We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jessica Walsh a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Jessica thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. One of the things we most admire about small businesses is their ability to diverge from the corporate/industry standard. Is there something that you or your brand do that differs from the industry standard? We’d love to hear about it as well as any stories you might have that illustrate how or why this difference matters.
At &Walsh, when we on-board our clients for branding work, we take them through a “brand therapy” phase to help them discover their brand personality and voice. This is accomplished through a combination of an onboarding process, stakeholder interviews, and workshops. The goal of these sessions is to help brands “find their weird.” We believe every brand has something unique about them, and that’s their most valuable asset.
In the last few years, we’ve seen many design studios and agencies trying to replicate the “startup brand” look and feel. Everyone wants to look like the Capser, Warby Parker, or Away’s of the world. The result is that all these direct-to-consumer brands look identical. You can’t tell them apart and people are tired of the sameness and are craving something new. When you follow what everyone else is doing and create a trendy brand, you’re putting a ticking time-bomb on your branding. Our strategy process does the heavy lifting to avoid this and makes it much easier for us to design memorable and differentiated brands that defy trends.
Once we’ve found a client’s “weird,” we develop holistic visual languages and asset libraries based on our discoveries. It’s industry standard to first develop the wordmark and logo, making crucial brand assets like color palettes and tone of voice an afterthought. What sets us apart is our ability to present back hollistic directions that look at branding across every touchpoint for our clients to choose from. We find that this helps clients see our vision for their brand from the very beginning, rather than slowly work up to it. We also deliver our clients large asset libraries for them to work with, so they aren’t just left with a color palette and logo but instead a robust visual language to create with for years to come.
Jessica, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I decided to pursue graphic design after teaching myself CSS, HTML, & graphic software in highschool. Although I had the technical background to pursue an education and career in coding, I was drawn to fine arts and the opportunity to learn a new craft. I attended RISD where I was immediately thrown into a “foundation year” where I took introductory courses in drawing, painting, ceramics, woodworking, and other unfamiliar art forms. In my second year, I declared design as my major and learned to combine my art and handmade elements with my digital skills, helping me become the graphic designer I am today.
After graduating, I developed my colorful handcraft set design style. I experimented and played with all kinds of techniques that I had not seen done before in the design world, like body painting. I started to be recognized for this colorful & surreal set design style and was hired by all kinds of editorial clients. After a few years of doing this type of work, the colorful photo illustration style started to become trendy. I didn’t want to be pigeon holed into doing this one kind of illustration style, especially as it no longer felt fresh or unique as when I had started. It was at this point I decided that I wanted to start a design/branding studio so I would have varied clients and challenges.
At &Walsh, some clients come to us in their infancy looking for brand strategy, others have been in business for years and need a rebrand, and some simply need help identifying that thing(s) that makes them special–which is where we come in. Too often brands are told to suppress idiosyncrasies or opinions out of fear of how consumers will respond. The problem is that when you try to please everyone, & avoid anything that might offend someone, you wind up with a “vanilla” brand that says nothing. No one hates those brands, but no one truly loves them either. We’ve seen that the most successful brands stand for who they are unapologetically. A great brand is like a great person: true & honest about who they are & unafraid to show their true colors.
A few recent projects that you can view online that I’m proud of include the rebranding for LGBTQIA+ app Lex, sustainable and Earth-conscious protein brand Geltor, and indoor vertical farming company Plenty. We’ve also helped launch the New York location for Zooba, an Egyptian street food restaurant, by drawing brand inspiration from their flagship in Cairo. We designed the illustration and identity for Google I/O in collaboration with their Events & Experiences team. Another events program we did the branding and campaign for is TED Countdown, an initiative to halve emissions in ten years. We had the opportunity to do advertising for Netflix’s Maldivas, including the creation of videos, photography, wordmark, custom type, title treatments, and teasers for the new series. We also enjoyed taking on the branding for Stompy, a subscription wine service that caters to all wine lovers. All of our branding, advertising, motion, and print client work can be found on our website!
When I launched &Walsh, a core mission was using our team’s skills and resources to do projects that attempt to do good in this world. Over the years we did numerous one-off social projects that raised serious money for charities like Pins Won’t Save the World, political protests, among many others. A few ongoing projects we have are called Let’s Talk About Mental Health and Ladies, Wine, & Design. LTAMH is an open dialogue about mental health that takes place on its own website and on Instagram. The goal with this initiative is to destigmatize mental illness through design and to encourage folks to send in their stories with the hope that others will feel seen and heard after reading. LWD is a safe space for women & non-binary creatives to forge positive connections, start dialogues, and mentor and empower each other. We hold free mentorship circles, portfolio reviews, talks and creative discussions on topics relating to creativity, business, getting paid, leadership & life around the world. We currently have chapters in 280 countries across the world and we’re continuing to grow in membership and in our mission.
What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?
I would say it’s split between people knowing us from our client work, and people knowing us for our passion projects.
Client wise, we’ve become known for our client work in the branding/advertising space that stands out and pushes boundaries of a particular industry. I’m really proud that our work not only looks good but actually helps our clients with their goals and resonates with their audiences. When our clients see the work performed, they talk to their friends/colleagues who are entrepreneurs or their investment firms about us, and that’s how we’ve built our reputation and have continued to get work.
In terms of passion and personal projects, a few include 40 Days of Dating (a project I did that went viral, and Netflix has owned the movie/film rights for this), 12 Kinds of Kindness, and my Sorry I Have No Filter Series on my Instagram. The Sorry I Have No Filter photographic image series was born in response to the toxic positivity and manipulated perspectives we experience on social media. Sorry I Have No Filter allows me to share my thoughts and emotions in a raw and honest way.
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
The most rewarding part of being creative is connecting with other humans, and trying to use my skills and craft for positive change!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://andwalsh.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jessicavwalsh/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessicawalsh1/
- Other: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@studioandwalsh
Image Credits
Agency: &Walsh