Small Business Saturday is almost here – can your audience find you? Do they even know you have this cool product/business/idea/thing that exists?!!

As much as we hate to admit, most of us don’t break out the Yellow Pages to find a local coffee shop these days. We Google it. In light of the ensuing giving season, and that Big Holiday (eh hem, Small Business Saturday), here’s our gift to you: If you want your business to be discovered, either your physical location or a brief description of your service, the first thing to do is create a Google My Business Account. Here’s your new “Open for Business” sign. When you’re ready to start reaching and connecting with your audience or customers in unique ways that create engagement and loyalty, give us a call – we’ll get a coffee!

The timeless “Think Small” Volkswagen ad, created in 1959 by Doyle Dane Bernbach, is embedded in most of our minds as the quintessential example of, ironically, the “Big Idea.” You know the one — the tiny silhouette of the VW Beetle, grounded by shadow but floating asymmetrically in a sea of negative space. The famous two-letter headline sits a mile below in Futura Heavy. The design works on multiple levels because it challenges perceived norms: both America’s propensity for gas-guzzling vehicles, and the reader’s graphic preconception of how a glossy print advertisement should look and act.

For those of us who went to school for Design, the ad was ubiquitous, being featured in both Megg’s History of Graphic Design (Page 353), and Hollis’ Graphic Design: A Concise History (Page 113). Held on such a pedestal, it’s no wonder so many of us have spent our  careers crying, “Simplify!”

Understandably, the concept of going smaller was big in 2020. Smaller productions, smaller budgets, and, for many companies, smaller staff. For large agencies, reduction was somewhat expected, even if not immediate. In spite of that, 2021 has been an important year for small, independent agencies and studios, like ours, and — knock on wood —it appears that the number of opportunities will remain quite large.

Its been over 60 years since the VW ad first ran, but there has never been a better time for marketers, brand managers, and business leaders to once again consider the benefits of thinking small. This is not a call to simplify, or to rally ideas around the “Single-Minded Thought.” Instead, with so many innovative design opportunities tabled in the age of uncertainty, businesses can march ahead with an eye on the future of big ideas: the Small Agency.

No doubt, the Small Agency possesses a number of characteristics not only suitable, but preferable, for today’s competitive environment: cost, productivity, creativity, and, among the most important traits, agility.

Free from the constraints of multiple levels of hierarchy, the small studio acts nimbly. That doesn’t mean careful attention and consideration is brushed aside for creativity — quite the opposite, in fact. Team members at a small studio are themselves invested in the success of the business. While bureaucracy is successful at delegation, personal investment results in a roll-up-your-sleeves and get-it-done mentality. The ability to consider, learn, and adapt quickly provides clients with a direct advantage. 

Externally, the marketplace shifts faster then ever before. Insights, opinions, and behaviors don’t just evolve; they trend, then rapidly change. Companies that adapt to these changes the quickest oftentimes reap the rewards, gaining the important advantage of being first-to-marketing, or obtaining the coveted early-adopters. Small, dedicated teams can be assembled quickly, ideas can flow, prototypes can be built, and changes can be made on the fly. Design Thinking, the Design Sprint, and the Lean Startup are all processes that work better with small, passionate teams that ignore groupthink.

Bonus: the teams at small agencies are built to be customer-oriented — an environmental by-product of problem-solving and collaboration. The empathic approach to design always considers the intended audience first. Likewise, creatives are able to partner with their clients’ and evolve in real time.

Another important benefit of working with a small agency, though often taboo, is cost. We all learned in 2020 that expensive overhead is unnecessary. Really smart, creative work can get done in just about any atmosphere — big, small, or remote. Small agencies don’t have big offices, and in many cases have moved to a completely remote model. That’s immediate savings that can be passed on to the client.

In addition, it’s likely that everybody at a small studio is involved in the projects their assigned from start to finish. That means clients don’t pay for staff that isn’t dedicated to their business. Side benefit: fewer managers means less red tape to cut through. Red tape has many negative connotations, deservedly so, but the biggest culprit is simple: it slows business down.

Furthermore, project-based work saves literally thousands of dollars compared to yearly retainer-based work. There are supplemental benefits to consider as well. Namely, project-based work keeps both the client and the studio invested in the task at hand. Authentic partnership almost always results in more unique, original, and meaningful work. When a certain level of trust is built in the relationship, a retainer can be outlined that is mutually beneficial.

By far, the most important factor to consider when choosing any creative agency is the quality of work. Exceptionally creative marketing communications that results in a return greater than the investment is the goal, every time. Which is why working with the most creative thinkers and designers is important.

It’s no secret that the smartest, most innovative thinkers — of which there are plenty — are always brought in to pitch new business at big agencies. It makes perfect sense to assemble a team that’s going to impress a potential new client. The reality is, once a business has been acquired, the team with the great ideas is almost never assigned to that client. When you hire a Small Agency, the people you hire are the people you work with. Their reputations are tied to the quality, craftsmanship, and professionalism they deliver – along with the success of their business. While a Small Agency won’t always have the ability to pitch work on speculation, any small business owner worth their salt is willing take the time talk about how they can contribute to help solve your design, marketing, and advertising challenges. It’s that partnership that always leads to smarter, more creative work anyway.

