Despite being one of the better-known architecture firms in the region, recognized as much for its fun bright orange logo as its insightful, creative design, Work approached us about updating its identity to match its evolution to a larger and more sophisticated company. The assignment grew from an acknowledgment that Work‘s strength lay in its ability to uncover and communicate the exceptional.

When based in Kentucky, everything and anything ends up being connected to bourbon, thoroughbreds, or fried chicken. And while we’ve yet to work on a fried chicken or a fried horse account, we do have bourbon-barrel-loads of experience. Cruise offers wooden merchandise ranging from six-foot-wide flags to bottle openers, each hand-crafted by veterans, which we share through inventive digital messaging.

You might have heard of the Gracies, a prestigious Oscars-like awards show named after Gracie Allen. The Gracies are a production of Alliance for Women in Media, an international association created to inspire female leaders. AWM asked us to build a website (or two) and help them with online advertising. As part of the project, we also developed AWM’s 70th Anniversary identity system, including the Voices name.

We love clients who want to stand up and tell the world about how proud they are of their brands. Better yet, they want to make them look as cool as they (and we) believe they are. So when an iconic Kentucky cult product shows up on your doorstep with stars in its eyes asking you to get it the attention it deserves, what else can you do . . . but help make it famous?

“Welcome to a place suspended in time, somehow separated from the distractions and headaches of the twenty-first century, attracting wanderers, tourists, road warriors, and dreamers alike. It’s a place rich in history, rich in surprise, and richer still in the kind of warmth it engenders among those who stay a while and escape the modern world’s complications, divisiveness, and superficiality.”

Call us devotees of good taste and supporters of small local businesses — or simply applaud the fact that when we see an opportunity to do good work with good people we jump on it — and especially when it involves free sourdough bread for life. The design work became loved and recognized throughout the city and was acknowledged not once, but twice by Lürzer’s Archive magazine. Win-win-win.

We like to think of ourselves as traditional-minded, but not old-fashioned. We believe that things should be done properly the first time. That deals can and should made on the sincerity of a handshake. That you don’t stop until everything’s right. In that shared spirit, and for want of a better phrase, we get on with the remodeling crew at French like a house on fire. Every year we do a series of three mailers that reflect how much value they can bring (forgive us again) to the table.