All True

Traditional earbuds were built for listening. Subtle Voicebuds are built for speaking. People recognize earbuds on sight, so the identity had to communicate the capability the hardware contains: a new ability that doesn’t require rewiring or new habits, invisible but powerful, familiar in form but new in everything else. The whole experience thrives on that paradox.

To support their product launch at CES, we extended Subtle’s identity across a marketing site, feature storytelling, and exploratory mockups of a few key product screens.

We just published our first public annual report.

It’s an overview of our year in money, lead flow, and projects, then a look at how we’re improving in 2026. We hope it’s a useful resource for freelancers and small studios figuring out how to make a living doing this work. We’re not experts, but we’ve crossed the bridge from “this isn’t working” to “this is working” and if we can help others make it work, that’s a win.

As a bonus, there’s an addendum in there with the tools we use to form All True’s “operating system.”

Things at All True turned around for the better at the end of 2023 and these processes for goal-setting, tracking, and reporting internally made a big difference for us. We’re sharing in case they help you too.

If you find this helpful or have questions, let us know. Thanks for following along with our little studio 💙

Focal is a heat-tech startup creating smart electric heaters for restaurants and hospitality businesses. Focal’s system combines computer vision, clean electric heat, and simple app controls to sense guests and greet them with a spotlight of warmth.

Focal came to us in 2023 with early product prototypes and a clear insight: traditional outdoor heating is uneven, inefficient, and often takes away from the guest experience. While the technology behind the product was advanced, the brand needed to reflect a human-centered approach to comfort. We partnered with Focal to create a visual identity that emphasized clarity and warmth.

The brandmark represents targeted, directional heat and subtly references the human form. A signature for the Focal identity is the color palette. We were inspired by the energy and optimism of golden hour warmth and selected colors that mirrored the transition from radiant daylight to warm dusk. 

In years following, we continued to collaborate with Focal through a name change, product design evolutions, and their commercial launch. A key challenge with their launch was helping viewers understand the product’s novel features and design. We created photorealistic renders and animations that depicted details like the guest & operator UI’s, product installation, and Focal’s autonomous guest detection features.

Renders:
Logo animation: .jpeg