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Smell sells. Tap scent marketing’s subconscious power to lift mood, memory, and sales. Choose simple, context-smart fragrances, tune the intensity, and watch productivity rise without customers noticing why.

Stop casting wider nets and fix the holes. Competitive CEOs chase metrics while customers crave emotion. Talk to people, design sticky experiences, and watch each effort land more loyal customers.

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 a massively oversaturated media…

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](https://web.archive.org/web/20130115155…

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: “Maybe dinner? What kind of foo…

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 from as many sources as we could. I…

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 concept that ties these element…

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 of creativity and inspiration b…

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, but research can often reveal h…

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, sports metaphors, war metaphors, etc…

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 $#\*%@# thing about what is or isn’…

Every year, _Inc._ magazine ranks the [5,000 fastest-growing companies](https://web.archive.org/web/20111126125601/http://www.inc.com/inc5000/list/2011/) (privately held) in the United States. They just recently released their 2011 list, providing a fresh set of data on the movers and shakers acros…

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 to suffer, and they don’t even know it ye…

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 general market by a 15 to 1 ratio. T…