Practice

How an engagement runs, in the order it runs. Every project starts with a paid diagnostic and ends with a system the client can keep producing from. There are no prices on this page because the fee follows the scope, and the scope follows the diagnostic.

  1. DiagnosticTwo to three weeks

    Interviews with you and the people who deal with your customers. An audit of everything the brand currently touches: the building, the bottle, the site, the listings, the deck. A short positioning memo that says what the brand is for, who it is for, and what has to change.

    It ends with a recommended scope and a fixed fee for the next phase. Sometimes the recommendation is a smaller job than you expected. Occasionally it is AckSites. The diagnostic is the only way in, because it is what makes the rest of the work worth paying for.

  2. StrategyInside the diagnostic or its own phase

    Positioning, audience, tone, and the one idea the identity has to carry. For a new venture this includes naming. For a developer this includes how the brand relates to the sales narrative. Written plainly, one to four pages, so a board can read it.

  3. IdentitySix to ten weeks

    Three directions with the strategic reasoning behind each, then one carried through to a full system: marks, type, color, image direction, and the rules. Guidelines that are actually used, not a PDF nobody opens. Core applications built for real, not mocked up.

  4. ProductFour to twelve weeks

    For physical things: concept development, 3D modeling, renders, animation, and packaging. I work from engineering specs and clinical or manufacturing requirements, and the output is good enough to close pilots and funding rounds, because that is what it was built to do.

  5. Applications and launchRuns alongside identity

    Environment and signage, menus and collateral, photography shot on location, and a flagship website built by hand to the new system. Everything that a visitor sees on the day the brand goes live, in one voice.

  6. The engineThree to five weeks, after any identity

    Brands fail after launch, when the team needs a hundred new pieces and makes them in a hurry. The engine is templates plus an automated production pipeline: a brief goes in, finished on-brand files come out, for campaigns, listings, menus, social, and investor updates. It is how one office keeps a multi-venue brand consistent, and it is the reason a retainer with me costs less than a coordinator.

  7. DirectionSix-month minimum, two to four clients

    Fractional design direction for brands that need someone on call. Priority access, monthly production through the engine, photography as needed, and a designer who already knows the system. This is how the Cisco and Triple Eight work has run for years.

I take on a small number of engagements each year and none of them are quoted from a menu. If the fit is right, the number will make sense once you have seen the diagnostic.

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