Daake

I was the VP of enrollment management of Servite High School, a college preparatory school.

We needed someone to help us with branding.

Daake helped us understand the essence of our brand and provided us with branding, graphic design, and the production of our marketing materials. They refined and modernized our existing logo and did so by connecting it to our community’s past logo.

We mainly worked with a brand strategist, creative director, graphic designer, and copywriter.

I found Daake online and we decided to engage with them based on their experience and past work on a school that I thought had great branding.

We spent somewhere between $20,000–$30,000.

We worked together from September 2019–April 2020.

Daake helped significantly increase our fundraising efforts and enrollment rates thanks to their branding work that’s been very much well-received by the community.

They were great from a project management standpoint as every deadline was met just as planned. We typically communicated through email and video calls.

We were impressed with the level and quality of their work, as well as their thorough process — they just had a genuine interest in the success of the project.

Nothing comes to mind because I was really satisfied with the results of the partnership.

I advise you to do market research so you can fully understand your goals and what you’re trying to achieve in terms of brand initiatives.

At the time, I was the founder and CEO of Hail Varsity magazine. We were a subscription magazine, a website, and a radio show, so we were a public-facing brand.

We were looking to build a brand, including logo, name, brand guide, and so on. We went to them for assistance on that process.

After an initial description of what we were looking for, we agreed to work with Daake. We started by building out a brand guide. We had an experimental and creative process to determine what the brand would look and feel like. They took us through the DNA of our company and came back with five potential versions of logos and jumping points.

Several people were involved, including the founders Greg (Principal & Creative Director) and Lisa (VP of Operations). At different project stages, we worked with other 3–5 people. Some of them were more involved in the beginning, and others were involved in other parts of the process. Overall, the team included the founder and 2–3 people of his team.

I knew about them through mutual acquaintances, and they were 60 miles down the road from us.

It was between $10,000–$20,000.

We started working with them in May 2012. The primary work was done in 3–6 months, but we went back to them for advice over the next four years. Now, I have a different job, working with them and some of their clients in a different role.

When we started, we wanted to position ourselves. We were a new company, so nobody in the market knew anything about us. However, we were well-received, and one consistent feedback was that people loved our brand and the name and look. They felt we were a premium product, which was one of our goals. Without telling what we were trying to accomplish, people recognized us for that, and it wouldn’t have been possible without Daake.

We didn’t need many technological tools because it was a hands-on, physical process. Most of the work was done in person. We looked at the bulletin board, played around with material things, and looked at printed versions of the work.

They had a very creative approach. Many companies can design logos, but Daake had an excellent methodology to determine our brand's look and feel. When it comes to branding, it’s not just about turning in 10 different designs and choosing one. They did their research to get a creative result, and it was a very involved process. Overall, it was a unique experience.

No, there wasn’t anything. It was one of the best working experiences I’ve ever had in my entire career.

Anybody building or reimagining their brand should at least have a conversation with Daake. Their approach is curious and compassionate; they’re looking to help their partners, not close a deal. Also, their brand-building process is pretty exciting.

I am the executive creative director for Loyola Marymount University (LMU). LMU is a Jesuit higher education institution in Los Angeles with 19 NCAA Division I athletic teams.

We hired Daake to look at our athletic facilities. They were old and dated, and they had competing visual identities, which accrued over time.

Daake began this project by designing a brand new floor for our basketball court. They then redid our entire basketball arena, as our men’s and women’s basketball teams are NCAA Division I teams and play on national television.

We interact with three people regularly. Underneath the surface, there’s a team of designers powering away, most of whom I don’t interact with directly.

They had experience branding facilities of our size as well as branding athletic venues. Very few firms have expertise in this area, and they brought a work history that nobody else had.

This is a $2.3–$3 million project. It was very significant to get the funding for this overhaul. We’ve invested over $200,000 with Daake alone.

They put in a proposal in the summer of 2018, and they began work in November of 2018. Their work picked up in 2019, and the relationship is ongoing.

The feedback on this project has been great. This is our most visible identity transformation in university history.

They’re excellent. I feel bad how much we have them work, but they’re so responsive. They anticipate our needs. We have great mutual respect, and I feel like I’m their only client. Their customer service and project management are unparalleled.

They care, they’re responsive, they have great expertise, and I trust them.

No, they’re fantastic.

Communicate—up, down, and sideways. Whenever we needed them to do anything, Daake was right there for us.

I worked at Loyola Marymount University, a small Jesuit school in Los Angles. I’m one of the senior associate athletic directors in charge of internal operations, among other things.

We engaged with them during our school’s rebranding process. During that time, athletics was afforded the opportunity to select a vendor to reimagine our athletic branding.

We outlined a laundry list of needs that included all of the spaces that we needed to have rebranded. All of them came back with a range of suggestions and pricing. From there, we completely reworked and designed our basketball arena and lobby areas. That started us off on the path to success with them. It’ll likely take 6–8 more months to complete.

We’ve worked primarily with three contacts from their team: Greg (Principal & Creative Director, Daake), Steven (Senior Creative Director, Daake), and Susan (Director of Project Management, Daake).

We interviewed several groups and asserted that we liked them best. They paid the most attention to the needs we expressed and the vision we were hoping for. We could tell that we were immediately comfortable with them.

We’re spending six figures with them.

We started the project in late spring of 2019, and our engagement is ongoing.

So far, the feedback has been great. A large publication wrote a review, commenting on our rebrand inside of the arena. There’s been a significant amount of positive feedback.

We have daily contact with their team, and they’re terrific people. It’s been a pleasure to work with them. We use email, phone calls, and texting to communicate. Steven, while designing aspects of the project, has been on-site several times.

They’re down-to-earth, caring people. That makes them very easy to collaborate with. Our team has gravitated to that.

They’ve been responsive and open to communication, never pushing back when we have feedback for them. They’re terrific.

They understand our vision, so that’s made it very easy to work with them. In addition to our department, there are tons of other people on campus who are now interested in and engaged with their team as we conduct this rebrand. We don’t have to work hard to get the most out of our engagement.

I am the VP of sales and marketing at AMAROK, a security company. We specialize in electric security fences for commercial properties.

Our company name was causing some confusion in the marketplace and consumers associated us with a different product. We were hoping to change our name and rebrand our organization to make it easier for the market to understand what we do.

Daake came up with a new name for our company. After hours of internal research by their team, including employee surveys and in-person interviews, they spoke to external sources as well. Then, their team had the company leadership come up with a mood board that defined our brand, including images and colors that capture our essence.

We worked with 6–7 members of the Daake team.

We put out an RFP through an agency search firm. After going through five agencies and interviewing them on their processes, we decided to work with Daake.

We have invested between $100,000–$250,000.

Our engagement with Daake ran from April–October 2019.

We have not yet launched the new name to the public, but plan on doing so on February 1. When we first interview our employees, only 33% approved of our name. After making the switch, 98% approve of the new name. This puts our brand in a much better position.

Daake never misses a deadline. Every week we have an update call, which is always helpful. Their team never cancels.

Daake gives every project a personal touch. Greg (Principal & Creative Director, Daake) is a marketing genius. He’s a really great guy and would give all the credit to his team, but he brings so much to the table. Their leadership is very strong.

We were between two options and they had a very specific opinion. We chose to go another way that we felt fit us better, but I wouldn’t recommend they stop giving their opinions.

Dive deep into the mood board process, that was key to our success. We thought it was just a creative process and weren’t taking it too seriously but ended up getting really into it. That flipped things for us and made the whole process better.