An upscale Northern Virginia landscape design and build firm wanted a logo that reflected its elegant designs and discerning clientele. It also had to look good on the company's black trucks. Creative Director: Michelle LaPointe. Designer: Tracy Smith.

A disruptive new way to sell lab furniture called for an audacious and memorable brand identity. We developed the name, logo, color palette, and style guide for Looped LOGIC that we implemented across all marketing communications, from webites to trade shows. Creative Director: Michelle LaPointe. Designer: Tracy Smith

To make sure that branding is consistent across all media, we developed a detailed style guide. Since the brand's inception, the style guide has helped all internal and external users and vendors to maintain consistency across all projects.

This helps magnify the brand in the eyes of target audiences, of course. And it also saves time and money — when everyone is creating marketing assets that match, everything has greater longevity. Creative Director: Michelle LaPointe. Designer: Tracy Smith

This client came to us with an unfinished logo begun by another firm. The client liked the type treatment, but wasn't happy with any of the images previously proposed to go along with it. We needed to take an original route to communicate fresh ideas.

To achieve that, we completed the logo with a bird that is reminiscent of the eagles, falcons, and other raptors that are frequent sights in the skies over the district. It's also a symbol of optimism, success, and achievement.

Blending shades of turquoise, teal, and red-orange represent the multi-cultural demographics of the population. Angular patterns in the wing feathers and tail, inspired by the costumes of a local Aztec dance troupe, honor the heritage of the candidate's Mexican-American roots.

Along with the logo, we created a style guide for use of both pros and volunteers. We also created a clean, elegant, and lively set of custom social media templates. Because they're custom, you won't find the templates or images in the library of drag-and-drop graphics tools (or in the social media feeds of competitors). But they're just as easy to use.

Creative Director: Michelle LaPointe

What do you get when you add a vertical stroke to the letter "Q"? A letterform that resembles the hands and face of a clock, and a subtle reinforcement of this product line's promise of rapid delivery.

The tagline, "In stock & out the door" not only echoes the speedy shipping promise, but also tells you how the company gets it done. (In this category, it's highly unusual to find products in stock.) The smaller badges are intended to be used everywhere from the client's website to their catalog, to indicate which products are available for Quick Ship. Creative Director: Michelle LaPointe. Designer: Tracy Smith.

Logos for a brand's line extension use two pale gray dots and a friendly font to denote lightness, ease, and changeability. Creative Director: Michelle LaPointe. Designer: Tracy Smith.

An eye-catching color combination unusual in this product category, plus a simple but clever type treatment, helps this product line logo and tagline stand out. Creative Director: Michelle LaPointe. Designer: Tracy Smith.

More than 40 years ago, the talented founder of this laboratory furnture company, then called Hanson, designed a logo with a letter H that looks like the opening doors of a cabinet. As the company grew and became HLF, then HLS, and needed a new identity, we developed a set of transitional logos that communicated the company's evolution while maintaining the iconic original logo image.

To meet the company's unique needs, we created more iterations of the final logo than usual. In addition to vertical and horizontal logos, scalable vector versions, versions for print and web, and versions for company documents, we also created a special set of logos that can be used by the company's CAD designers. Creative Director: Michelle LaPointe

The previous branding wasn't really a logo. It was just letters in a generic font that didn't give anyone a clue about what the company did or who it served.

Adding a commercial building to the logo, combined with a strong and confident typeface, instantly distinguishes the company from residential real estate brokers. The colors, in the client's favorite palette, were used in a new website and brochure. Creative Director: Michelle LaPointe. Designer: Tracy Smith.

A line of furniture designed for temporary worker housing has to stand up to a lot of use, in climates that can span the gamut of conditions that include extreme heat, extreme cold, high humidity, and exposure to corrosive elements like salt and sand. Steel fits the bill, but residents prefer finishes that have warmth and a homey feel, even if they're only in the housing for a few weeks or months.

When our client developed a product that offered the strength of steel with the look of wood in multiple finishes, we developed a logo and tagline that encompassed both of the product's advantages. Creative Director: Michelle LaPointe. Designer: Tracy Smith.

Racism, bigotry, and discrimination in all its forms are strains and symptoms of the same disease. It has a huge psychological and economic impact on a community, even for those who perceive that they benefit from it. For one community, the impact of the city's reputation for racism contributed to empty storefronts and lower housing values than in neighboring communities.

The first step to conquering the problem is to talk about it — yet racism is so difficult to discuss that most people would rather avoid the conversation altogether.

For a planned series of talks about the topic, we created a name and logo that communicates safety in community, and that empowers people to start the conversation. It works in both English and Spanish, and shows equity of respect by working no matter which language is "up". Download the case study of this fascinating project.

Logo for a non-partisan "organization of organizations" with an interesting mission:

• To provide a community support network for small volunteer organizations.
• To create a digital platform for sharing and disseminating information.
• To amplify the effectiveness of each community group.

Creative Director: Michelle LaPointe