Undoubtedly, there is a place for creative agencies  both large and small. For those who still question the Return on Investment for good design, consider the alternative cost of bad design. Look around, most things aren’t designed. Communication materials gets over-looked. Directions can be confusing or misleading. Brand and Product launches fail more often than not. But there is certainly no lack of talent — Incredibly smart people, many of whom we consider to be our friends, contribute to innovative creative solutions for their clients every day. Some work alone as freelancers, and other oversee teams of 50 or more. With the challenges that are present today, we think the opportunity is exceptionally big at the moment, for the small agency.

We like to think of branding as big, ripe avocado – an analogy we borrowed from Brian Dougherty’s book on “Green Graphic Design” (Allworth Press, 2008). Dougherty relates the three layers of an avocado to important roles of the modern designer; 1. Manipulator of stuff, 2. Message maker, and 3. An agent of change. It’s a fantastic read — highly recommended — but we also think the avocado is a ripe analogy for branding as well. Here’s why:

Brand
The outer layer acts similar to our definition of what a brand is – the perception of a company. In “Zag,” Mary Neumeier defines brand as “a person’s gut feeling about a product, service, or company.” In other words, a brand is what people think about you. People make judgments based on a number of brand characteristics: the quality of the product, the effectiveness or creativity of advertising efforts, and the quality of customer service. But a brand is also built on what other people say – in magazine articles, online reviews, or what colleagues are gossiping about at work. Literally everything that people see, hear, or say about a person, organization, company, or business reflects and builds upon our perception of a brand. The single best word in the English language to describe it is “Reputation.” 

“Branding” is the effort to influence this perception. You can’t control what your neighbor’s mom might say, but you can do your best to make consistent and authentic impressions. While the outer layer of an avocado is thick and bumpy, we know it’s delicious and tastes wonderful on toast.

Identity
The set of visual and verbal elements that make up a brand is referred to as its “Identity.” This is the meat of our avocado, where strategy takes hold and brand identity designers offer most of their services. Here, the idea is to influence the public’s perception of brands by creating appropriate and consistent brand elements.

The features that make up people’s identity also make a brand’s – how you look, act, and engage with others. In business, this is often referred to as “Corporate Identity,” or an “Identity System.” In America, the practice goes back to the early days of Paul Rand’s work for IBM and other technology and pharmaceutical companies. But Corporate Identity systems can be traced back even further in the Netherlands  where, in the 1920’s designers like Piet Zwart formed longstanding relationships with companies like the Dutch Post, Telegraph, and Telephone service, or the PTT. What made these partnerships notable was the consistent design across a number of materials: letterhead, brochures, envelopes, business cards, packaging, and industrial signage. A certain “style” was obtained by working with one designer or a small team. Today, that system is also made up of many more elements, like color, fonts and icons, as well as digital touch points, like websites, apps, social media, email blasts, and video.

The brand style guide is the corporate document that keeps track of all the elements of the brand identity system. It ensures that everybody tasked with bringing the brand to life in the marketplace maintains a consistent visual and verbal tone of voice.

Logo
A logo is a graphic mark or symbol used to promote and identify a company. The word is short for “logotype,” which was one word cast as a single piece of type in hot metal typesetting. The definition has been expanded to include both type and figurative design, which often comes in the form of an icon, like the Nike “Swoosh.” If it includes text of the name it represents — for example, “Nike” seen without the swoosh — it’s known as a wordmark. A company’s logo is today often synonymous with its trademark or brand.

The logo is arguably the most memorable part of a brand identity. Out of all the elements that makeup an ID system, it is usually the most consistent, just like the seed at the center of our avocado. However, that doesn’t mean a logo can accomplish everything that helps define a brand. At first, the Nike Swoosh symbolized nothing but a fledgling new sneaker company. Over time, though, depending on how the brand identity works and, more importantly, how the company engages with its audience, the logo can come to symbolize what the brand actually stands for. The logo then acts as a quick reminder, emblematic of everything the audience has learned in the past and comes to expect from the brand in the future.

Time to Refresh?
For companies in a competitive market, or in an industry where products and services are generally the same quality, a brand’s identity becomes even more important. It helps to differentiate one product from another. But there are other situations that call for a brand identity overhaul as well. Perhaps a new audience or opportunity has been discovered, or a company’s internal mission has changed. New competition in the market can also be a good reason to evolve or shift parts of an identity system, either visually, verbally, or both. Often, it just so happens that the current brand identity doesn’t work – it isn’t connecting with the audience, or it just looks and feels outdated. That's a perfect time to slice up a big, ripe avocado.

Pure. Simple. Rational. Those are the words often used to describe de Harak’s work, but the trained eye knows that achieving any of those qualities doesn’t come easy. It’s almost frustrating, the amount of work – the practice, the iteration, the reservation – that it takes to distill a communications challenge down to the core of the problem, and then create something that seems almost effortless, as if there were no other possible solution. De Harak and his team did it time and time again.

To ask, “what de Harak would do?” is to ask, “are we solving for the right problem?” And That’s what makes “simple” so “difficult.” Richard Poulin, who worked alongside de Harak for almost a decade, has captured many of those timeless solutions in the new monograph, “Rational Simplicity: Rudolph de Harak, Graphic Designer.” It’s currently being crowd-funded at https://vol.co/product/rudolph-de-harak/