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About

Groundwork for the groundbreaking.

The idea

All design is placemaking. A logo, a land plan, a park or a trinket in someone’s pocket makes or unmakes a place for people. “Brand” is the bridge between “existence” and “belonging.”

A solid brand BASE is the foundation for extraordinary products and places.

BASE exists to Create Belonging.

If people don’t feel they belong, there are no users, guests or customers. Without them, there’s no product, brand or place: just ideas floating in space for no one.

What we’ve done

Windsor residents lining up to add their ideas to a paper wall at a downtown planning workshop, with sheets of green and orange dot stickers on a table in front
A downtown workshop in Windsor
People walking a wall of photo boards during a planning session, with notes, markers and drinks left on the long tables
A planning session in Windsor

We believe

  • Space is given. Place is earned.

    Anything can take up space. Staying power takes intention: dwell time, repeat visits and lifetime value must be built for people on purpose.

  • Question everything, prescribe nothing.

    Great queries seed profound discoveries. Templates only start a brainstorm, and prefab answers are a death knell. The format must bend to the client and its audience, every time.

  • Empathy unlocks answers.

    Naming a customer isn’t knowing them. We learn their behaviors, beliefs, pain and desires, before, during and after their time with us. The UX of reality goes beyond UI.

  • Design without data is just art.

    An idea is just like, your opinion, man. So opinions become hypotheses, and we build the data to prove them before anyone decides.

  • Verbs before nouns.

    People hire brands to do specific jobs. They’re creatures of action, so the groundwork is finding the right verbs, then shaping the nouns around them.

  • People love a good story.

    Stories are the most in-demand commodity on earth. A narrative without an arc is blather, and no one has the patience for “boring.”

  • Built together, stays together.

    People protect what they help create, so co-authored work gets adopted and spread like wildfire. Every voice has a place. Great facilitation gets them to vibe in harmony.