Design Kompany is Dipika Kohli and Akira Morita. We’re a married couple. With a toddler preschooler.
The question DK gets asked the most is, “How do you work with your spouse?” For that, check out our 10 Do’s and Don’ts.
Philosophy: Trust the process
This is a 4-minute overview of how we think about the creative process.
Authenticity.
People talk about how important authenticity is in branding.
We’re big on that.
And on thinking, asking questions, and coming back to a strong center.
We call that “a brand essence.”
Clients are people who like to think about things in big-picture ways, but arrive at clear, smart answers that make the exact right sense.
Architects, for example. Software designers. People who value dialogue and critical thinking to get to the heart of what makes the essence of a brand idea.
Our job? Search and deliver your clear brand essence.
It’s gotta be original, yours, and spooled from real passion.
And then, let that radiate through all your customer touch-points: a flyer, a voice mail message, your web site, your office’s interior design. It’s gotta be consistent. But more than that, it has to be real.
Design Kompany’s path so far
Since 1995, Design Kompany’s pretty much almost always been just the two of us.
We did have some fantastic interns during our Seattle phase.
Graphic designer Alex Hage now runs Golden Arrows in Boston.
Wordsmith Jace Krause is a singer/songwriter who worked for Expedia after DK.
Mikiko Kobayashi helped us with a Japanese recruiter’s brand design.
Angela Tomson drew two brush-stroked logos while with us.
Victor Ng started a fashion and culture magazine at Carnegie Mellon and interned at Frog in New York after DK.
And tried a few things where other people came in, too. But ultimately decided we didn’t want DK to be some big agency.
We wanted to stay small.
Engaged.
Unfancy.
Howcome?
Because this work was personal. And we wanted to like it, and not be caught up in super-big cashflow worries that come with being in charge of other people’s mortgage payments. Because we knew we were nomadic types.
Because no one else is going to get as jazzed about your company as a married couple who owns it.
Because we learned from some missteps.
So, we took a good look at what we wanted to do with DK.
And in 2009, we made the call to come back to where we started, Durham, NC.
From college on
We met in 1995 at N.C. State University.
We were in a school club together, making t-shirt designs and posters for campus events.
Our first e-mail was “dkompany@hotmail.com”.
We made one room of Dipika’s shared apartment into an office, cordoning it off for “important business papers” that really was just a menu for Kuki, a Raleigh Japanese restaurant.
We even had a sacrosanct business phone line.
Which never rang.
The world as a learning lab
“Don’t let school interfere with your education.” —Mark Twain
Over the next 15 years, we followed Mark Twain’s advice and dived into the School of Life.
That meant white-collar desk jobs for both of us, but it also included stints working counters of cafes and bookstores, too. A few semesters of community college teaching. A foray into the world of freelance photography. Reading: widely and often. Traveling to the far reaches of the world, and even stopping for four years in one verdant corner pocket of Europe: West Cork, Ireland.
Neither of us are trained formally in graphic design, but Dipika did go to Pratt Institute for a few months in New York. The pretense of art school was enough to quit academia for good, and we’ve been operating by keeping up with the latest books, blogs, and Tweets on the world of brand marketing ever since.
Like this one:
If you don’t do anything else on this website, Read This Book.
Akira’s resume-ish past includes building a Japanese market for the Irish travel company My Guide Ireland, plus managing the World Beer Festival here in Durham back in the late 1990s. Our first gig for Design Kompany outside of N.C. State was creating the logo and poster design for the festival, a commission by All About Beer Magazine.) The big time.
That was when we lived on Ninth Street with our cat, Ringo.
Now we live in Trinity Park with our son, Kush.
Here’s where we get nerdy: The value of DK
It’s because we both got so excited about what we did that we made it into our work and life.
Our value is using deep listening skills to uncover what, exactly, an organization excels at, and why that matters.
As people discover their passions, ideals, and core competencies through our process, DK finds common ground among a company or organization’s key people.
We craft a brand essence statement that works like a hinge to tie all marketing communication—online and off—together in a way that’s authentic and real.
The people we connect with are those with shared interests: traveling, looking at art, cooking, going to shows, taking pride in doing good work, asking questions, making films, getting friends together, jazz, other kinds of engaging music, and getting inspired in general.
Thinking about design
Smart brand identity design is a process. It works best when we “get” each other.
This work is about communication.
Really clear thinking. Our job is to take you from a blank sheet to the ultimate end, hitting the exact right note.
Finding your authentic voice is the soul of DK. We ask the big-picture marketing and strategy questions.
- What single outcome is most desirable to achieve?
- What would your business look like if you were wildly successful?
Together we do the work of DK: tap the best of what you have to offer the world, and make this substance at once compelling and clear.
Design creates impressions. Impressions make people feel.
Today more than ever, a sense of connection is what drives sales.
“Branding” and “marketing” are such loaded terms, but looking for and giving voice to strong, clear, and imaginatively articulated messages is what we’re all about.
OK, if you’ve read this far, we’ve just gotta know.
Did you read the Slideshare above, The Brand Gap?
It’s totally worth it.
If you’re looking to really understand branding, do it now.
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