Revealing the brilliance of your business through compelling design

Overview

28 Gorilla and 29Tech needed a clear way to introduce themselves as sister companies, distinguish their roles and show why they work better together. For our first engagement, we built a shared brand strategy and style guide, then applied it to an interactive sales deck.

Challenge

29Tech was created to help 28 Gorilla quickly move products from engineering into manufacturing. That relationship was central to their value but hard to convey without alienating clients who already had a design or manufacturing partner. They wanted help to clarify where each company fit, build confidence in the complete offer and still leave room for clients to choose their preferred service providers.

Approach

We used a human-centered process that started with the people making the buying decision. Through founder workshops we explored the companies' histories, services, values and relationship, and mapped audience goals and concerns across the sales journey. That work shaped their first brand style guide, including:

• A shared origin story and value proposition
• Clearly defined roles for 28 Gorilla and 29Tech and a voice, tone and messaging framework to support how to talk about them
• Visual identities that connected the companies yet remained distinct
• Guidance for color, typography, logos and accessibility

We then applied the strategy to an interactive pitch deck that introduced both companies and mapped their services across the product development cycle.

Outcome

The project created the first shared marketing foundation for 28 Gorilla and 29Tech: a documented audience strategy, company story, voice and visual system covering two brands, 12 service categories and three stages of the customer decision. The sales deck turned strategy into a practical tool, and the work set the foundation for the websites and content that followed.

Overview

After the brand strategy project, 28 Gorilla and 29Tech asked us to bring their shared story to life across two connected websites. We led research, site strategy, architecture, content and design, development, review and QA.

Challenge

They had years of expertise in Arizona and were ready to expand nationally. They needed to upgrade their one-page sites into fully optimized sales tools that simplify complex engineering and manufacturing services, protect technical accuracy, support search visibility and feel premium.

Approach

We began with user and market research, interviewing the primary sales partner, company leaders, engineers and manufacturing experts, and reviewing competitors and other industries for stronger ways to organize complex information.

Our strategy was guided by Google's E-E-A-T pillars, with many pages designed to highlight the experience, expertise, authority and trustworthiness of the teams. The sites included:

• Detailed case studies of technical products
• Exploded diagrams, three-dimensional renderings and custom videos
• SEO optimization around priority terms and search best practices, with special attention to ensure the two sites did not compete
• Parallax effects and micro-interactions to reflect the high-tech and detailed nature of their work
• Google Analytics for performance tracking

Outcome

The project produced more than 50 pages of structured, authoritative content across two connected websites, each with a distinct experience built from the same strategy. After 28 Gorilla's redesigned site launched, the Lighthouse scores rose sharply:

• Accessibility: 74 to 100
• SEO: 61 to 100
• Performance: 58 to 88
• Best practices: 96 to 100

In the six months after launch, Google Search Console recorded six times more impressions and 3.6 times more clicks than the previous six months.

Overview

28 Gorilla and 29Tech had grown on referrals and reputation. To expand nationally, they needed an evidence-based answer to a deceptively simple question: which companies should they pursue, and why. We built the research and the system to answer it.

Challenge

Their business rewards depth over breadth: a handful of long-term clients can be worth millions compared to one-off jobs. But "good fit" lived mostly in the founders' instincts, and the opportunity was large and unmapped. They needed to size the real market, then separate the highest-value, highest-fit prospects from the rest so limited business development time paid off.

Approach

We started by defining the ideal client in plain, testable terms. Through leadership interviews and market research, we identified the pattern behind 28 Gorilla's strongest relationships: a mechanically strong company adding electronics or smart features to a rugged product, without the internal engineering team to do it. From there we built:

• A documented ideal client profile, with clear disqualifiers
• An eight-criterion weighted scoring rubric that turns judgment into comparable scores
• A total addressable market (TAM) analysis, sizing the realistic pool at roughly 1,600 to 1,800 North American companies and narrowing it to a potential pipeline of 15 to 30 long-term clients
• Priority market segments organized into three tiers by fit and revenue density
• A calibrated, scored list of real target companies, each with the reason it fits and the likely engineering need
• A shortlist of trade shows and conferences where the best-fit prospects gather

Outcome

The work gave 28 Gorilla a repeatable system. Leadership and sales partners could score any new prospect the same way, focus outreach on the strongest segments and explain exactly why a company was worth pursuing.

The framework has since become an operating tool. 28 Gorilla uses it to onboard new sales partners who evaluate their own client lists against the rubric and use the trade show plan to prioritize where to meet prospective clients.

Overview

28 Gorilla needed social media to support a key goal: recruiting skilled engineers in a competitive market. We built an evidence-based employer brand strategy, a detailed talent persona and a content system, launched its Instagram from scratch and created content for LinkedIn.

Challenge

Industry research reports roughly three engineering jobs for every qualified candidate. Many strong candidates are already employed. 28 Gorilla's strengths (project variety, direct client access, autonomy and a low-bureaucracy culture) were not visible online.

Approach

We combined leadership interviews, audience research and competitive analysis, then shaped "Sam," a target persona of a mid-career engineer frustrated by repetitive work and slow processes. From there we created:

• A recruiting value proposition and point of view
• Three content pillars focused on awareness, proof and belonging
• A direct voice grounded in technical credibility and engineer humor
• A posting framework for LinkedIn and Instagram
• Formats including lab videos, project stories, employee content and memes
• A simple process for the team to submit photos, clips and updates

Outcome

We launched Instagram from zero and tested messages and formats to learn what earned the strongest reach and engagement. Results in the first eight months:

Instagram

• 4.3% average engagement rate by reach
• 90,000 total impressions
• 80% of reach from non-followers
• 34k accounts reached by the top-performing Reel

LinkedIn

• 17.9% average engagement rate by impressions
• 875,000 total impressions
• 24% growth in followers