Brand.
Every brand starts with a story only you can tell. We get to know your research, your collection, and the people behind the work, and write the story that holds them together.
Knowledge is power.
Put your knowledge to work.
Workhorse partners with experts and institutions to distill knowledge into meaningful brands, digital products, and experiences.
Harness ambition. Shape the future.
Design.
Precise design, systemized and automated. Every exhibition, report, and campaign comes out of one intelligent system, so your team can make more and keep every piece consistent.
Build.
Built to pull its weight, every day. We make the site, the tools, and the marketing operations behind them, and run them on our platform so the work keeps going after launch.
Strategy vs Execution.
We bring strategy and execution together in one system, connecting the thinking behind your brand to the work people see and use.
Brand strategy and identity.
Together, we establish what your organization stands for and how it communicates. That thinking becomes the language and design your team works with.
Work smarter.
Each project builds on the knowledge and design decisions already in place. Your team and ours use feedback from the work to refine what comes next, so you can take on more without starting over.
Put your knowledge to work.
A platform built around your expertise.
Your brand’s knowledge, voice and design system guide the work. Your team and ours develop ideas and review changes in one workspace, with the tools to publish.
Expert design for your field.
Film festivals
Festival identity and annual campaigns.
Identity, campaigns and websites that carry your festival from its first announcement into the theater.
Double Exposure: identity and annual campaigns from 2016 through 2025. DC/DOX: a founding identity, website and festival materials developed with its founders.
Education & e-learning
Design for learning platforms and curriculum brands.
Your teaching approach guides the brand, the website and the learning experience.
Demme Learning: Digital Toolbox UX and a design system, delivered before the build paused. Resume Place: a brand and website for federal career training and certification.
Apparel & lifestyle
Brand strategy carried into everyday marketing.
Positioning, product launches and ongoing marketing, developed alongside your leadership team.
Boody: a four-year partnership with its U.S. CEO on positioning and marketing bamboo-based apparel, including the Active and BoodyBaby launches.
Skincare & beauty
Creative direction from product launch onward.
Your product expertise informs the campaign, from product imagery to web, email and social.
Kane NY: a close partnership with its founder on creative direction and ongoing marketing. Priori: the Naturals skincare launch across web, email and social.
Nonprofits & institutions
Design for public participation.
Brand and experience design for exhibitions, events and volunteer programs.
AARP LEAPx: event registration and volunteer-experience design. DC Public Library: brand and visual design for the MLK Memorial Library’s permanent exhibition, with its curators and design partners.
Associations & advocacy
A clear public voice for your organization.
Publications and campaigns grounded in your policy positions, research and brand.
CTIA: brand modernization and industry publications. Mobile Future: an identity and communications system for a wireless-policy coalition. The Raben Group: policy-event and philanthropic-strategy identities.
Exhibition design01
MLK Memorial Library
Up from the People: Protest & Change in DC. A permanent exhibition about the people who shaped the city, developed with the library’s curators and a team of exhibition designers.
- Client
- DC Public Library
- Our work
- Identity, exhibition graphics, archival content
- Opened
- 2020
Archival photographs, oral histories and exhibition graphics at the city’s central library.
View case studyArt direction02
Campaign photography
A skincare editorial, an activewear launch and a food brand. Each shoot takes its direction from the product and the way people use it.
- Projects
- Kane NY, Boody Active, Epic Curing
- Our work
- Art direction and photography production
Kane NY
View case study
Editorial photography. Workhorse art direction, photography by Leah Beilhart.
4 photographs · Scroll to exploreBoody Active
View case study
Photography for the launch of Boody’s first activewear line.
4 photographs · Scroll to exploreEpic Curing
View case study
Food and product photography for a Washington, DC cured meat brand.
4 photographs · Scroll to exploreBrand systems03
Double Exposure
An identity for a festival where investigative journalism meets documentary film. Workhorse joined for the second edition in 2016 and developed each annual campaign through 2025.
- Client
- Double Exposure / 100Reporters
- Our work
- Identity, annual campaigns, print and digital
- Years
- 2016 to 2025
The festival’s identity across its website and social channels.
View case studyFive festival editions
Scroll to explore
The brand at work04
A brand that listens.
A brand that ships.
Your knowledge gives the work direction. We keep the research, brand standards and feedback in one workspace, so the decisions made in the brief carry through to the finished work.
Listen
Research and conversations with your team establish the brief. Audience feedback gives us something to test the work against.
Hold
Identity, voice and the decisions behind them live together. New pages and campaigns draw from that shared source.
Learn
Keep corrections with the work. Your team reviews proposed changes before they become part of the brand.
Ship
Review design and copy together, then publish the approved work. The source stays available for the next project.
On the platform · Demme Learning
A curriculum organized by subject.
Demme’s customers looked for subjects first. We organized the proposed site around that finding, bringing the curriculum, shop and Digital Toolbox into one navigation.
The brand book and case study on this platform share the same design source. Explore the principles alongside the page components.
Capabilities05
The work we do.
Strategy, design and production across the fields we serve. A project can start with an identity, a website or a campaign; the studio works across all six disciplines.
Brand & identity
Positioning and naming, with an identity and brand book to guide the work.
FaisonWeb & digital products
Site architecture, interface design and development for the people using them.
Resume PlaceE-commerce
Storefront design and product pages that carry the campaign through to the shop.
BoodyEvents & exhibitions
Exhibition graphics and wayfinding, with an identity that extends across the event.
MLK Memorial LibraryContent & editorial
Campaign photography, film and an ongoing publishing program for social and email.
Naturally YouDesign systems & tooling
Reusable components and brand rules for the people and tools making the next page.
Demme Learning
Studio updatesAll notes
Studio updates
Velocity One
Website and design system for an aerospace and defense holding company.
Brands that help experts execute
Abe Garcia on the studio and the platform. 8 min read.
Congressional Record
Identity, edition graphics and website for the bipartisan concert for arts education.
Tell us about your project.
A few lines about the work, where you are now, and the help you need.