Meet the Collective
A goal-oriented, like-minded group of freelancers that aims to bring its growth mindset, spirit, and process to partners, whether big or small.
TL;DR
- Co-founder
- Company identity & branding
- Website concept, design & development
The story
Once upon a time, there were three talented people: growth hacker, an ex-corporate head of marking, and a digital expert (you bet it, that's me). Together they dreamt about creating a new reality: a digital growth studio whose mission was to shake to marketing departments around the world with empathy, data & strategy.
Being practical and test-oriented, we started collaborating as freelancers, intending to create a proper company once the business was proven.
Anyhow, a problem soon emerged...who are we? And what's our name?
The naming process
After defining our core values, we focused on finding the perfect name for our new dream team. Luckily for us, the 3 steps naming process by Ben Pieratt came to our aid:
- Identify the feeling you want the brand to convey
- Embody that feeling in a list of persons, places, things or phrases (etc) that communicate viscerally
Identify a detail that represents the [embodiment] of [your feeling] in a non obvious but compelling way
Ben Pieratt
For us, the feelings were: ignite, enlight, experiment, and growth, and they quickly led us to our hero: Thomas A. Edison.
Thomas Edison, a man who devoted his life to invent, innovate & improve millions of lives. A self-made man who became a savvy businessman that created an empire. What could embody our feelings better than the lightbulb?
We know, we know. Edison didn't invent the lightbulb. He perfected it. He patented it. He took it to market.
What about the detail we were looking for? Enter eighteen79: the year when the lightbulb was patented.
The branding
The next natural step was to create a great brand: it needed to be dynamic, fresh, with vibes of a scientific lab, processes, and data. Something simple that could also stand out.
And it was on me, of course.
Bold, saturated primary colors with more muted variations.
A combination of a clean sans-serif and a monospace typeface to have a modern, yet retro-digital feeling.
The logo: embraced between square brackets, and with 79 has an exponent in its smaller version, to transmit a sense of data & science.
And finally my favorite piece, a set of distorted lines uniquely generated each time (nicknamed "onde" by our CEO, Italian for waves) to express movement and dynamism: in a nutshell, the fluidity needed to embrace change and progress.
Furthermore, we hired a very talented illustrator to create a custom set of illustrations inspired by retro scientific drawings.
Having the brand together, it was only a matter of hours of design and coding for the website to be live.
The pivot
4 months and 3 clients later, after countless leads and an acquisition offer (even before creating a real company? Wow, that was fast!) something unexpected happened: our CEO received an incredible job offer to become Vice President of Integrated Marketing at Canada Goose.
Lighthearted we encouraged her, deciding together that the future of eighteen79 would change: from aborning company to a thriving collective of freelancers, offering multiple services, creating partnerships, and mutually sharing their knowledge within eighteen79.
Links
🌍 Website