Executive Arts, Inc. (aka EAI) is an Atlanta firm whose work I’ve been following for years—especially since they had the brilliant idea of publishing the Seagate annual report as a set of full-page ads in The Wall Street Journal. They’ve been very successful, and for good reason. The work is consistently terrific. So why change? I could have simply asked them, but it was more fun to see what the visual system and messaging would tell me. To make it a little more challenging, I sent this article to the firm’s principal, Tod Martin. He agreed to “grade” my analysis, and send his comments to my editor. You’ll find his remarks at the end of the column. Let’s start with the visual design, and then move on to verbal messaging. At first glance, this is an elegant piece of high design. Sophisticated, very confident, but, in an industry that tends to go for big, bold, and exciting, it’s unusually warm and approachable. What makes it so?

Consider the palette: warm, organic colors in unusual combinations, with brown and blue at the foundation and warmed-up pastels as the accents—a landscape palette. They’ve created a system of natural harmony. So unboundary may mean “we don’t sort people into silos: We bring them together.”

The soft, firm, taupe-colored paper is a lovely complement to the palette. For contrast, they use just a little bit of white—most notably on little stickers.

One set of stickers consists 1W-inch dots in the full range of landscape colors with white words on them: hello, concept, strategy, memo, proposal, estimate, etc., plus a bunch with the firm’s name. These stickers let them use the same basic letterhead for any document. Nice economy, that. Notice also that there are more hello stickers than there are for any other word, which supports the idea that unboundary brings people together.

The other set is of white, oblong labels printed with the company name and landscape illustrations made up of little dots. It takes a second to read them. It takes a lot longer to see what they mean within the system. This suggests that unboundary expects its working relationships to last long enough for people to figure out the meanings.

Now let’s take a look at the letterhead. The layout is Modernist and minimal, but the type is Old Style (with a slight twist)—it’s simultaneously spacious and comforting. If you look very closely, you see that four of the sheets carry faint illustrations: a ladder, a dog, a shuttlecock, and a book. Ladders help you reach things; dogs are loyal; shuttlecocks bounce back and forth between players; books contain information. This goes to the idea of bringing people together, too. Again, they’re all drawn with little dots.

So, all the visual elements are dots, or composites of dots. There are no lines. No boundaries at all, in fact. Do the dots represent elements of communications or brand programs? Do the illustrations show that by mixing and matching people with different talents you can develop any solution you want?

Flash cards and a brochure help us pull more meaning from the visuals. The flash cards tell us why the company is changing its name. “For 17 years, EAI has helped companies bring their stories to life … .” On the reverse, there’s a dot-illustration of cherry blossoms with an icon of a watering can above it. “For 17 years, EAI has been working to take companies farther” is paired with an illustration of a road sign and an icon of a chicken. When words work more efficiently, they print the backs with text. “For 17 years … it seems our work had been much easier to remember than our name” is paired with a list of vowels: EAI, EIO, AEI, AEIOU, EI EI O. It seems EAI really did come to hate their old name. But more importantly, it also seems they came to understand that their business was not about delivering brochures. It was about helping companies understand what their real problems are, then helping to solve them.

The brochure, “How will you get there?” is a little oblong book in soft recycled paper that tells the full story. After setting up the basic problem, it gives the key concept the firm is built around: “We help leaders define the issues that prevent their companies from moving forward and relate those issues to a wider perspective.” A little further on, it says, “We remove the boundaries between business and creativity to help clients communicate business direction, position themselves within an industry as well as on the world stage, build reputation excellence, navigate significant change, and align fragmented corporate cultures.” Toward the end of the brochure it asks, “What makes Unboundary different?” and answers, “We serve clients as original thinkers and agents of change.”

A small aside here: In the identity papers, unboundary is always all lowercase. In continuous text, it’s set with initial caps. I’m setting the name lowercase in this text to point out their preference for the more unassuming, non-proper-noun setting.

Notice also that I’ve said nothing about the design of the brochure. It’s lively, well organized, well paced, and beautiful. The portfolio section is truly charming—I love the fact that objects are held up for display by people’s hands and photographed outside in the sunshine. But the design is not what really matters.