In 2008, friends and neighbors Griffin Van Meter and Brad Flowers started a full-service marketing agency together they called Bullhorn Creative. By full-service, they meant that they would do anything. Their first big gig consisted of selling beer out of the back of a box truck at an annual rave called the Beaux Arts Ball. After that rousing success, they went on to put together events, ads, videos, and generally showy nonsense for local businesses.

They grew into a branding agency, focusing on building confident brands with language and design. Their full team comprises fourteen, and their offices are in their home neighborhood on the Northside of Lexington, Kentucky and Washington, DC.

Rooted in strategy, their branding process is widely applied across industries, scales, media, and needs. In short: They will still do anything. As long as it’s good work. For good people.

Empathy and Honesty
We care about each other. The fact is that our work is one of the main ways we will spend our time. That time should be productive. It should mean something.

And we are honest because it deepens trust and makes way for better empathy. Among ourselves, with our clients. And, ultimately, it creates better work.

Dissatisfaction and Improvement
We care about the broken things. The inconsistencies, the ugly things, the things that cause friction. We notice.

They fuel our urge for improvement. We are the princess who feels the damn pea under all those mattresses and has to get up to do something about it.

Creativity and Decisiveness
We care about cultivating creativity. Here, you are expected to bring your full creative capacity to bear on whatever task you face.

And you must make a choice. Put it out there. Make another. And another. Iterate. Be willing to look simple. Stupid. The true enemy of creativity is indecision.

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We limit our production to good stuff. That includes language. Think before you write. While the Bullhorn voice adapts to its medium, the overarching tones of directness and authority are present throughout. Sincere, creative, and smart – willing to crack a joke or tastefully issue jargon whenever necessary. Like you’re talking to a friend.

Niche
We build confident brands with language and design.

Purpose
A responsible company doing rewarding work.

About
Your brand’s challenges are vital opportunities to rethink, rewire, and refresh. Our strategy-driven process is adaptive, accommodating organizations regardless of project scope or industry vertical. If you have vision, we will generate the momentum you need to realize it.

Brand
This can be used to describe an organization, or – more precisely – the perception of that organization.

Branding
ID, marketing, or communications.

Visual Identity
This denotes the foundational visual materials needed to build out all brand extensions (mark, typography, colors).

Verbal Identity
Foundational language, lexicon recommendations, and guiding tones.

Mark
The primary graphic symbol that stands for an organization.

Wordmark
The primary graphic treatment of the name of an organization.

Logo
Can include mark, wordmark, or both.

Foundational Language
Primary tagline, about statement/mission statement, secondary taglines, about one-liner, etc. Any language that is widely and flexibly used to introduce an organization.

Punctuation
+ All bullet points should be plus signs.
+ Never use an ampersand, always use a plus or “and.”
+ Don’t use exclamation points.
+ No ellipses.
+ Use em dashes, not hyphens or double hyphens.
+ Never use an apostrophe to designate a plural. Fridays not Friday’s.

Economy
The Bullhorn voice is conversational, yet precise. Alternate sentence length, and include a punchy, simple statement to sum up your paragraph whenever it runs long.

Profanity
+ Use sparingly on social media.
+ Do not use on business development documents.
+ If you want to use it in a blog post, ask Carrie and she’ll decide whether you’ve earned it.

Pronouns
Keep it personal – Bullhorn is We, our audience is You. Never refer to Bullhorn in the third person.

Case
Avoid proper nouns. Do not capitalize: phase designations (exploratory not Exploratory) or deliverables (verbal identity not Verbal Identity, logo not Logo).

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