our brand strategy
we thought we’d share how we built the identity of the make sense academy as a case study, looking at the reasons behind the decisions we took.
our name
our founder has a tendency to end his email with one of the two following sentences: “I hope this helps” and “I hope this makes sense”. these are two hopes that are at the core of the make sense academy: helping others, and making sense.
so when it came to finding a name for this venture, using words around the idea of “making sense” seemed to… you know… make sense.
so when we started looking for a website url, makesense.com and other similar combinations were not going to be easy to get. but as you look for available url’s, some web hosting sites also suggest alternatives. one of them was “makesense.academy”. and it clicked.
for a few days, we tested the name. we talked about it with friends, relatives and colleagues. we tried it out in a few sentences and marketing statements. and it felt right. so we kept it. and here we are.
welcome to the make sense academy.
our mission
we believe that, way too often, people are considered as walking wallets, instead of human beings with some level of reason, survival instincs and a complex set of emotions.
at our very heart, we live for making sense of humans, and for helping others to do so as well.
so we explore the balance between instinct, emotion and reason. how these three forces fight for the control of our decisions. we strive for understanding how our senses influence our mood and perceptions. how context and culture affect the way we define notions like “me, you, us and them”.
we geek out about it. continuously learn about it. we turned our findings into a science, and we called it “sense-ology”. then, we built an academy to share the learnings.
our colors
our logo
our primary visual is a hand-drawn circle.
it represents a simple universal shape that can never be drawn to perfection, with two ends that will never properly overlap – how ever many times you try, how ever good you are at drawing.
it has a spontaneous feel to it. like it could have been drawn by anyone, anywhere. standing for anything from zero to a whole. meaning so little and so much at the same time.
it draws attention. highlighting what to focus on in an overwhelming and overstimulating world.
and its two ends partially overlapping represent two people coming together – never fully aligning on everything. each with their own perspective on the world, with their own point of origin.
it will never be perfect, yet it still feels natural. it feels human.
human circle
+
true circle
=
human truth
being the geeks we are (we did use the universal answer “42” as the base of our colors), we used the golden spiral to overlap the our hand-drawn circle on top of our filled circle.
our type
we don’t do capital letters. we like soft and approachable. so we tend to only use capital letters out of respect for the choice of others. if Brand-y writes its name with a capital “B”, we will too. but we’ll always feel something slightly deeper for brand-on, with a small “b”.
karla
designed by Jonny Pinhorn
Karla is a grotesque sans serif typeface family. it isn’t perfect – the spacing is set a little wide and some of the kerning looks a little off, however, this font has tons of character and there really aren’t any other quirky grotesques like it, which makes it fit perfectly with the smart yet quirky personality of the make sense academy.
gochi hand
designed by Huerta Tipográfica
Gochi Hand is a typographic interpretation of the handwriting of a teenage girl. the style is fresh, not like the letters made by a calligrapher, but those of an ordinary person. the text line is spontaneous but solid, consistent, and expressive. it fits very nicely with our hand-made drawings and illustrations.
our illustrations
our metaphors sometimes get closer to symbology. which we hope can trigger more parts of your brains – waking up your curiosity. but if some of it doesn’t make sense, let us know. for our sake. and for yours.
our love for diversity makes us try to keep it humanly universal. so whatever your langue or culture, we get our idea across. for our sake. and for yours.
our offerings
- the study of the reasons behind what makes sense, and what does not.
- the science of making sense.
mixing neuroscience, psychology and cultural sociology, we analyze what resides at the roots of what makes sense to people – and what does not. we then use our passion for those fields, as well as our expertise in communications, brand management, modern marketing, and identity design to build strategies that appeal to their guts, heart, and mind.
the blog
from time to time, we have an idea or a few thoughts we want to share. and we use the blog for that. giving you a glimps inside our brains and hearts, and we hope you like it. let us know what you think!
since making sense is a pretty complicated matter, we thought we would structure some of the more intricate aspects into online courses. from self-learning recommendations like books and podcasts, to full-fletched courses about neuroscience, brand strategy and organizational culture, we share our passion and expertise with you in a few video series.
the services
we love sharing our passion and knowledge. so besides our blog and online courses, we also organize workshops, consultation and co-creation projects, as well as mentorship. we want to make sure you are able to find the format that fits your needs best. and if we can do more, let us know!
