Anti-design: ugly on purpose

When an aesthetic style becomes popular, it’s often followed by something close to its opposite.

Let’s get Gooey

Once you see it, you’ll notice it everywhere—grocery store shelves, clothing racks, album covers in your dad’s basement, and even in the Saint Friend logo.

Our holiday wishlists

feat. Portland businesses

The Magic of Dogpiling

Kate Carter

A small trick for making workshops and meetings more energetic.

Find a job you love, with people you love

Kate Carter

People give work purpose

PSA: Tell someone something nice today

Kate Carter

A little reminder to spread some kindness.

Hey Creative Directors, No Peeking!

Kate Carter

Why you should never take a "sneak peek" at someone else's work in progress.

Designer’s Guide to Last-Minute Halloween Costumes

Monday Miller and Clarissa Fedorovich

Here are some costumes that require little effort but will make you look like a true graphic design nerd. 

The agreements of constructive feedback

Nick Carter

In my experience, there is a very common feeling that creative pros and clients have about feedback: that it is a negative thing, a delivery of bad news.

Celebrating small biz with Spring Sprint

Nick Carter

For Small Business Month this May, we offered accessible, transparent pricing to entrepreneurs doing stuff that we love. We met some amazing new people and made lovely work together.

What to do when you’re unhappy with your new brand

Nick Carter

It’s an emotional situation. You just invested time, energy, and money in a rebrand, and something’s off. Maybe your new rebrand…

Write interesting sentences

Nick Carter

For me, part of the process of learning to write copy was copying: learning and stealing the tricks of people I thought were great copywriters.

Why you're unhappy with your new brand

Nick Carter

Your organization just went through a big rebrand.

Beware of Certainty

Nick Carter

Some of the wrongest people I’ve ever met have been the ones who were most certain they were right.

Creative directors create direction

Nick Carter

I was a writer for 16 years before I was a creative director.

Strategy pays for itself

Nick Carter

When I talk to other studio owners about points of friction when signing work, one thing seems nearly universal: in scope negotiations, strategic project phases are always among the first things on the chopping block.

Let your product designer do product design

Nick Carter

In the liminal space before an organization brings on brand design and marketing specialists, much of that work falls to product designers.

Honor all Feedback

Nick Carter

I still—almost twenty years into my career!—get a rush of bad feelings when I open up a doc full of feedback on something I or my team has written.

You are your model of leadership

Nick Carter

I’ve never really thought of myself as a leader. Even after Kate Carter and I started Saint Friend, and I could credibly call myself both a creative director and a studio founder (I even had business cards!), I struggled to feel connected to those titles.

Your brand is words

Nick Carter

The name of your company is word. The shape of your logo is described with a word.

In-house agency

Kate Carter

Most people leave agencies to start agencies, or go in-house. When we started Saint Friend, we did the opposite—we went from in-house to start an agency.

The story of who you really are

Kate Carter

We have never been in the business of telling you who you should be—

Say yes more often

Kate Carter

It’s easy to say no.

What should you say and why?

Nick Carter

At Saint Friend, we believe your brand’s messaging should flow from the center of your values and beliefs. Even granular product and feature descriptions can resonate with deeper meaning.

Collaborate with cynicism

Nick Carter

Once cynicism starts to creep in, it’s hard to get rid of. It changes the way I perceive my work, my environment, my collaborators.

Creative brief or creative principles?

Nick Carter

In my previous roles at advertising agencies, I was always disappointed with how creative briefs were weaponized with clients.

Everything is interesting

Nick Carter

When someone asks you “How do you stay inspired?” what do you say?

You don't have to be good at everything

Nick Carter

Early in my career, I took a lot of pride in this adage: “Copywriters have to be good at writing every type of thing in every type of voice.”

How a writer can give design feedback

Nick Carter

I am a creative director and co-founder of a design studio. I don’t have any formal training in design. I’m 1) a writer and 2) an eater of Swedish Fish.

When people enjoy making things, they make things people enjoy

Nick Carter

The dissatisfaction of creatives shows up in the work they make.

Oops a writer started a design studio

Nick Carter

Sometimes I remember that I, a person who has been a copywriter for almost twenty years, am a creative director and co-founder of a brand design studio.

Find your voice

Nick Carter

I think brand voices are like people's voices: a collection of qualities, rooted in values and experiences, that change with context.

Where does your brand’s purpose come from?

Nick Carter

At Saint Friend, we believe it comes from your people: your founders, your product designers, your customer success teams, your customers.

Process helps us grow

Nick Carter

Early in my career as an advertising copywriter, I bristled at the idea of process.

Follow your strengths, manage your weaknesses

Nick Carter

As a writer, I’m instantly skeptical of writing advice. The best I ever read, though, the only thing I tell anyone who asks me for advice, is this:

We are on the same side

Nick Carter

I started my career in advertising. There, the main lesson I learned about clients is that they are adversaries of creative people, of good ideas