The latest news, ideas, projects, missives, and thoughts from Wildfire Studios
(Also known in laymans’ circles as a “blog”)
The invisible brand bank
Your brand lives and dies by an invisible bank account. Your most expensive withdrawals are hard to spot. Here’s how to make a deposit.
RFPs are broken for buying design (and how to fix them)
RFPs are the wrong way to buy design work. If you can avoid them, you should. If you can’t, here’s how you can fix them.
Your website should make you money
Your website should be so much more than a business card.
Kindling 44: Can a bad name hurt your company?
How to think about naming your company.
Kindling 43: What a good logo does
A good logo creates a bond between your brand and your audience, but only if it does these three things.
Kindling 42: Do the difficult thing
On the difficult things only your brand can do.
Kindling 41: You can’t skip practice
Practice is the game, and if your brand doesn’t show up, every single time, and practice in public, you’re going to lose.
Kindling 40: Substantially different
Substance without attention is irrelevant. Attention without substance is noise.
Kindling 39: Solidarity, not alignment
The hard part of a rebrand isn’t the execution. It’s getting everybody on the same page.
Kindling 38: Mistaken Identity Problems
On the branding and packaging problem AI has created for everybody.
Kindling 37: Logos, literally
How literal should your logo be?
Kindling 36: Shrinking Moats
Most brand exercises ask where you want to be in twenty years. A better question: what threats will shrink the moat around your brand in that time?