Workhorse: Brands that help experts execute
Workhorse has been a small studio in DC for twelve years. We worked through mergers, a pandemic, and unrest at our doorstep, and through all of it brand stayed at the center of how we worked. We are now building a platform around that conviction.
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08/08Workhorse: Brands that help experts execute
Workhorse has been a small studio in DC for twelve years. We worked through mergers, a pandemic, and unrest at our doorstep, and through all of it brand stayed at the center of how we worked. We are now building a platform around that conviction.
Branding, and the truth.
We revised the studio website and stopped to ask what branding actually is. The honest answer is older than the rebrand: find what is already true about a company, give it a face and a voice, and let it run.
Love Yourself: Living, Alone, + Covid
The Workhorse team has been working virtually for some months now (for Abe, years). We seem to be flowing together as a unit pretty nicely and are lucky to still be taking on projects. We’ve been learning how to share work and talk to clients with our pets or children going crazy
Design and Activism
We’ve been busy over here jamming on an exhibition project for the new MLK library in Downtown D.C. This means we’ve been researching protest signage from the Civil Rights Movement, and more broadly, activism in D.C. It’s been amazing to learn more about our city and its importan
Dan’s Headspace
Interning with the Workhorse team this summer has been an awesome experience. As a design and printmaking student at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) entering my senior year, my focus has been on identity systems, typography, publication design, and illustration. I’ve lea
Selections: Summer 2020 – Italo Disco with DJ Eddy Bauer
Today, we bring you an exclusive playlist from our good friend and resident DJ, DJ Eddy Bauer: Join me as we set sail for the Mediterranean club scene of the mid-1980s. Let the lush synthesizers and cheesy melodies wash over you like a warm, salty…nevermind. Clothing optional. –
Live-streaming from the End of the World
We’ve been doing a lot of experimenting with live-streaming and online events. After the shutdown, we started looking more into it and seeing if we could quickly ramp up a broadcasting station from the studio. We are currently not doing any photo or video shoots so we did some re
The Future Is Now
As the world collapses around us, my thoughts regarding technology, capitalism, and design have come more into focus, so I wanted to share some interesting reads and opinions for you all to think about. The global pandemic of 2020 will be the defining moment of a generation. The
Working Remotely
It’s been interesting to see people that have never worked remotely be thrust into remote work all of a sudden because of the current health situation. I’ve been remote since 2016 and I can say, for sure, that it is not the same as working in-person. However, with some trial and
Selections: Winter 2019 -2020
We’ve put together some tracks that will either help you climb out of the dark world of winter or hit the snooze button and hide in your cave for a few more weeks. Check it out and follow us on Spotify for up to date playlists and good vibes.
Loving Yourself: Avoiding Burnout
“Do what you love, and you’ll never work another day in your life.” You’ve heard this one before. Lots of people swear by it. But those whose whole identity is wrapped up in their work are probably the biggest spreaders of this falsehood, namely creatives. Now, don’t get me wrong
The “Why” Matters: Data vs Insights
In my internet wanderings, I came upon a Fast Company article from ancient history (2011) by design firm, Method. The article drew parallels between standup comedy and innovation. I like a good analogy article, but a few of their points resonated on their own. Specifically, they
5 Type Trends for 2020
It’s that time of year when we are bombarded with year-end wrap-ups and trend predictions for the year to come. So, we figured we’d get in on the fun. We predict that 2020 is going to go down as a year of influence, focusing on strong type through new iterations of centuries-old
Holiday Gift Guide – 2019
The holiday season is here! It’s time to break open the piggy bank and buy, buy, buy!!! As with our past gift guides, we like to give shoutouts to our creative crew, so lookout for a few recommendations from friends of the studio. Happy shopping! Chet Baker The Legendary Rivers
Selections: Fall 2019
To continue this week’s music theme, we present you a collection of tracks for vibing out, kicking back, and coupling up. Happy cuffing season, stay safe!
Travelogue: Copenhagen
A few weeks ago my wife and I traveled to Copenhagen, Denmark’s capital. A modern city famous for bicycles, new Nordic cuisine, and world-class culture. Copenhagen is well known as one of the greatest design cities in the world and a very eco-friendly tourist destination, with pl
Pointer.Digital
Over the summer, we were approached to create a brand for a new digital marketing agency, Pointer Digital. While Pointer’s experience and strength lie in politics, Pointer Digital is not just a political agency. One of the challenges for this project was the need to create an ide
First Things First 2000 at 20
Originally released in 1964, the First Things First manifesto rallied against design’s role in consumerism and called upon designers to be more humanist in their approach to their practice. Adbusters updated the manifesto in 1999, restarting the conversation about priorities in t
Dear Design Student
I’m always inspired by the enthusiasm that students have for design. As we enter a new semester, I’ve jotted down some thoughts that I think design students might find helpful. Creative inspiration is a myth Inspiration is very much like luck; it seems random and often not on you
Case Studies
Over the years, we’ve had the pleasure to work on a lot of cool projects. Some of our favorites have been for social media campaigns to help launch new products. For each campaign, we developed the look and feel and crafted messaging and graphics for social media and web content.
