Meet our brain
This is how we take your brand where no brand has gone before:
We are confidantes
We believe no-holds-barred conversations are key to unlocking the power of your brand. Tell us your fears, doubts, the mistakes you’ve learned from, but more importantly, we want to know what you long for, your goals and dreams.
We get the bottom line
We know business because we’ve worked for ad agencies and corporations, and even built a couple of startups of our own. That means we relate to your challenges, risks, and worries. And because we speak the language of business, we seamlessly translate business strategies into brand experiences.
We transform brands
from “it’s complicated” to “single” and focused
How do you synthesize complex business goals and align entire teams behind it? It’s our superpower. We cut through the clutter to extract a clear, single-minded brand: complex, never complicated. We also make sure your organization keeps it together with simple-to-execute brand systems.
We deliver truth bombs
It’s tough to face the truth, but honesty is the shortest path to effective solutions. We get deep in the trenches with you, look issues in the eye, and deliver truth bombs to anticipate brand opportunities and shortcomings. We then create an action plan to target your precise challenges and needs.
We think twice as hard
Two heads are better than one. Between us, we cover the spectrum of what you need in a brand brain: we’re young and old, serious and witty, straight-laced and outspoken, a bit country and rock n’ roll. We bring diversity of thought to a singular challenge, putting all our ideas through the wringer and expanding the possible solutions we offer you.
We embrace unicorns
Being on the fringes has its advantages. We understand counter culture, underserved markets, social enterprises, and minority-owned businesses that need to speak to
niche markets.
Trina
LEFT BRAIN
+
Rina
RIGHT BRAIN
For over a decade,
three things have defined our success:
the pursuit of joyful collaboration,
the curiosity to dive deeper and longer, and
the creative power of our opposing forces.
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There is a curious creativity to businesses that draws me in. I love sitting down with the client for the first time and getting the behind-the- scenes of their business.
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I started as a writer because I love a good story. Interviewing people let me into the minds of artists, visionaries, innovators, and captains of industries. Now, as a brand storyteller, I apply design to the
things that make brands indelible:
connection, impact, legacy.
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The more chaotic, the more focused and centered I become.
I love being the calm in the storm,
to bring all the complex pieces into
a coherent, easily digestible design.
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Studying at UC Berkeley, I majored in Psychology and Anthropology. It honed my skill for observing human patterns, and cultural + social differences. This set the foundation for my love of travel, curiosity about the world, and my human approach to design and collaboration.
brief history
My first job was advertising and PR at Grey, with brands Pfizer and Procter and Gamble. Corporate communications called and rebranding energy giant Mirant changed my path. I'm a professional writer-turned-graphic designer via the School of Visual Arts. A tech start-up and business school later, I moved to New York to get my fill of museums, walks in the park, and thin-crust pizza.
I attended UC Berkeley and the School of Visual Arts, and my first job was graphic designer at Bloomingdales. I was creative director at The Limited and VP at Edelman. I worked in fashion branding for nearly two decades with brands such as Donna Karan and Eddie Bauer, and I traveled the world on business. I moved to Asia to launch my own tech start-up and I continue to balance my time between New York and Asia.
expertise
Crafting brand voice and tone
Developing strategic storytelling
Brand strategy development + architecture​
Providing strategic counsel to C-suites
Verbalizing complex challenges with precision
Talks, mentoring, teaching