Over the past year, we’ve had the opportunity to participate in the development and launch of the Speak Easy, a place for entrepreneurs, startups, and the folks who support them to work, play, and collaborate. Crafting a brand, web presence, and influencing the structure itself, we couldn’t have been happier to launch the Speak Easy on January 18th.

Taking a cue from coastal co-work spaces like Grind in New York, a group of 8 investors and entrepreneurs (including our own Kristian Andersen) set out to create a gathering place for those active in the startup community. The resulting space is a combination of a 17th century salon, coffee shop, and…

This is a personal thing for me. But it’s also a conviction that applies to the branding work we do at KA+A. What’s true for individuals happens to be true for organizations. In fact, we’re finding that people tend to join organizations that share their root passions and vices, and that as we work with leaders, we reshape brands, and as we reshape brands, the organization influences lives…and heroes are emerging. If this line of thinking appeals to you – personally or in terms of how you relate to your business – I’d love to hear from you.

Rule #7: Heroes are Tyrants Made Cruel by Priests

The myths with which I’m at war in this rule:

• That life is a “choose your own adventure” story.

It’s been a few months since I’ve last talked about fashion and tech (see my previous posts here and here), but the topic is ever on my mind. Having linked up with PATTERN, I’ve had the opportunity to become part of Indy’s fashion community and also to help curate some of the monthly meetups. One, that I’m hoping will come to fruition in 2012, is a meeting of the worlds of fashion & tech. Here’s a couple local companies that are leading the way:

My Best Friend’s Hair
If you’ve spent a day in Broad Ripple, it’s likely you’ve noticed the abundance of hair salons. With so many options, how do you choose? Enter My Best Friend’s Hair, where consumers can search for stylists based on…

I’m the new guy at KA+A, so I don’t want to split the crowd, but go with me here: I love musicals. The lights, the dancing, the masterful singing voices—for me, there is no artistic experience more immersive or powerful than watching musical theater.

Broadway musicals are meant to be experienced live, in an atmosphere where anything could happen and no performance can ever truly be re-created. Thinking about them as a brand, a theatergoer’s interaction with a Broadway musical begins the moment they first order tickets and ends when they are exiting the theater after the show.

But what about people who don’t often get to visit a Broadway theater, either…

This week marked the launch of Quipol, an exciting new social polling service that we had the pleasure of working on over the past few months. There’s a sample Quipol below, so make sure you cast your vote.

We’re total UI geeks, and we had a seriously fun time designing the user experience, interface, and marketing website. One of the highlights was the opportunity to apply responsive design techniques to an app. The application of responsive techniques to marketing sites is becoming more of a common occurrence, but is still a relatively new phenomena when it comes to web-based software.

Whether your viewing a Quipol, building one, or visiting the website, you’ll have an experience catered to the device you’re using. Learn a little more about

IFC : Fall Trend Report | Image courtesy of Marc McCoy

KA+A recently partnered up with Indianapolis Fashion Collective, in an effort to transform the way that Indy is building its fashion community. The Collective had been operating for a year, hosting special events and creating a member-based network that would support and mentor designers, photographers, stylists, models, and fashion professionals in the city. The big vision was to create a live/work fashion district in the heart of Indy. It was a great start, and the right minds were coming together, but the burden of the dream was growing heavier and not enough people were joining the group to help carry it.

Understanding…

Apps are software programs that have been created for a specific purpose. We use them to play games, to get directions, to communicate, to socialize, and to organize. Apps provide us with wanted distractions and useful information in real time. Apps meet users where they are.

The success of a brand is no longer directly related to its products’ pricing, entertaining advertisements, or celebrity endorsements. With today’s technology, customers can quickly and easily find cheaper and better solutions to what you are offering. Customers no longer want the best product for the best cost, they want more information, more interaction, and a relationship with the brand. They want an experience.

Here at KA+A we…

The Evolution of QR Codes
Quick Response Codes (QR codes) are two-dimensional barcodes that can deliver large amounts of information while taking up a small amount of print space. QR codes can be made up of many different types of data and can be downloaded at a high-speed by a QR reader. Originally these codes were used in the automotive industry for manufacturing, but due to their ability to store and deliver a message in a fast and concise manner, QR codes quickly found purchase in a variety of industries.

Much like its predecessors, Microsoft Tags and Jagtags, QR codes are easily read by mobile devices, which use the camera as the reader. The contents of the tag typically…

Do you remember Del.icio.us? Or Delicious as it’s been simplified to today. I’ve been a longtime user now (since ’07). Their simple, but powerful, tagging system immediately became a trusty aid for me to catalog and organize my project management apps, blog inspiration, gift lists, wish lists, wedding, trips, and more. Delicious was a gateway solution for me (and millions of others) to tame the web and cull it according to my personal tastes.

Quickly after joining Delicious, I discovered other, more specialized apps to help me collect & share the web.

First there was Tumblr: a beautiful, engaging, simply designed and very compelling microblogging tool. Links became alive when you could display them…

Audi has a reputation as the “designer’s performance car”. Audi has long been venerated for their relentless attention to detail and sublime ergonomic design. Sitting behind the wheel of an Audi is different from almost any other luxury performance car. They somehow manage to pull of a practical, no-frills vibe, coupled with an almost Apple-like design sensibility. As a matter of fact, I’ll just go ahead and go on record by saying, that in a world of “we want to be the Apple of (insert industry), Audi actually is the Apple of automakers. Or put another way, Apple is the Audi of consumer electronics.

In a piece titled “Sense & Drivability”, in the October issue or Fast Company, Jason Feifer broke down some of the subtle ways that Audi…