Studio Plants
It’s no secret that we love plants, like, really LOVE them. Our office is filled with them and so are our homes. We exchange seeds and leaf clippings, share treats from our gardens, trade tips, and rant about the goddamned rats always eating all the tomatoes. We’ve learned a lot
Double Exposure 2019
For the third year in a row, Double Exposure’s Investigative Film Festival and Symposium asked us to develop the look and feel of this year’s festival theme: Decay. Our teams wanted to visually represent the decay and erosion that the journalistic landscape has experienced in rec
Selections: Summer 2019
We’ve curated a playlist of our favorite summer bangers. Enjoy.
24 Hours in: Baltimore
One of the best things about our studio is that we get to enjoy being in two great cities, Washington, DC and Charleston, SC. However, both cities are destinations themselves and during these long summer months, it becomes necessary to escape the tourists. As part of our Summer o
Summer Fridays: Remote Work Gear
As waves of tourists start to take over the capital, we start prepping for Summer Fridays and any way to get out of town quick. We love our vacation days, but sometimes we find ourselves wanting to stay plugged in while we’re away. Pro tip: Schedule 90 minutes of work early morni
Selections: Summer Podcasts
This week we’re kicking off the official Summer of Workhorse series which will be full of fun, sun, and more sun, because of global warming. We are excited to share bite-size snacks of travel and chill-friendly content with you. For our first installment, we’ve collected a handfu
Studio: Studio Photography
We often find ourselves knee deep in content creation, which means we’re always thinking of ways to improve our production process. How do you streamline the workflow while maintaining a high-quality product? For our last in-house shoot, we took our first shot at shooting 100% te
Unintended Consequences: Some readings on art, design, and gentrification.
Featured Image: La Muerte del Barrio by MTO Workhorse has offices in two of the fastest gentrifying cities in the United States, Washington, DC and Charleston, SC. The role of art and artists in changing cities has been examined and critiqued for a long time. In Charleston, I’v
Travelogue: Merida and the Yucatan Coast
Growing up, my family made a few trips to Mexico, mainly to Mexico City, where our relatives lived. This meant we never really got the chance to explore other parts of the country. So, when my cousin got married last month in Merida on the western side of the Yucatan Peninsula, w
Do Your Self Realizations Quickly Fade Away?
We’ve all heard how crucial it is to set intentions, goals and targets. Powerful goals electrify us. Clear intentions energize and pull us forward. Without a clearcut intention, we’re reactive and don’t get around to doing the important things when we want them done. Instead, we
Everything is Designed but Just a few Things Designed Well
Fat new smallness few supposing suspicion two. Course sir people worthy horses add entire suffer. How one dull get busy dare far. At principle perfectly by sweetness do. As mr started arrival subject by believe. Strictly numerous outlived kindness whatever on we no on addition. D
Law Of Life
Think back over your life. Think about the people that had a positive influence on you. If your past was like mine, many of them didn’t realize the impact they made. The influence was usually due to them caring about you and doing some little thing. What little things have been d
Motivo
Last spring, at the Circular Summit, an annual women entrepreneurship conference hosted by Alice, we met Rachel McCrickard, founder of Motivo. Motivo is the first online platform that connects new therapists with experienced supervisors from the beginning to the end of the clinic
Priori Naturals
“Clean beauty” is a trending term in the beauty industry—more and more consumers are looking for beauty and skincare products with more natural ingredients. Priori recognized the growing consumer demand for these products, and saw an opportunity to expand the reach of their produ
Vote or Die!
All design is political, because all politics are designed. The world is a mess because a certain set of people designed it to be a mess. Now we need a different set of people to design our way out of it. —Mike Monteiro The way we see it, our commitment to caring about the future
We Dream in Black
We just wrapped up print & digital design work for We Dream In Black (WDIB), a program started by the National Domestic Workers Alliance. As new data emerges on the vulnerable conditions facing black domestic workers in the South, We Dream In Black, in partnership with the Instit
Selections: Summer 2018
Four and a half hours of our favorite tunes from Summer 2018. New Chance the Rapper never disappoints—there’s also a healthy dose of Drake, and a little walk down memory lane in honor of The Queen, Aretha Franklin. ? Our studio speakers are always on, so follow us on Spotify to
Naturally You Campaign Design
This summer, our long-time client Boody came to us to support a new product launch—based on customer feedback, they decided to expand their range of “nude” shades to accommodate more skin tones. In their words, Boody is about being ‘something for everybody,’ and they wanted us to
Brand Identity Workshops
As businesses evolve out of the early-stage, their brands need to evolve, too—and it’s not uncommon to get stuck at this part of the process. Businesses know they need to adapt and evolve, but they really aren’t sure where to begin—or what improvement could and should look like f
TETRA Campaign Design
Workhorse recently launched a new campaign for Priori, a high-end skincare brand we’ve been working with for the past year. During the course of our partnership, we worked with them to roll out a full brand refresh across channels, and this summer, we designed a campaign to launc
Selections: Spring 2018
New tunes from the Workhorse crew! This spring was a mix of new favorites from folks like John Maus, Khruangbin, Disclosure, and Jamie Isaac. Honorable mentions go to Beach House, Snail Mail, and Childish Gambino— This is America is absolutely still stuck in our heads. Our studio
National Women’s History Museum Social Rebrand
This spring, National Women’s History Museum (NWHM) joined our client roster, coming to us in need of some heavy-hitting digital media strategy and design expertise. Their goals: 1) to create a distinct social identity that elevated the museum’s brand across platforms; and 2) to
Influencers – Boody Baby
Two years ago, our long-standing client Boody, launched a line of super-soft, adorable basics for babies. As we began building out their social presence, we needed to think of ways to create content that weren’t limited to photos of cute onesies. Our challenge was to build a spac
Work We Like: The Lily
In case you weren’t following along, The Washington Post announced they would revive the The Lily, the first women-focused publication, originally issued from 1849 until 1853. The 2017 re-launch is positioned as “a new publication for millennial women that spotlights The Post’s a
Celebrate Divine Women Campaign
We recently kicked off work for Divine Chocolate, a global chocolate brand that distinguishes itself both by its delicious premium chocolate, as well as its unique co-operative business model— the company splits 40% of its ownership with Kuapa Kokoo, the Ghanaian farming co-op th
Selections: Winter 2018
Steady streamin’ over here! Closing the book on the season that always overstays its welcome with some of our favorite jams from the year so far. Cheers!
You’re Invited: Cocktails + Creators Social Club
We’re back for another round of Cocktails + Creators— we’ll be bringing together creative folks from around D.C. to talk a little shop over a delicious beverage or two. As long-time cocktail enthusiasts, we’ll be brewing up one or two of our favorite punch recipes for everyone to
Selections: Yay Area, A Black Panther Tribute Mix
If you’re looking for us, you can find us all the way on this Black Panther bandwagon. This playlist is a lil nod to Black Panther’s antihero/villain Erik Killmonger, who spends his formative years in Oakland. It’s about three solid hours of our Bay Area favorites— enjoy! #YayAre
Selections: Workhorse Loves You
A collection of our favorite love tunes, in honor of our favorite #HallmarkHoliday. Because St. Valentine would want to be lovingly surprised by a bunch of hidden repeats of Careless Whisper.
3D & Dimensional Design
Last month, we shared a little of our favorite 3D design inspiration in our most recent mood— and now we’re back with a little 3D work of our own. We’ve explored working with 3D design both with our work for ourselves and our work with clients: here’s a little highlight reel of s
Selections: Best of 2017
If you know us, you know our studio speakers always on. We even have a dedicated slack channel just for sharing the music we’re into. So, yeah— music is a huge part of our culture here at Workhorse. While we are definite devotees of well-crafted playlists, we also love being able
Selections: Fall 2017
Latest selects from our studio speakers. This fall was a mix of lots of new and a little old— all respect due to the late, great Tom Petty. We especially loved new releases from Madeline Kenney, Beach Fossils, and Moses Sumney. Get into it, and stay tuned for new selections each
Holiday Gift Guide – 2017
The holiday season is either ‘shop-til-ya-drop’ or ‘avoid-avoid-avoid’ until Christmas Eve rolls around and you find yourself lost in a Barnes & Noble scrambling for last-minute gift cards. We’re here to tell you that it doesn’t have to be this way. Each of us has assembled our o
Boody Active Launch.
We just launched a campaign for one of our longest running clients, Boody. If you haven’t heard us talk about them before, Boody is a line of sustainable, ethical basics for men and women, and we’ve been working with them on their marketing and design efforts for over two years n
State Your Purpose!
A few weeks ago my friend Greg, who has been working with Workhorse as a freelancer since we started the company, told me that he was applying to MFA design programs. I was excited for him, but also surprised. Never thought he would be looking to pay several thousands of dollars
Studio Photography.
One of our biggest service offerings at Workhorse is creating killer digital content for our clients. We work diligently to churn out content on a monthly basis for clients in a variety of industries— whether it’s technical content that highlights the usability and versatility of
Spotlight: DC Design Week 2017.
AIGA DC is gearing up for another annual Design Week! If you aren’t familiar with AIGA and its DC chapter, we recommend reading up! Workhorse partner Tj Cichecki has long been active in the AIGA community and now serves as a member of the DC chapter board. So what is Design Week?
Eastern Market Neighborhood Map.
We recently had the opportunity to take things offline with our client, the Eastern Market Main Street in Washington, DC. While it’s wonderful to see the recent growth in small businesses in DC– and in new destination neighborhoods such as Union Market and Shaw–Eastern Market Mai
Travelogue: European Ephemera
In recent years traveling, my wife and I have focused on packing light and resisting the urge to collect every cute tchotchke along the way. We try to travel only with backpacks to reduce transport times as well as physical and mental strain on our (sometimes long) travel days. W
Work We Need: Design Thinking & Disaster Relief
To call the flooding in Houston a catastrophe, at this point, would almost be an understatement— all reports regard Hurricane Harvey as the worst storm event to ever occur in this country. It’s not just Texas that’s affected; any states lying on the gulf are going to have their h
#BoochDiaries
Last month, Michelle brewed her first successful batch of homemade kombucha, which tasted surprisingly similar to the store-bought version. So she’s taken to the Workhorse blog to preach her booch sermon and convince us all to join her.
Ideal State.
We’re wrapping up our work with Ideal State, formerly Atascadero, a knowledge management consulting firm that partners with companies working toward social change. In their own words, “Ideal State helps organizations build the global knowledge architecture needed to drive systemi
Wallpaper Wednesday: Just Do It The Night Before
TJ’s lettering design, “Just Do It The Night Before,” is quoted by Julia Rothman’s talk from the 2015 AIGA Design Week after someone asked, “When do you make time to do all your work?”
Wallpaper Wednesday: Hot Air Balloon
Today’s wallpaper comes from our talented Workhorse colleague, Greg Fisk, aka Nice Greg. Greg’s mind has been floating around for a while now, daydreaming about his upcoming hot-ballooning adventure.
On The Grid: Capitol Hill
Workhorse is very excited to kick off our contribution to Hyperakt’s On The Grid. We’ve picked our studio’s home, Capitol Hill, to feature some of our favorite joints as well as give us an opportunity to discover new spots and meet some of our neighbors.
Wallpaper Wednesday: Summer Livin’
In an effort to flex our creative muscles, show off our past work and talk about our cool friends, we are launching Wallpaper Wednesday.
Always Improving
Here we are, over two years into our practice and our site still didn’t reflect the work we’ve been working our asses off doing. We thought we’d let ya’ll in on our studio community.
work we like: adx.
ADX – art design portland is a “collaborative makerspace and fabrication house where individuals and organizations make and learn.” The shop allows members to share tools, space, and experience to grow a community of makers. And it’s paying off. The space has done fabrication pro
new work: pineapple dc
if you’ve been following our newsletter (if you haven’t, it’s awesome. sign up here), you know that we love food. like, a lot. we also love supporting the people who make it and finding other cool creative women who share our interests. that’s why it’s been so fun for us to work
leap year.
leap years feel exciting – plenty of events only happen once every four years, but few others feel as special as a leap year. like a secret gift from something otherwise indelible (i.e. the calendar), the leap year always seems to sneak up on and surprise us. despite the exciteme
work we like: everlane
how many clothing websites do you visit that have a “factories” tab? We were already fans of everlane‘s well-designed, high-quality clothing and accessories, but we’ve become even more intrigued by the way they combine their good taste with their great mission statement. everlane
on loving.
february has us thinking about how we love in all its forms – family, friends, partners and even strangers – and about the barriers we put up that prevent us from loving – professional, age, race, class, gender, etc. luckily, we found the 12 Kinds of Kindness project to help us
looking back: grip the mat
this week we’re covering some not-so-recent, recent work. consider it a throwback tuesday. grip the mat came to us in the very early stages of their business, as many of our clients do. while they needed the usual suite of brand collateral (logo, style guide, photography, website
that snow though.
