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Blog Posts by Robert Saywitz

May 1, 2023 — Robert Saywitz

Infusing a Brand with Big Heart Begins with Big Thinking: How Small Design Cues Can Generate Great Big Feels

“We need to make our brand feel human. It needs to reflect our people and our customers. We need to tell a human, emotive story.” This is how a lot of our conversations about brand design begin. If we were designing for packaged goods that sit on a shelf and give people a tangible representation of your brand, we’d have a well defined experience to address. But most of our work takes place behind the scenes in the B2B and tech space. There are no shelves or stores mediating the process, no physical objects or packaging. There’s sparse or no direct interaction with the end-user. And the...

May 6, 2021 — Robert Saywitz

Simplicity Does Not Mean Simple: An Outside Perspective on the Art of Simplification

Legend has it that Hemingway once won a bet for the shortest story ever written by crafting a six-word story, “For Sale: Baby shoes, never worn.” True or not, what resonates from this tale is that simplicity does not necessarily mean simple. ‘Less’ can actually mean ‘more’. When you strip everything away except the most meaningful parts, it forces those remaining parts to tell the whole story. It supposedly took Leonard Cohen five years of rewriting lyrics until—80 draft verses later—he settled on the final version of his song “Hallelujah”. The art of simplification—from words and stories to...

March 25, 2021 — Robert Saywitz

Uncovering the True Dynamics of Strategy + Design Synergy: A Conversation Between Robert Saywitz and Giovanna Blackston Keren

Our recent work rebranding Topstep—a financial trading platform based in Chicago, IL—shed light not only on our belief in the power of simplicity and clarity for our client but also on internal agency processes that helped us create an authentically differentiated brand. I sat down recently with our Director of Strategy, Giovanna Blackston Keren, to have a candid conversation about our roles in this process and why agencies seem to talk about the relationship between Strategy and Design more often than it comes together successfully in real life. We used our work on Topstep as a prism for...

June 4, 2019 — Robert Saywitz

Back to School: An Interactive Presentation at Orinda Intermediate School

This past October, Design Director Robert Saywitz and Production Director Jonathan Fisher found themselves back at Orinda Intermediate School for the second annual “Power of Branding” workshop. Similar to last year, students were given a brief history of branding – the power of symbols in our culture, logo design, and how brands can evolve over time. Students were then broken into teams and tasked with either creating a new brand identity for a fictional educational startup, or rebranding Amazon’s existing identity. More than ever, it showed the importance of teamwork in problem-solving and...

March 5, 2019 — Robert Saywitz

A Deep Dive into Designing for Accessibility

Today’s blog is about our recent work with the Galt Foundation, an organization that provides, promotes, and expands employment opportunities for individuals with disabilities. You can view our full case study here. The following post is available as both a text and audio experience. Designing for Accessibility Is a Duty, Not an Option As designers, we have the opportunity to create experiences that bring people together, but we also have a responsibility to create work which can be experienced by everyone, regardless of ability. That’s not to say that everyone will perceive or...

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