“To define is to kill. To suggest is to create.” —Stéphane Mallarmé One of my favorite games to play as a kid was something we called “categories.” One of us would pick a category, any category. Flowers, colors, animals. We would then alternate naming things in said category until we…

One of my favorite thought experiments goes something like this: Pick any moment from human history in which to intervene and change the course of civilization. I’m from the future and I’m here to tell you that the combustion engine is a terrible mistake. Really, I’m from the 21st century…

The long and short of it: Notes on brevity and other misplaced desires I am not a tall person. I go to concerts to enjoy the sounds of the music, with no expectation of actually seeing the musicians on stage. I often need to stand on a stool to reach that thing I need in my cabinet, or ask a nearby Tall to…

Remember: you hired a creative studio, not a vendor There’s a question we often ask ourselves around the studio at A Hundred Monkeys. I’ve been thinking about this question a lot, because it reveals one of the primary—yet often invisible—forces shaping our projects. Are we trying to give them what…

When it comes to client relationships, measure at least twice. — At A Hundred Monkeys, we’re ostensibly in the business of naming things, but we’re actually in the business of relationships: with one another, our clients, and their audiences. I often say that we spend just as much energy considering the creative, strategic, and pragmatic aspects of naming as we do…

Getting to Yes is one of those classic business books. First published 40 years ago, it remains a valuable resource for thinking about negotiation, like understanding the interests behind each party’s position and keeping criteria objective. This is all fine and good, but what about saying no? …

How to protect your time (and your sanity) Every workplace has its own norms and quirks. After spending the last eleven years at A Hundred Monkeys, there are certain aspects of our studio culture that have become so integral to how I work that I’m often surprised when I discover…

Or, why don’t we call things what they really are? — Maybe there’s something in the air (PM 2.5!), or maybe it’s the result of dining together nearly every night for over six months (COVID-19!), but lately my husband and I have been having some particularly enlightening conversations around the dinner table. It started with a singular peak summer salad: sliced…

What’s personal has long been political. At A Hundred Monkeys, I sometimes joke that our founder retired from branding to go save democracy. Like all jokes, it’s based in truth, and reveals something a bit deeper and more vulnerable. We’ve all seen the headlines over the last several years, asking…