Faison is a Capitol Hill real estate brokerage founded by Tom Faison, with twenty years of closings on the Hill and a founder whose listing copy NPR profiled in 2014. It traded the name Real Estate in DC for Faison in 2021, and asked for an identity, a print system and a website that read like the agents who walk the houses. We built all three, and in 2024 went back to the site and put the agent’s own paragraph at the top of every property page.
Faison is a Capitol Hill real estate brokerage founded by Tom Faison, who has sold houses on the Hill for twenty years and writes his own listing copy: NPR profiled him for it in 2014. Until 2021 the firm was called Real Estate in DC, a description that fit a search box and nothing else. The name it took is his.
With the new name the firm asked for the rest: an identity that reads as a neighbor with a record, a print system for everything an agent hands a client, and a website where the listing sounds like the person who walked the house. We delivered the identity and print in 2021 and the site the same year, and rebuilt the property pages in 2024.
"I know most clients start out thinking of their realtor as a salesperson. I hope that by the close of our first meeting I’m able to change that perception. Substantially. First off, I think of myself as an educator. Maybe a 'tutor' is more like it. I try to inform my clients about the home buying and selling process. After all, buying a house, especially a 3-bedroom house in the DC area, is 50% emotional, 50% financial."
Tom Faison, Founder + Lead Broker.
Design System
Faison Forest green, the name set warm in Recoleta, and a system that earns trust without raising its voice. Two lines carry it: “Be from here.” for marketing and “Connected. Community.” for everything else.
Wordmark
Faison wordmark set in Recoleta. The primary mark across all surfaces. Use the green variant on cream/white grounds, the white variant on Forest, and the black variant for grayscale or single-color reproduction.
Logo Lockup
Full Faison lockup with mark and wordmark. Use for the largest applications: site header, brand book cover, primary signage. Reverse variant for use on dark Forest backgrounds.
Foundation
What the brand believes, before it says anything.
Descriptor
DC real estate. 20+ years. Connected. Community.
Founding Belief
Real estate is a relationship business. Trust is built block by block, not by the loudest voice in the room.
Faison is a longtime real estate powerhouse in the nation's capital. We help clients buy, sell, and live in Washington DC with the deep market knowledge that only comes from being from here.
Values
The operating system. What the brand commits to, every time.
Show up in the neighborhood before the listing goes live.
Twenty years of specific DC blocks behind every recommendation.
Guidance that meets buyers and sellers where the decision actually happens.
Every recommendation lands on the client’s side of the table.
Character (Brand Personality)
Five traits that turn values into behavior.
Rooted
Faison was founded in DC and stayed in DC, and the brand talks the way someone who lives here talks, in named blocks and streets.
Restrained
Forest green, a serif name, heavyweight paper. Luxury confident enough to stay quiet about it.
Direct
Tom Faison thinks of himself as an educator, not a salesperson. The brand voice carries that same straightforwardness.
Human
Real estate is half emotional and half financial, so the handwritten note card and the friendly set of the name are there to keep a person in the transaction.
Brand Pillars (Messaging)
The three things this brand always says. Every piece of work comes back to one of them.
The Marketing Tagline
Used across marketing materials. A buyer is not moving to a block so much as joining one, and the line says so without explaining itself.
The Non-Sales Tagline
Reserved for everything that is not a sale: neighborhood sponsorships, civic events, and the small commitments that keep a DC block whole.
The Proof Point
Two decades of closings in DC. The confidence comes off the record itself, and the brand leaves the adjectives alone.
Voice
How the brand sounds out loud. The tone every word inherits.
Earn trust without raising your voice.
Be from here. Reference the city like a local, not a tour guide.
Class, character, and charm are nouns. Show them, don't claim them.
Real estate is a relationship business. Speak like a person, not a brand.
We sold three homes on East Capitol Street last quarter. Each one in under nine days.
We provide industry-leading results across the DC real estate market.
Be from here.
Discover the magic of Washington DC real estate.
A twelve-page brand book that any future designer can open and work from.
Color, type, the marks and the ways they pair with the taglines, the language, and worked examples of each. In 2026 the same content moved onto the platform as structured data, so the AI writing tools work from the rules instead of from a PDF nobody reopens.
Be from here.
Eleven print-ready pieces on heavyweight cream paper, Forest ink with Cream Green accents: booklet, brochure, business cards, letterhead, postcards, notecards, door hangers, pocket folder, supporter card, key tag, and envelopes.
Recoleta sets the Faison name and the headlines, Mabry Pro takes the smaller headings and the running text, and Cartograph Mono appears only where there are numbers to read. Everything a client picks up on closing day sounds like the same firm.
Thirteen pages handed out at listing presentations, printed in Forest ink on cream paper with Recoleta headings over Mabry text. The agent reads the room and the booklet does the proving.
A window flier for the office display and for partner storefronts, sized to be read from the sidewalk.
Forest ink on cream, with the Faison name in Recoleta at the top, the address and contact line beneath it in Mabry Pro, and the property photograph holding the middle of the page. Same paper as the brochure.
Three campaign posters: Run the Numbers, Buying or Selling on the Hill, Nothing is More Important Than Our Buyers.
Recurring placements in DC neighborhood publications: the Hill Rag, a monthly banner in the Chabad Jewish Center bulletin, and a two-sided ad written for one specific block. The seasonal posts mark the holiday and sell nothing.
Tom Faison writes his own listing copy, and that paragraph is the part of the listing that sells the house. We rebuilt the property pages so it is the first thing you read, set in the same light weight of Recoleta as the Faison name, with the listing feed underneath it.
NPR profiled him in 2014 for exactly this.
The live site renders its MLS feed in a vendor template. This is the listing detail rebuilt in the brand’s own type, color and pace, on the real listing for 105 14th Street NE: a 1907 Federal townhouse in Lincoln Park, sold for $985,000 in April 2024. The prose is Tom Faison’s own.
Every listing is written by the agent who walks the house. No template feed. The voice carries the same restraint as the wordmark.
“So local. So Lincoln Park focal, an extra-wide bayfront, renovated as an owner would, who understood synergy. Original elements jiving and vibing with kitchen and bath redesigning.
Light and location, width and design. Bring sunglasses, a tape-measure, and a dreamy domestic disposition.”
A half-block walk to Lincoln Park and the H Street Streetcar; six minutes to Eastern Market on foot.
Original mantels and trim kept; kitchen and baths brought to current spec. Wood floors throughout the parlor level.
Two-tier outdoor: a deck off the kitchen, a brick patio at grade. South-facing rear, full afternoon light.
105 14th sits east of the park, between East Capitol and A Street. Maury Elementary is two corners over. The H Street Streetcar runs a half-block north. We have closed sixty-four homes inside this catchment in the last twelve months. We know what trades, and what waits.
$1.18M
Median list
9 days
Median DOM
94
Walk score
64
Closed last 12 mo
I think of myself as a tutor more than a salesperson. Buying a house in DC is fifty percent emotional, fifty percent financial. I try to inform clients about both halves.
533 6th Street SE
Capitol Hill
1620 New Jersey Ave NW
Bloomingdale
225 14th Street NE
Capitol Hill
Same data, redesigned. Status legible at a glance, neighborhood chips for the filter, a featured editorial slot at the top, then a three-up grid. The agent’s voice stays in the cards instead of being stripped out by the template.
Every listing is walked by a Faison agent before it goes up. The photos and the words are ours. Filter by neighborhood, price, or simply scroll the way you would walk the block.
“So local. So Lincoln Park focal, an extra-wide bayfront, renovated as an owner would, who understood synergy.”
3
Beds
3
Bath
1,754
Sq ft
562
$ / ft
$985,000
Property tax $6,049 / yr · Zoning R-4
Tom Faison
533 6th Street SE
Wide-front Victorian a half-block to Eastern Market. Original mantels, garden parking.
1200 Walter Street NE
End-unit rowhouse one block from H Street. Roof deck with monument views.
401 A Street NW #3
Two-bedroom condo in a 1910 brick walk-up. Walk score 98.
914 6th Street NE
South-facing Federal with original mantels and a brick-paved garden.
421 O Street NE
Renovated rowhouse a block from NoMa Metro. Quiet street, new kitchen.
225 14th Street NE
Lincoln Park bay-front with parlor-level living and a deep rear yard.
A short letter once a month. New listings, the neighborhoods we’re watching, what closed and at what number. Never a sale push. A portion of every commission earned is given to local charities serving the city.
~ 1,400 subscribers · 1st of the month · easy unsubscribe
The data feeding the redesign is the same one every DC brokerage pulls; what changed is everything wrapped around it. A Forest bar across the top, the address set in Recoleta, the numbers in Cartograph. The agent still writes the listing. The neighborhood section talks in block names instead of ZIP codes, and the page closes by asking you to tour the home rather than fill out a form.
A portion of each commission still goes to local charities serving the city, and that line sits at the bottom of the page in small Mabry capitals, about the size you would write it on the back of a notecard.
The system is live
Color and type settings, voice rules, the logo files, and the components, all rendered from the same files on disk. The record that defined Faison in 2021 is what runs the platform now.
The project archive runs alongside it, with all nine areas of the work in one view.
The marks, the palette, the type, and the designed work that carries them. One source feeds the live brand and this wall. Click any tile to open it.
Booklet coverPrint Design
11x17 brochure, frontPrint Design
Business card frontPrint Design
Faison letterheadPrint Design
Postcard frontPrint Design
Notecard, 4.5 x 6.25Print Design
Door hanger templatePrint Design
9 x 12 pocket folderPrint Design
Window flier in office displayEnvironmental Graphics
Hanging yard panelsEnvironmental Graphics
Yard signs with stakesEnvironmental Graphics
Yard sign ridersEnvironmental Graphics
Hill Rag eighth-page adCampaign Creative
Chabad Jewish Center monthly bannerCampaign Creative
Neighborhood ad, side ACampaign Creative
Neighborhood ad, side BCampaign Creative
Holiday social 2021Campaign Creative
