Our Thoughts: Drawn Philosophy

Brands can be fragile, so it’s important to anchor them with rock-solid foundations.

Design thinking has helped us to build technology that enhances human experiences, rather than dissolving them.

Authenticity is a smart business move — it earns trust and leads to efficiency and, in turn, profits.

Authenticity is more than just a buzz word. It’s a business strategy.

Our process goes a little something like this: understand, create, evolve.

What happens when efficiency as we know it is a myth?

Siete Family Foods is a family-owned and operated CPG company that does things a little differently, putting family first, family second, and business third. The results are pretty remarkable.

How the hunt for alignment led to a “quiet set of helping hands” for the restaurant industry.

Sometimes, you need an unbiased eye to tell you where your strengths and weaknesses are. With a brand audit, Drawn can help reveal things about your brand that you may not be able to see on your own.

When appreciation for the philosophy of design meets authentic, instinctive design thinking, good things happen. We believe that the best design is second nature and comes from truly embracing interdisciplinary thinking.

Human-centered design — a wholistic approach to problem-solving and design that allows room for empathic understanding and iterative prototyping — is really just good design. Period.

Asking the right questions in the right setting can have a huge impact on the quality of information that you collect.

Hunches happen. They can be used as a valuable decision-making tool and, at the very least, they're worth a quick assessment.

Engagement's about more than taps on a screen. Ideally, it's synonymous with meaningful experience(s) and human connection. Shifting perspective. Leaving an impression. And it's worth doing it right.

If you want to create a product or service or brand that people are drawn to, you have to give it room to mature. Because chasing for attention doesn't look good on anyone.

Brands are made up of far more than "About Us" statements. It's their actions, their visual choices, the stories they tell that really tell us who a brand is.

It doesn't really matter whether you're employing sympathy or true empathy in your search for innovative solutions; it's the commitment to real context that is fundamental to the design thinking process.

Developing brands for a public that prizes experiences requires an internal culture that's committed to design thinking, which helps keep an empathetic finger on the pulse of those on the street.

There are three levels of design thinking and you’ve got to work through them in the right order, or the whole process will be flawed.

Sticky notes alone won’t truly solve your problems — that takes a willingness to follow through on the complete design thinking process.

While I’m wary of the term “designer” becoming diluted, there are many in other (non-design) fields who practice design thinking and, maybe, should be considered designers, as well.

There are more and more people out there with “designer” in their job titles, but does this change the way we define design?

Aristotle's academy aimed to explore and expand our understanding of how things worked, to find connections and solve problems. That's not so different than what we do as practitioners of design thinking.

How do we do the best job possible for our clients? By listening.

Timeless design is something that we're forever chasing and very rarely capturing. It doesn't succumb to passing trends. It feels accessible and elegant at the same time. It's simple, but not simplistic. Perhaps most importantly, it honors the fundamentals of our craft.

Our brands gain equity through smart investment. Sometimes, we're rewarded for risk while other times, it pays to err on the side of caution.

In contemporary culture, a picture really does seem to be worth a thousand words (or at least a thousand likes). But can a word ever be worth a thousand pictures? We think so — if it's the right one.

Whether created by time or intention, texture tells a story; it can reveal an object's true nature. So, can texture inspire better design?

While symmetry has its merits, it can also prove a restriction when it comes to design. Here, we explore both sides of the symmetry debate — where do you stand?

Whether you're working with plenty of time and an unlimited budget or quite the opposite, there's a lot more to effective design than vectors.

Our team members' backgrounds are literally all over the map, but our values are tightly aligned and the result is smooth collaboration bolstered by a vast diversity of experience.

The principles behind Drawn's philosophy of authenticity.

The cultural shift that gave rise to truth in marketing and why honesty is good for your brand.

Know how to make smart promises to your audience and deliver services that exceed their expectations.

Why expending more time and energy up front is a better route to true efficiency than seeking simple (and rapid) solutions.

There may be no such thing as a truly original idea, but inspiration can spark evolution, leading to fresh designs and concepts. Just be wary of theft — it's lazy and won't pay off in the long run.

We found that traditional focus groups have their limits, so we took our research methods outside the box.