with a mega-storm about to roll through d.c., we figured it was a good time for some snowspiration. these pics from self-taught farmer wilson “snowflake” bentley – who took his first photograph in 1885 – represent a few things we love: entrepreneurship, noticing the details, nega
first look: boodywear
we first started working with boodywear six months ago. we were asked to build a social strategy and voice for the organic bamboo basics brand… from scratch. so, the question became: how do we tell a story that is authentic and relatable, while still showcasing the clothing? ans
decent work // work at decent
oh hey. we’re hiring an art director + designer. it’s kind of a big deal. if you want to: make killer products on a bootstrap budget, craft stories for brands big and small, and work across media to design stuff that looks awesome. and are: into what we’ve got going on and have s
mind sparkle magazine or mid-winter inspiration
we’ve been in search of inspiration as of late. mind sparkle magazine has ALL OF IT. #protip granted.
because yoda is right
THE TRUTH. AND HOW WE FEEL ABOUT IT. ESPECIALLY RIGHT BEFORE BREAK.
work we like: worn wear
we’re not sure whether to call this a campaign or a community, and that’s exactly the point. patagonia’s worn wear has the requisite blog and website, but they’re doing something particularly special with instagram: letting patagonia lovers come together to tell their own stories
recap: art basel miami
design/miami entrance pavilion, harvard gsd sooo we went to art basel miami and…. our minds got blown. we’ll admit not knowing what to expect, but within a serious of hot moments found ourselves doing some serious fangirl-ing. there was sitting next to the -ahem- one and only zah
meet lapis
we’ve been busy collaborating with the popal family for the last several months to reshape and rebrand their 7-year old restaurant, napoleon, into lapis, a modern afghan bistro. diverging from the family’s mainstay french cuisine, shamim popal– aka mom– developed an entirely new
lunchtime.
we’ve got a tradition at decent workshop of doing monday breakfasts. you know, to start the week off right. lately, though, we’ve been getting into some quality lunch action. our current go-to favorites: Glens garden market. the sammies look almost as good as they taste. almost.
studio life.
videographer casey neistat’s studio what inspires your studio? here’s a peek into what inspires ours.
it's been too long.
you guys. we’ve been mia, but for good reason. in the next few weeks we will have an updated site to share, news on projects and photos from all over the place (we’ve been state hopping) and big news from here at the workshop. so bear with us! until then, we’ll see you on the […]
the best party ever. and one good recap.
you guys. thank you so much. we are so lucky to have such an incredible community who supports the work that we have been doing for the last year. thanks to everyone who came out! all the notes and love. so much. xox photo: ann yang
open house 8-20. 6:30—8:30 pm. come through.
we’re a year old, have a new spot & a few new faces. so we thought we’d celebrate. bring friends & lovers (and anyone else you’d like) for cocktails & snacks on thursday, august 20th from 6:30 to 8:30pm. we’re at 1800 wyoming ave nw on the second floor. please rsvp here. just so
everybody eats. everybody can be happy.
along with a thrilling speech at washington dc’s creative mornings, (if you didn’t see it live, don’t miss the recap) this past week brought the long awaited re-launch of our long time collaborators no kings collective’s website. we edited their portfolio and created a design tha
bring that heat or get your dream job.
it’s the dead heat of summer. so we went for a float on a river, had some water melon & made a really dope, team collaboration of a its-hot-give-me-ice playlist. the real news here is that we are hiring a digital marketing associate. so come join us or send someone our way. here
THE BEACH
on friday we took a field trip to the national building museum to see the beach, an installation by snarkitecture. the installation took up 10,000 square feet in the center of the building and was filled with almost a million clear balls and even more small children. the all whit
all the ladies.
running an all lady firm (i mean we will hire a guy. soon.) can be a challenge at times. but looking back over the last year, we are so proud of all of the women who have come together to make decent workshop more than a pipe dream. our days could just have been full of deadlines
how to tell a story about a liver. or a sneak peak into our latest.
we recently collaborated with the National Association of City and County Health Officials on branding and collateral for a new campaign that supports & highlights the work that local governments are doing to combat hepatitis c. working with the existing brand guidelines of the o
let’s take a quiz.
Ever wondered what data can really do? We recently created an interactive personality quiz at Interactive Day San Diego for Katana to showcase the power and application of data personalization. by taking the quiz, we revealed if attendees were a fitness guru, trendsetter, jetsett
on misfit juicery.
“In the particular lies the universal.” — James Joyce We recently sat down with MISFIT Juicery’s co-founders for an interview on their venture for seesearch. We created an editorial photo shoot highlighting the ugly fruits + vegetables that are both the backbone of their social v
