- We are brand consultants with extensive experience.
- We are a highly skilled and effective team of creative thinkers.
- We have worked together on major branding projects across the world, from New Delhi to Cupertino.
- We believe that standing up for your truth is what is called for today.
- We know how to connect with people through bold strategy and creative expression.
- We deliver results and know what success looks like.
- We live in a brutally competitive world.
- One day you’re on top and the next you may be irrelevant.
- The average age of an S&P 500 company is less than 20 years—and it’s getting shorter.
- Legacy is a burden and the newcomer is at an advantage today.
- You can’t rely on simply differentiating your product or service anymore.
- People demand a clear story and want to know what you stand for.
- So, how do you get people to pick you—and be loyal?
- Yesterday’s goal was about selling.
- It was about building recognition through consistent messaging and graphics.
- It was rigid, unresponsive and sought permanence.
- The facade of a strong brand could hide an inferior product or service.
- Today’s imperative is to know who you are and what you stand for.
- It’s about expressing this identity decisively and honestly.
- It’s about building trust and close relationships with all audiences.
- It calls for agility, adaptation and constant improvement—with a view to the long term.
- People care deeply about your purpose, values and corporate responsibility.
- People are discerning with their choices, and are powerful influencers.
- As attested by the US Business Roundtable and global business leaders, environmental, social and governance practices are core to supporting your bottom line and safeguarding your future. 1
- Your beliefs, actions and leadership hold the key today!
1 Five ways that ESG Creates Value. McKinsey Quarterly. November 2019. Accessed Nov 24, 2019.
- How you stand out is about what you believe and how you express it with confidence.
- Building your story around your beliefs is key.
- These beliefs just don’t live in your marketing, but are hardwired in every decision and business practice.
- People want to see evidence of your environmental, social and governance practices, and be assured that you protect employee and consumer interests.
- Communicating clearly and acting on your strong beliefs will make people want you.
- It sounds simple, but it’s not easy. It takes hard work, discipline and experience.
- As a start, what do you stand for?
- We work as a partner, collaborator and coach.
- We engage deeply with senior management to understand your business and your beliefs.
- We work with you to distill, define and express what you believe.
- We implement strategy and design simultaneously to ensure alignment and greater impact.
- We help institutionalize brand practices through continuous co-creation, reflection and integration.
- Stepping on a journey with us is not a superficial make-over but a transformative pathway to change.
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Bespoke services customized to your needs, including:
- Brand consulting: we frame the right questions and keep focus on your core beliefs and goals.
- Strategy and expression: we view these as inextricably linked—and guide you in your visual and verbal expression, and brand architecture.
- Implementation support: we offer discrete or continuous services including training, prototyping and research.
- Long term coaching: we align your purpose with strategy and expression, support implementation goals and build a culture of effective decision making.
- We have combined experience of over 60 years leading projects with start-ups and world-renowned companies, such as GE, The New Museum, FedEx and Product Red.
- Our ethos is rooted in being open, asking the right and tough questions, making connections and catalyzing new ways of work and expression.
- We understand complexity and know how to simplify and co-create solutions.
- We bring deep and wide experience from across the globe in technology, fashion, finance, publishing, manufacturing, arts and sports.
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2017—2021
State Street Global Advisors
Standing for a better way of investing
As the third largest asset manager in the world, State Street has a long track record of being a highly trusted investor that stands as a powerful icon of quality and integrity. Yet, they recognized the need to enhance their public visibility and sharpen their response to what today’s investor wants—transparency and connection. In 2017, State Street engaged Small Crowd as a long-term coach to redefine their beliefs and brand identity.
Over four years, we created a unified visual identity that clearly distinguished and expressed the company’s beliefs and brand—their strongest assets. In testament to their firm belief system is a recent article by Ronald O’Hanley, Chairman and CEO, who cogently articulates the company’s viewpoint that sustainability considerations, including climate change, is a core part of managing risk.
In our role as brand consultants, we focused on building greater public recognition for State Street from the ground up, by equipping their sales teams with a stronger expression of the company’s beliefs and offering. We worked closely with their leadership and creative teams to distill, sharpen, and unify their sales content—from big picture products (their brand book) to tactical content (their company fact sheets).
Today, State Street offers a distinct visual expression that invites people to look at investing in a radically different way—evoking a sense of humanity, transparency and accessibility. As trusted advisors, we helped bring to life this new expression for the company, speaking to the heart of what consumers value today, and shifting the needle in how the company is perceived. As part of State Street’s overall brand creation, we also helped design a platform for communicating their environmental, social, and governance points of view, an imperative in today’s business climate.
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We work with people from around the world representing different cultural and technical backgrounds. While they each bring diverse perspectives to the work, we share a common rigor to create the most clear and compelling solutions. Our team is composed of business thinkers, creative directors, graphic designers, illustrators, photographers, type designers and writers.
- Andrea Salerno
- Daniel Senior
- Frederique Gagnon
- Hrvoje Živčić
- Ivan Martinez
- Lana Cavar
- Lana Grahek
- Mariana Lobão
- Narcisa Vukojevic
- Pauline Piguet
- Rebecca Metzger
- Taara Chandani
- Talley Gale
- Tina Ivezić
- Virginie Gauthier
- Zhihan Yan
- Eric Scott
Co-Founder
I live and work in New York, NY. I have worked with graphic design and its application to the world of branding for over thirty years. Most recently, I was Principal for Method Design. My focus throughout my career has been on helping companies understand, develop and project — in both their communications and their actions — their unique strengths and personalities. I have worked on both the client and consultancy sides for some of the world’s leading brands including Apple, GE, Citibank, Nike, PricewaterhouseCoopers, McDonald’s, HP, FedEx, Karl Lagerfeld, Nokia, (Product) Red, Gap, and many others.
Prior to Method, I led the brand consulting offering at Eight Inc. and was CEO of Wolff Olins USA, where I ran the New York and San Francisco offices. I have served as Creative Lead for Apple and for the pioneering brand identity consultancy, Landor.
I studied art history at the University of Southern California, and completed my BFA in graphic design at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. I completed my post-graduate studies at the Basel School of Design in Switzerland. - Natasha Chandani
Co-Founder
I live and work in Brooklyn, NY. I have worked with graphic design and its application to the world of publication design and branding for over fifteen years. As an independent graphic designer, I have worked with clients such as MIT Press, Princeton University—School of Architecture, MoMA, Guggenheim, Institute of Contemporary Art—University of Pennsylvania, Harvard Graduate School of Design and AIGA NY. I have created several publications with clients in the United States, the Netherlands, the UK, and India. For several years I worked as a designer for the architecture publication Volume, based in Amsterdam. Before graduate school, I worked as a designer for MSN at Microsoft and as a Peace Corps volunteer in Bangladesh.
I received a BFA from Parsons School of Design, The New School in Communication Design, a BA from The New School in Urban Studies and an MFA in Graphic Design from Yale University.
I currently teach at Parsons School of Design.
- Armand Mevis
Advisor
I live and work in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. In 1986, along with my partner Linda van Deursen, we founded the internationally acclaimed graphic design studio Mevis & van Deursen. For more than 35 years we have worked for artists and museums worldwide, focusing on visual identities. Our clients have included Stedelijk Museum, MCA, MoMA, New Museum and the Guggenheim. Alongside my design practice, I direct the graduate design school, Werkplaats Typografie, in Arnhem, the Netherlands.
Recent collaborators on our team include: