If your team was the last surviving band of humans in a city overrun by zombies, you wouldn’t let just anybody through the door would you?

When designing a logo, it’s easy to go overboard. There are so many great elements you can work with (colors, textures, patterns, shapes, borders, typography, gradients, icons, etc.) that it’s tempting to include a little bit of everything to get your point across. In...

As much as our work at Forty is about “touchy-feely” stuff (psychology, emotion, metaphor, experiences, etc.), I’m still a numbers guy at heart. That’s why I get so frustrated every time I hear someone recommending crowdsourced design services like 99designs. The...

We’re naturally attracted to people and brands that stand for something, and we’re suspicious of those that try to mold themselves around our preferences. Imagine this. You’re on a blind date. You: “So, where do you want to go?” Date: “Wherever you want to go.” You:...

A cultural metaphor is strong because it references cultural icons shared by a brand’s consumers. Of the three types of brand metaphors, this one has the most potential to slide into “themeiness." But when it’s executed well, it can also be the most useful as a source...

Once you’ve sorted out your company’s roots (purpose, values, style, etc.), you’ll find yourself faced with the challenge of trying to hold all that information in your head when making a decision. One of the best tools for dealing with this situation is a metaphor: a...

Archetypes are based on the idea of universal, reoccurring characters or personifications that represent something fundamental about the ways we identify ourselves and relate to the world around us. A few years ago, we began the process of gathering raw archetypes...

One of the great dilemmas in marketing is whether to trust your instincts over what the research is showing you. Both the agency (“we know how people think”) and the client (“we know our clients”) have important insights that might not show up clearly in the research,...

Business is historically a male-dominated endeavor, so it’s no surprise that the stereotype about what it takes to succeed in business involves traditionally masculine characteristics: aggression, tactical thinking, bravado, ruthlessness, objectivity, ego, pride,...

Screenwriter William Goldman once wrote of the movie industry that “Nobody knows anything. Not one person in the entire motion picture field knows for a certainty what’s going to work. Every time out, it’s a guess…nobody, nobody–not now, not ever–knows the least...

Every year, Inc. magazine ranks the 5,000 fastest-growing companies (privately held) in the United States. They just recently released their 2011 list, providing a fresh set of data on the movers and shakers across all industries. We’ve compiled...

The biggest mistake people make with website redesigns is thinking that it’s just a website redesign. They see the new site, everything seems to work, and they call it done. Meanwhile, their SEO juice is leaking all over the floor. Their rankings are going...

Over the years, we’ve found that there are three foundational elements to almost any brand: purpose, values, and style. BRAND PURPOSE Research cited in Built to Last (by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras) indicates that purpose-driven companies can outperform the...

We now live in a world where almost everything is abstracted and over-processed to the point of barely being real. Take hamburgers, for example. What once referred to a thick, juicy slab of minced beef flavored with regional spices now typically refers to a thin,...

The typical modern consumer generally assumes quality and functionality as given, so what they’re really seeking are experiences that help them to fulfill their psychological needs (affiliation, aspiration, and identity). A key way to satisfy all of these needs is to...

Cereal is great. You throw some milk on it, and you’ve got a tasty and relatively nutritious breakfast. Theoretically, cereals–at least the basic, unadorned ones–should be relatively universal. There’s not much about them that predisposes them to any particular...

Geert Hofstede’s research into national cultures from the 1960s onward has identified five primary dimensions of culture: Individualism, Masculinity, Uncertainty Avoidance, Long-Term Orientation, and Power Distance. This research has proven useful in a variety of...

Executives tend to be short-term thinkers. Their career has grown through easy-quantifiable successes, and they’re constantly pressured — by other short-term thinking executives — to base their actions around short-term metrics. It’s all about what happened last...

Revolution is easy when you don’t have anything to lose. You say the things everyone’s afraid to say, kick in some doors, fire your guns into the air, depose some tyrannical leaders, and declare your way to be the new way of doing things. When you’re a startup, it’s...

When designing a website, it’s important to remember that not everyone processes information the same way you do. You might enjoy taking your time and absorbing all the details, while someone else is just trying to get in, get what they need, and get out. When...

Human behavior is based on emotion first, logic second As technology has given our industry the ability to measure more things faster than ever, there’s been a steady trend towards having metrics serve as the basis for design and creative work, with the idea that this...

As we’ve been working on our own content strategy for the next six months, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what kinds of things we should be writing about. There are all kinds of options out there, but I increasingly find myself thinking that the most...

Great advertising is exceptional truth-telling. In 1912, Harry McCann and four partners launched the advertising agency that would later become McCann Erickson. Their founding motto was “Truth Well Told,” which beautifully expresses one of the most fundamental (and...