I’ve worked at Focus Lab for almost seven years. I was there when we rebranded in 2022 and as a marketer, I live in our brand every day — and boy, have I seen it stretch.
Currently, the Focus Lab brand is (internally) incorporating New England motifs for our upcoming company retreat. A previous retreat in Florida felt distinctly Focus Lab Vaporwave. Watching the team come together to design something unmistakably “Focus Lab” — while still feeling fresh — is so much fun.
I’ll scream it ‘til I’m blue in the face: brand is more than a logo and a color palette. Because our brand feels so foundational to our culture and our team, it gives us more wiggle room internally.
I’d also argue that externally, we're more careful with consistency because a lot of people are learning about Focus Lab for the first time. Less wiggle room.
There’s a bigger lesson in there, too, and a dozen cliches spring to mind. “Strong convictions, loosely held.” “Progress over perfection.” “The only constant is change.”
Holding too tightly to an idea is a great way to smother it. So whether that’s your definition of what success looks like, or your own guidelines, maybe give it a little more wiggle room.
Liz Joly
Marketing Lead
L I N K R O U N D U P
1. AnnualReport.gallery A searchable collection of annual reports from archive.org that one of our designers called “SO COOL.”
2. Long Story Short A daily puzzle to condense long sentences into just five words, or maybe we should say “Make long sentences five words.”
3. The Secret Ingredient to Be More Creative, Pulling the Thread with Elise Loehnen [podcast] Author David Epstein discusses that constraints, not endless freedom, are what actually produce great creative work. His case study: General Magic, a 1990s startup packed with legendary talent (future creators of the Palm Pilot and eBay) and virtually unlimited resources, chased every idea and shipped nothing coherent. As one VC put it, unfocused companies “die from indigestion and not from starvation.”
4. Deck.gallery As Lil Jon sang, “Decks, decks, decks, decks, decks! Everybody!” But really, it’s a collection of decks so good it has us looking forward to the next time we get a brief for some slide templates.
While the Farmers’ Almanac* announced its final run, The Other Almanac is just getting started. First published in 2022, The Other Almanac – compiled and edited by artist Ana Ratner –“brings together contributions by writers, artists, and scientists on topics including environmentalism, botany, whales, seasonal savvy, and off-the-beaten-track curiosities.”
“We want to be a bridge for people who may not feel that nature is accessible to them or are not sure how they fit into an urban ecosystem,” Ratner explained in an email to Hyperallergic.
