Helping you achieve the return your company deserves on its investment in branding

Our WorkOur Insight

Our Approach

Substance151 delivers smart brand strategy, compelling creative execution and a proven process for gaining a competitive advantage.

Analytic Thinking

Fact-based thinking about your business, goals, desired outcomes, competitive landscape, current positioning and message, and what’s possible

Yields: The Foundation

Strategic Thinking

Insight-directed thinking about what your brand needs to become in order to meet objectives, connect with customers, inspire action.

Yields: The Vision

Creative Thinking

With no preconceived notions, guided by strategic thinking and clearly defined goals, we transform strategy into an unmatched brand experience.

Yields: The Transformation

Sustained Thinking

Ongoing management, refinement and informed thinking on behalf of your brand to ensure it remains relevant in changing conditions.

Yields: The Result

Brand Strategy and Creative That Transform

Our expertise includes every step of the branding process – from strategy through design, across print and digital, and covering all aspects of marketing communications.

Brand Strategy and Insights

  • Brand and Audience Research
  • Audience Personas
  • Brand and Communications Audit
  • Brand Architecture
  • Brand Platform
  • Brand Launch Strategy and Plan

Web and Digital

  • Digital Strategy
  • Information Architecture and UX Design
  • Website Design and Development
  • Social and Digital Marketing

Brand Experience Design

  • Creative Strategy
  • Brand Voice and Message
  • Brand Identity and Visual Design Systems
  • Brand Books and Guidelines
  • Brand Activation and Management

Marketing

  • Marketing Strategy and Planning
  • Integrated Marketing Campaigns
  • Sustainability/CSR Marketing
  • Content Marketing
  • Internal Communications
  • Ongoing Marketing Support

Representative Clients

Over the years, we’ve gotten to know these industries exceptionally well – through the project experience, research and industry involvement. Occasionally, we go outside of these industries so that we get to know our clients’ clients and ensure that our approach is always fresh and evolving.

Defining difference beyond “on time” and “on budget”

  • GEI Consultants
  • KCI Technologies
  • KPFF
  • Langan
  • Liebhaber Company
  • Manns Woodward Studios
  • Morris & Ritchie Associates, Inc.
  • PLDA Interior Design | Interior Architecture
  • PRIME AE Group
  • The S/L/A/M Collaborative (SLAM)
  • SIGMA7 design group
  • Soltesz
  • Straughan Environmental
  • TerraLogos eco architecture
  • The Traffic Group
  • Treanor Architecture and Planning
  • Wetland Studies and Solutions (WSSI)

Overcoming commoditization in increasingly competitive environment

  • The Daily Washington Law Reporter
  • The D.C. Law Journal
  • Design for Context
  • Fortigent, a Lydian Company
  • GMAC Financial Services
  • HR Anew
  • InSource Solutions
  • Kowitz Financial Group
  • Lerch Early Brewer
  • NARFE Premier Federal Credit Union
  • Online Resources Corporation
  • Peros Law
  • PlanFirst Financial Solutions
  • SouthPaw

Making the complex accessible and compelling

  • GZX
  • IBM/TriTek
  • LCG Technologies
  • Litecast
  • Optotraffic
  • triCerat

Helping organizations remain relevant and garner support for critical social missions

Clearly communicating meaningful outcomes in the face of increasing challenges, diverse stakeholders and far-reaching goals

  • Arisaph Pharmaceuticals
  • Baltimore-Washington Medical Center
  • Center for Mental Healthcare Improvement
  • Florida Behavioral Health Collaborative
  • Gold Standard/Clinical Pharmacology
  • LinkSPINE
  • MedlinePlus, National Institutes of Health
  • Pria Wellness Center

An Unparalleled Grasp of Aesthetic and Strategic Considerations

When AlphaTech changed its name to AlphaInsight and launched its rebranding campaign, it retained Substance151 as creative consultant. The team was singularly impressive in this assignment. They combined creativity with a rare understanding of the business drivers and showed a unique grasp of aesthetic as well as strategic considerations. As a result, the AlphaInsight brand became both noted and valued.

Vish Varma, Vice President, CACI

The Firm You Want on Your Team

Substance151 is the strategy and design firm you want on your team! They are excellent at what they do and extremely responsive. Substance151 created a unified voice for our company, translating that into a sales-focused website, product campaigns, tradeshow materials and more. We now have the marketing foundation to effectively and powerfully communicate Altum’s brand to our target audiences.

Steve Pinchotti, CEO, Altum, Inc.

Tremendous Experience

Our experience working with Substance151 has been tremendous. Ida and her team guided us through a 10-month process of learning about ourselves, determined what our clients and the market needed, and developed an effective platform that leads our firm toward the future. Substance151 knows the AEC market and their experience was critical to developing our new brand. The messaging and visual identity are clean and modern and are a perfect reflection of who we are!

Brian Stanley, PE, Principal, Dunbar

Understood the Essence of Who We Are

USGBC Baltimore Region engaged Substance151 to rebrand the organization as USGBC Maryland. They clearly understood our business objectives and translated them into a strategic redesign for our identity, website and all forms of print collateral. Substance151 was very easy to work with. The end result has been extremely successful and has led to a long-term relationship between our organizations.

Pat Thomas, Executive Director, USGBC Maryland