Northpointe

Client Services

July 29, 2021

Defining home for a new community

Northpointe is a new master-planned community by Lennar that offers young families an ideal place to call home. Before opening to homebuyers, we needed to build the Northpointe brand to engage a wide audience and drive home that master-planned communities provide a practical and enriching lifestyle for young families at an unmatched value.

Understanding Northpointe’s Local Competition

Before offering any strategic recommendations, our team performed an in-depth competitive analysis to better understand the local market and isolate any opportunities for competitive differentiation. One specific challenge was that some of Northpointe’s competitors used the word

“North” in their brand name, which required us to offer direction that differentiated the Northpointe brand through visuals and copy.

Finding Brand Differentiation

Since Northpointe was in the pre-construction phase, we had to develop the brand from the ground up, setting the tone for the community to offer potential homebuyers a sense of home and depict a reliable place where friends and family can gather and enjoy each other and the community. Furthermore, we needed to create a flexible set of brand assets that the Northpointe team could leverage internally and in future marketing campaigns.

Our discovery process revealed that Northpointe is incredibly accessible and cost-effective, and an excellent option for young families seeking to buy their first home. More than that, Northpointe offers residents fantastic amenities without compromising on an excellent price point. So, we leaned into creating an attainable, yet elevated brand that appealed to people who are ready to put down roots.

Building a Fluid Creative Platform

The landscape was an important part of how the community was planned, so we tethered the brand story to the scenic views and natural beauty surrounding the area. We positioned Northpointe as the attainable, unique option and highlighted the scenic nature surrounding the community to illustrate its natural beauty and striking topography that envelopes the community.

The brand mark is quiet and subtle and the arrow above the “N” signifies the true North where home lies. The color palette is natural, but vibrant and balances the reserved nature of the brand mark.

Our tagline “When home calls, head North” is emotive, aspirational and strong, which further elevates the subdued nature of the brand mark. It also illustrates the beauty of home and touches on the natural surroundings that make Northpointe such a valuable place to live.

The stylistic complements we developed for the brand helped create a sense of place that can be used throughout the community. These pieces will weave the community together and keep the feel built within the brand alive throughout.

Results

Crafted a brand that will attract and engage new homebuyers
Created a flexible brand that is simple and seamless for Northpointe’s internal team to utilize
Extended the brand through community elements like trail-markers, landmarks and wayfinding solutions

February 1, 2021

Big names, bigger impact

Challenge

The Gary Patterson Foundation raises thousands of dollars every year to benefit various education and children related entities. After experiencing Mack, Jack & McConaughey in Austin, the Gary Patterson Foundation was inspired by MCM’s efforts to empower kids through 2-days of fundraising and fun. After careful consideration, they decided to shift their traditional Joe T’s annual event into a weekend filled with fundraising activities from golf to galas. With a shift as big as this, they needed to create an impactful brand.

Goals

Develop brand name, narrative and messaging for the non-profit event series
Create a dynamic brand identity system that communicates the values of the non-profit

Finding the Way

We worked closely with the Gary Patterson and his team to better understand the audience and impact of the new events, and create a strategy that would speak to their target audience. The events needed to attract all generations of donors in North Texas, and be accessible to those that would like to donate for the first time. The new initiative also needed to be the core fundraising event for the Gary Patterson Foundation. So, we had to position it as an accessible, diverse non-profit open to those that aren’t passionate about sports, but also welcome those that are – it had to be inclusive and suitable for a diversity of mediums. From black ties to tailgates, the mark needed to be flexible enough to feel at home at any type of fundraising event.

Plenty of Good to Go Around

To communicate the breadth and impact of the fundraising efforts, we knew the brand and mark had to be big. With an emphasis on the good.

The organization landed on the name, “The Big Good,” which is direct, yet powerful. Its strength is in its simplicity. A quick read with enough flexibility to cover more than one specific event or fundraiser. The Big Good indicates the diversity of events and their monumental impact on North Texas families and beyond.

The typographic logo is purposefully simple to communicate the variety of events at the heart of the Big Good. Each of the letterforms is customized and unique which further emphasizes the diverse structure of the Big Good. The crossbars on the “H/E/B/G” are all different and intentionally illustrate the fun and engaging nature of the events that offer something substantial for everybody, and specific need in Dallas Fort Worth.

A subtly simple mark, paired with a direct brand name can make an impactful and memorable impression. The Big Good branding illustrates the power of using simplicity to communicate and represent a brand.

