The Colony Retro Handheld
We ship light for a living. Once we shipped plastic and buttons instead, and it may be the most finished thing we've…
Banned words: a working list
The words that don't make it into our decks, our proposals, or our meetings. Presented here with charges attached.
Why we make merch nobody asked for
Hoodies, lighters, stickers. No strategy deck, no target audience, no ROI. That's the point.
Notes from Nashville
Field notes from our home city, written the way we actually experience it. The postcard version is somebody else's Nashville.
Branding is repetition with conviction
Your team is sick of the tagline right about the time the market is hearing it for the first time. That gap…
We are not a hive
There are three ways to organize talented people. Two of them are everywhere. We're built on the third.
Creativity is not a lightning strike
The sudden idea has a long, boring backstory nobody tells at parties. On attendance, constraints, and why lightning prefers the well-grounded.
Why the owl
Barn owls hunt alone. Under the right conditions, they live together anyway. Fourteen years in, that contradiction still explains us better than…