Hi. We'd like you to meet Holbrook.

We’re a branding agency in Portland Oregon. Like many talented agencies that have come before us, we craft powerful brands to achieve customer loyalty and business growth goals. We do this with a keen eye on strategy and design but with a particular focus on how it makes people feel. We work with small businesses, startups, nonprofits and social impact companies to execute brand strategy, brand identity design, copywriting, environmental design, customer experience and employee experience design. We’ll go into more details on all of that in the future. The short of it is that we help companies doing good in the world amplify themselves through strategy, thoughtful and intentional design centered on the human experience, and enthusiasm.

Holbrook was borne of the idea that we can build and grow profitable businesses all while doing good in the world. Yes, Holbrook is a business and our mission is to build intentionally with a focus on the humans we serve and employ. We’re looking to do business differently, test some theories we have as we grow, and see where it takes us. To do this, we’re guided by some founding principles that will undoubtedly evolve over time -- and we’ll of course keep you updated as we experiment because we want you to be a part of our journey.

True, deep empathy not only matters but is critical.

It’s critical to our personal relationships, to doing the work of branding, to making the world a better place. When we can sit with another person’s story, without judgment and accepting it as one’s lived experience and their truth, we’re better. All of us. Radical empathy is what we aim to achieve, day in and day out in our personal and professional life...but really what is a personal or professional life, especially these days? We’re firm believers that it’s a myth that one drops all that is entailed in the package of their personal life when they set foot at work. It’s just life to us...and it all starts with empathy.

Curiosity is foundational to empathy.

The question to be asking is “why.” Not “why” with a cynical and skeptical tone but “why’ with an intent to understand. We want to maintain an insatiable interest and curiosity about the world and people around us. We think it not only helps us do better work but it makes life more interesting. We also think it helps to peel back the layers of the complex so we don’t just stay on the surface of our 140 character limit world. The beauty of this world are the nuances within it that shape lived experiences. The secret to overcoming our snap judgments, biases, and auto-pilot default responses to become radically empathetic is curiosity.

Humility is inextricably linked to curiosity.

And it can be really hard sometimes. We’re not talking about avoidance of the brash bragging or even the humble brag. We’re talking about the ability to acknowledge what we don’t know in an authentic and courageous way; to honor that none of us are achieving our successes on our own; that hard truths shared in an empathic way can still feel like a kick to the gut and our best selves are waiting to be unveiled through our non-defensive response. Damn, humility can be terrifying and we think we all could use a healthy dose of it.

Courage is character.

It’s not easy to state the hard truths in a way that can be heard. It’s often intimidating, if not terrifying, to go against the status quo, to see a different, better way and have the huevos to say and do something about it. But we also firmly believe that courage is foundational to living life fully. We’re here for it, even when our voice shakes and our eyes well up with tears.

People matter.

We could just leave it at that but we won’t. Seeing each other’s humanity is paramount. And we’re not talking about the shorthand of mental health is health, women’s rights are human rights, Black Lives Matter, love is love, no human is illegal (although we fully believe in, stand with, advocate and fight for all of it). We mean that to truly see one another’s humanity, to seek to understand and validate lived experiences, to sit with one another’s pain and also joy, is fundamental to what the hell we’re all doing here in the first place. We think companies, no matter their size, have a crucial role to play in modeling (and being held accountable to) a better future, showing up with compassion and fighting like hell for what is fair and just and human.

Our foundation is rooted in the idea that there is a better way. We believe brands are more than a rad logo, fresh color palette, witty copy, or an intuitive website. The best brands are a story, a feeling, an experience. And so often the logo, color palette, tight copy and sweet website are all in place but the experience is unintentional. We think that’s a BIG miss. After this past year in particular people are looking to brands they can trust. Brand trust is a foundational metric. And we believe trust is built and maintained through three crucial elements -- transparency, coherency, and consistency. When a company lacks transparency in how they do business or have handled a given issue (now more than ever!), it erodes trust. When a brand is incoherent in how it communicates, that confusion decreases trust. When a customer inconsistently experiences a brand, they lose trust. And we think right now in this time it’s critical to differentiate your business through the experiences of your brand, not just what you have to sell. It’s possible to intentionally design transparency, coherency, and consistency into the DNA of your brand and that’s part of the framework in working with us.

We’re Holbrook. We’re not the first and we see things differently. We’re glad you’re here. We hope you come along for the ride as we explore, experiment and look to a brighter future for the humans we serve, employ, and live in community with.