Smart Creative: WISE APE and the Museum of Art in Fort Collins

“I first met Erik in 2015 when he was part of an exhibition celebrating his mentor and teacher Bob Coonts who is a celebrated artist and graphic designer here in Fort Collins. I got to see how good his design work was at that exhibition.”

That’s Lisa Hatchadoorian, the Executive Director at the Museum of Art in Fort Collins. She’s a WISE APE marketing and design client telling the story how the smart creative approach plays out in the real world. 

Smart Creative is creativity with intention that ties back to the brand; it’s not just being creative for creative’s sake. When tackling a branding, rebranding, or brand refresh project it’s critical that all design choices are chosen for a purpose. It’s the designer’s job to create usable assets that cohesively tell the brand story across platforms. 

A great example of smart creative is the brand refresh WISE APE executed for the Museum of Art in collaboration with Lisa back in 2018. The overall new brand uses warm gray tones to not conflict with any colors of featured artwork and to allow the art to be the hero. The new collateral system was designed to be modular allowing for a variety of combinations while maintaining a cohesive look. The new design no longer had any printing bleeds which allowed the various collateral pieces to be printed more economically. 

“Erik was the keystone in our rebranding initiative,” she shared. “He had an entire vision for what the new name and rebranding would look like across the entire organization, and he made the design flexible enough to adapt to our other needs.” 

Lisa adds that at WISE APE, it’s not a “one size fits all aesthetic.” Thanks Lisa– that’s the whole idea. WISE APE customizes each marketing and design project to each small business brand story, so you get functional creative. 

WISE APE says that’s smart. Smart Creative.