Results

Created a dynamic, flexible brand logo
Established an impactful brand and tone

January 13, 2021

Exponentially improving the business of cancer care

When it comes to oncology, medicine has advanced in big ways. But the business side of running an oncology practice hasn’t kept up. In the age of automation, back-office operations are often tedious, siloed and completed manually. Factors that contribute to misused resources and the growing cost of cancer care. That’s where AC3 comes in.

AC3 is a practice intelligence platform that harnesses the power of data to improve the quality and speed of back-office work. Allowing doctors and staff to trade paperwork and process for a more meaningful purpose—caring for patients. With care being core to their business, the real obstacle was creating an identity that lived up to AC3’s cutting-edge capabilities as well as their impact on patient care.

Bringing Care Into Focus

Cancer is humbling and, most importantly, human. So the branding had to communicate the function of a tech-driven product in a very human way. In addition to a visual identity, AC3 needed a way to talk about themselves to a more public audience. We developed positioning that helped define who they are. And rooted it in the real-world, analog benefits doctors and patients experience. Productivity, revenue, quality of care, this platform gives doctors the ability to do more. A lot more.

For the mark, we took a nod from the company’s namesake—Advanced Cancer Care Centers—and aligned it with the platform’s ability to improve operations within a practice exponentially. We let positioning guide design and the result was meaningful.

With any tech-based product, there’s a concern around sharing proprietary imagery—a challenge we faced when representing the product in a tangible way. Rather than showing the software itself, we focused on the moments AC3 makes possible.

January 7, 2021

Rising above the crowded real estate market to sell more homes

When we took ownership of Lilyana marketing, the community needed a brand that better connected homebuyers to the true joys of living in this community.

Honing in on Key Differentiators

This community is far from cookie-cutter, so it only made sense to highlight the factors that make it stand out in a cluttered and crowded market. For Lilyana, it’s the conveniences and lifestyle that make it a truly special place to call home. With more than 50-acres of green space, the community is packed with natural amenities, numerous parks and things for homeowners to do outdoors. All of which keep the community and people connected.

A Refocused Brand Position

Lilyana is located in Celina, a peaceful, up-and-coming town remote enough to harbor tranquility and close enough to Frisco to take advantage of its entertainment, energy and everything it has to offer. When we began to evolve the brand position, we pulled the thread of accessible tranquility to show prospective homebuyers that it is possible to have it all when you live at Lilyana.

Communicating Joy and Tranquility

We needed a way to portray the very real, and often intangible, qualities that make this community so special. By incorporating bubbles as a visual element, we were able to communicate the true value of a Hillwood community—connection, comfort and an ethos rooted in community. All while positioning Lilyana as a place to pause and enjoy the moment.

In addition to visually refreshing the brand, we also revitalized the brand language to communicate joy in the Lilyana lifestyle. “A place to embrace life’s moments” communicates that Lilyana is a community for people to slow down and enjoy their lives – right here, right now.

Building a comprehensive brand story gives real estate brands more space to have meaningful conversations with home buyers. Developing Lilyana’s position in a cluttered and competitive space helped the brand stand out, and ultimately led to more home sales.

October 13, 2020

We create community

Legacy. Capability. Values. Intention. These are big ideas that drive everything Hillwood Communities builds for the communities they create. So, when Hillwood needed a brand refresh and updated messaging, we leaned hard into these core tenets to accurately summarize the massive impact Hillwood has on the communities they build and the people who live there every single day. We needed to communicate these central beliefs in a cohesive and convincing brand brochure that would attract home buyers and investors.

Updated Messaging

When creating updated messaging for Hillwood, we expanded on the word “community” to accurately define the effect that Hillwood has on each of its developments. “We Create Community,” is the direction that we decided upon for the updated brand messaging. From Live Smart amenities to featuring a community garden, Hillwood takes extra steps to make each development a unique place to call home. More than that, Hillwood’s offering of communities, each with their own natural aesthetic and intrinsic values, ensures that there’s a Hillwood Community for every new homebuyer.

A Refreshed Brand Brochure

The Hillwood corporate brochure is where homebuyers and investors can interact with the Hillwood brand on a more extensive level. It needs to convince investors that Hillwood is an excellent investment opportunity and communicate to homebuyers that there is a community waiting for them underneath the Hillwood brand.

