We believe
Design Should Be Held Accountable:
Commercial design is an opportunity to continue telling the story, not just sum everything up. Design without added value is just art. Put it in a gallery or on the fridge, not on your door.
There Are No Best Practices:
The more organizations that use a branding or advertising technique, the less effective it becomes for everyone. Success is found by having the courage to go where the competition has not.
Your Identity Is Who You Are When You Think No One Is Looking:
What your organization does behind closed doors says more about you than advertising ever could. It’s when your advertising and brand don’t align with those actions that bad stuff happens.
Identities Without Alignment Are Dead On Arrival:
Successful identities are uncovered by aligning the thoughts, statements, and actions of an organization and the work it produces. Without alignment there is no truth to share. Without truth there can’t be trust. Without trust you’re dead.
Your Brand Is Who Others Imagine You To Be When They’re Not Looking:
You create and influence your brand but the world controls how it’s perceived. It’s only when the world gets a peek behind the curtain, typically in moments of extreme tension, that you can briefly take hold of your brand and bring it back in alignment with your identity.
Friction, Not Fun, Builds Great Brands:
Fun can help people share ideas, but effectiveness is more often found on the far side of catharsis. We strive for elevated heart-rates, not camp-fire songs. Greatness is found in embracing risk, in naked honesty, in following your passion.
In 2005 Stokefire started with brand strategy. Since then we’ve established ourselves as leaders in verbal branding, then design, and then advertising. We rule none of these worlds, but we’re consistently earning projects over the agencies and studios that believe they do. We don’t believe this should make you want to hire our little branding and advertising firm with a strangely low-tech website. And yet… many do. Maybe it’s because of what we do believe.
