Honoring the Packard Family Legacy

For me personally, this was the visual identity project of a lifetime. I have always maintained that identity design is the most difficult (and most rewarding) challenge for a designer.  Why? Because the personality, or identity, of an organization is multifaceted and complex. A designer must be curious, rigorous, and wide-eyed, absorbing everything like a … Read more

How to Be A Courageous Brand

A dramatic still of the Cowardly Lion from the classic film The Wizard of Oz, wearing a green crown and a surprised or expressive facial expression, with the bold white text "Courage" overlaid prominently across the center of the image.

There’s no hard or fast rule that says a brand has to be loud about its values… or even that it has to communicate values openly to its consumers. While most marketers tend to agree that having a few core brand values that are clearly-identified and well-articulated for audiences helps those followers establish a deeper … Read more

Jamming. It’s Our Jam.

A top-down view of an assortment of freshly baked hamantaschen pastries arranged on a parchment-lined baking tray. Each triangular pastry features a different fruit or poppy seed filling in the center, such as apricot, cherry, apple, and prune, with golden-brown crimped edges.

How do you conduct a brand identity and website refresh for one of the oldest, iconic bakeries in San Francisco? With as much passion as the bakers themselves have for their craft. …and with food photography that tickles your taste buds. The Cinderella Bakery on Balboa Avenue in San Francisco is a community cornerstone with … Read more

A Lesson for Young Creatives…

A graphic sharing the history of the VeriSign logo, designed by Steve Barretto around 1995. On the left, gray text reads: “Opportunity, creativity, and the bare necessities. One brand logo story that rears its head every day of my life—some 35 years later. Good, bad, indifferent? Here’s the full story, you be the judge.” Centered is a smartphone screen showing a security verification with the Symantec logo. On the right, there are versions of the VeriSign logo including "VeriSign Secured," the original VeriSign logo, and the Symantec and Norton brands that succeeded it after VeriSign was sold to Symantec for $1.28 billion in 2010.

Every time I check my bank balance or make a financial transaction on my mobile phone, tablet, laptop, or desktop, I’m reminded of a brand identity solution I created for VeriSign in the mid-1990s for the sum of ~$3,000.00. Fifteen years later, Symantec would acquire Verisign’s authentication business to the tune of $1.28 billion in … Read more

Building A Brand: 3 Key Learnings

A person holds a white poster board featuring a grid of various company and organization logos. These include VeriSign, TinyPrints, Bill.com, Zenfolio, Autodesk, Talix, Discover World, UC Santa Cruz Arts, Bazu, Sonic, Women’s Community Clinic, and Full Spoon. Each logo is distinct in color and style, representing diverse industries from technology and finance to healthcare and education. The background setting is a modern room with wooden floors and mid-century chairs, blurred out to focus attention on the logos.

I’ve been designing and stewarding brands with for-profit companies and nonprofit organizations since leaving Apple in the early 1990’s. If you use the internet, you’ve likely come across some of the work; Symantec (formerly VeriSign), TinyPrints (acquired by Shutterfly), Zenfolio (acquired by Art.com), Bill.com, Sonic.com, eBay Bucks, Whole Foods and others). It has taken me … Read more