Evolved Brand Identity

Hillwood is a pioneer within the community development space. Each community they build focuses on elevating the quality, innovation and sense of community for their homeowner, offering unparalleled conveniences, all while taking subtle and grandiose steps to harbor a real sense of community among the neighborhood. Beyond the amenities that they create for their homeowners, Hillwood emphasizes the natural beauty of the land that they build on and rely on its inherent attraction as a central selling point. Every single step is taken with incredible intention aimed at improving the life of each resident.

The brochure connects all of these points by giving a detailed overview of each Hillwood Community and featuring evocative imagery of the natural aesthetics that define each community. Beyond the physical characteristics that define each community, we used imagery that captured the shared experiences and everyday interactions the amenities and walkways create. Each of these visual stories creates a compelling argument for why new home buyers should call a Hillwood community “home.”

For potential investors, the legacy of pioneering big ideas and sparking engagement are enticing selling points that illustrate the long term and historical health of Hillwood Communities, which makes it a desirable investment. Sharing the story of Hillwood’s success and legacy right up front, aided by the visuals illustrating where Hillwood operates communicates the strength of the brand and implicitly tells investors that this is a worthy investment.

August 31, 2020

Bringing a silent battle to the surface

Acne is the most prevalent skin disease in the United States, yet most of us don’t see the struggle that happens beneath the surface. For Acne Awareness month, our client – a major global pharmaceutical manufacturer – wanted to educate the public and healthcare providers about the unseen emotional realities of acne.

We created an unbranded educational campaign with the goal of combining the data and the human element to show people with acne that they are not alone and empower them through a sense of community. Beyond educating the general public, it was important to connect healthcare providers to the patient experience. By showing them the daily struggles of people with acne, healthcare providers can begin treating acne beyond the surface and focus on healing the individual in full.

The result is a powerful campaign that brings a silent battle to the surface and shows people struggling with acne that they are not isolated with their feelings.

May 29, 2020

Multiple performances, one cohesive campaign

A season of ballet programming is made up of a series of performances, each standing alone as a unique story being told on the stage. How, then, do you create a campaign that communicates these different stories under one cohesive message? That was the obstacle we faced when ideating creative assets for the Texas Ballet Theater’s 2019-2020 season campaign, and here’s how we solved it.

Campaign Goals

Tell the individual story of each performance, while also fitting the unique designs into one cohesive, identifiable campaign.
Conceptualize ideas that work in photography to incorporate the dancers as crucial campaign assets.
Illustrate the ballet’s marriage of art and athleticism.
Attract a wider audience and convince them to become season subscribers.

The Challenge

Branding an entire season of ballet was a huge puzzle for us because each performance has its own story to tell, full of imagery and icons that are significant within the individual narrative but may not translate into one clear campaign. Plus, it was crucial for the dancers to be featured in each advertisement, so finding a way to marry all of those elements into a unified campaign was crucial.

We needed to create a full season campaign that is cohesive, blends together as a collective vision and message, but that also has enough individuality for each performance that a creative asset could confidently stand on its own. For that to occur, there needed to be enough interest and variety on a performance level as there was on the campaign level, so that the creative assets could be used in advertising on multiple platforms and mixed media.

The Creative Solution

We developed “Alive with Wonder,” a concept featuring the tagline Let Beauty Envelop You. This central message was accomplished by creating illustrations unique to each performance and then having those designs envelop the dancer on the page. Each pattern visually represented individual performances with elements that are important to the story on the stage.

This interaction between dancer and design alluded to the immersive experience of witnessing performances on stage and hammered home the overall campaign tagline – Let Beauty Envelop You.

Once finalized, the campaign imagery was extended into a full graphic system that allowed for both consistency and customization in the promotion of each performance. To accommodate the variety of mediums in our cross-platform media strategy, the flexibility of the system was imperative.

Making Life Better

The common misconception about ballet is that the performances are only suited for fans of high art or those that understand the nuances of performative arts. General audiences sometimes mistakenly assume that a barrier exists between them and enjoying and understanding ballet performances. The reality is this: over the course of a season of ballet programming, a performance will occur that is enjoyable for all types of audiences with different levels of ballet experience. Creating a campaign that cohesively communicated the different themes and tones of each performance and enticed a wider audience to attend was a hugely rewarding endeavor.

National Addy Award Winner

An Award-Winning Campaign

The Texas Ballet Theater’s 2019-2020 season campaign took home some prestigious awards from the American Advertising Federation at the local, regional and national levels. All totaled, the 2019-2020 season campaign won 9 Gold Awards, special Special Judge’s Awards at both the local and regional competitions and a National Silver Addy. It is such an honor to be recognized and earn shared success with our clients.