Spark greater impact through design
Impact, and profits, are achieved through brand equity. People value brands that reflect their values, and great experiences inspire fans to become evangelists, doing the attraction and retention work for you (no sleazy marketing tactics needed).
We believe brilliance is already in the minds of the people we work with - we’re here to translate those sparks into sustainable brands:
Brand Roadmap: design where you want to go and how to get there
>Brand Launch: bring your brand to market
Brand Building: keep your channels fresh with branded content
Brand Growth: get noticed with campaigns and collaborations
Focus
Recommended Providers
Portfolio
ACLU, Asurity, The George Washington University,, DC Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development, DC Office of Planning, Washington DC Economic Partnership, Nashville Downtown Economic Partnership, Nashville Downtown Economic Partnership

ACLU National Tour
In 2020, The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) turned 100 years old. In recognition of its centennial, the historic organization wanted to drive a nationwide conversation around civil liberties and allow its members and supporters to engage with the issues in new and innovative ways.
Brllnt worked with the ACLU to create the ACLU100 Experience, an immersive mobile exhibition on civil rights with 14 tour city stops across 10,000 miles in four months.
Brllnt designed and managed production of all signage, promotional materials, and giveaway items for the tour. As a result of organic and paid initiatives managed and executed by Brllnt, the campaign generated 154 million out-of-home media impressions and attracted over 36,400 attendees to the events, the highest in ACLU history.

Connected with us to better tell its story and distinguish its value proposition for winning bigger clients — primarily via a new website and suite of brand elements.
Prior to this engagement, Data Society underwent seven website redesigns with zero return on investment. The responsive website, rebrand, and launch helped position the company as a leader in data science training. They've received a serious request for second-round funding from a large investor who first learned of their company when visiting the new website.
The new company logo is a sleek wordmark that forms a rocket with stacked type, signalling the brand’s rapid growth and forward momentum. The colon, which forms the abstracted orange flame powering the rocket, serves as the new brand icon — rich with history and purpose within the industry.
To meet the needs of their target RFP, we also focused on creating and refining a dedicated government page for the website alongside a suite of thought leadership content showcasing Data Society’s success with past government and healthcare clients. The deadline for submitting this RFP also meant transforming our typical exploratory phases with the client into sprints.
Approach
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Following competitive analysis and in-depth discovery workshops, developed a new brand system inclusive of a new logo, brand icon, and color palettes to propel the rebrand.
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We led comprehensive messaging workshops to create key page messaging, posts, and case studies on the site with ongoing content production support.
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We worked with stakeholders to conduct need-finding, create new information architecture, user flowers, culminating in designed mockups for both mobile and web.
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Brand launch strategy and design support inclusive of social posts template and newsletter templates design.

#ObviouslyDC
Following Amazon’s announcement that it was expanding to a second headquarters, including 50,000 new jobs, The Executive Office of Washington, DC's Mayor Muriel Bowser and The Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development needed a campaign that could be executed quickly and would resonate with both the people of DC and key decisionmakers at Amazon.
In response, Brllnt designed and printed the proposal response and developed the #ObviouslyDC campaign to provide a platform through which to collect and share the authentic realities that make the District an obvious choice for innovative companies. The campaign was 100% organic and garnered 6 million online engagements, 507K hashtag impressions, 20K+ video views, and 3K+ views of the RFP response.
After the campaign, Brllnt worked with the Office of DC Mayor Muriel Bowser and DMPED to transition #ObviouslyDC into a resource and information hub for all current and prospective DC businesses.

#BeTheOne at GWU
The GW New Venture Competition is the largest of its kind in the Mid-Atlantic region, giving teams of students real-world experience launching businesses.
GWU Office of Innovation & Entrepreneurship partnered with Brllnt to create an engaging campaign that diversified submissions and increased attendance by 60% to their New Venture Competition over two years.
We repositioned the perception of “entrepreneurship” to encourage entries from the university’s 13 other colleges. Through email, social media, ambassador toolkits, and on-campus touch points, the Be The One campaign inspired students from a variety of majors to bring their great ideas to life.
Reviews
the project
Rebranding & Web Design for Data Science Company
“They’re a company you hire when you want to look like a million bucks.”
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
I’m one of the founders and the chief solution architect for Data Society. I oversee our technology team, data scientists, and software developers. I also handle our business development teams, so sales and marketing departments also report to me.
Our company has two main lines of businesses and types of customers. Half of what we do is provide data science training programs. We also build custom software solutions, such as search engines, risk models, and process automation tools with respect to documents and texts. We also have two customer bases, namely Fortune 1000 companies and the federal government.
What challenge were you trying to address with Brllnt?
We were fortunate enough to grow quickly over the past few years. In fact, we grew 20% during the COVID-19 pandemic. Overall, the business had been doing well because there was market demand for everything related to AI. Then, we reached a size where we needed to look the part. As a result, we hired Brllnt to do a full rebrand of our company’s brand voice, website, and logo.
What was the scope of their involvement?
In the beginning, Brllnt interviewed us to understand our values, identity, business, and purpose. In other words, they tried to get into our heads and hearts. Then, they ran a number of design-related questions that helped us find our true north in terms of our brand’s look and feel. After that, they converted our ideas into visual concepts. Using such ideas, they created color schemes and determined relevant shapes to us. They asked us how our logos fit together and what such symbols mean.
Once we determined the brand’s look and feel, we figured out their implications in the language that we used. Simply put, Brllnt worked on helping us find our brand voice on our website. They wrote a bunch of copy and articles to populate our blog. The team built a design for us to implement and created templates that we could use in various assets, such as PowerPoint presentations and Word documents. Overall, they went top-to-bottom in reimagining our brand from the website to the logo and assets we used with our clients.
What is the team composition?
We worked with Melanie (Founder & Chief Visionary Officer), who marshaled the resources of everybody. A creative writer, a UX designer, a project manager, and a graphic designer were also involved. Overall, they provided a wide range of skill sets on the team.
How did you come to work with Brllnt?
I met Brllnt seven years ago when both of our companies were just starting out. We did our website back then, but we couldn’t afford them because they were too expensive for us. I just had a few pointers from them. At that time, I already liked what they had to offer. We received a few bids and proposals, and theirs was the best and most expensive.
Over the years, I ran RFPs for our clients. Having seen proposals from a variety of firms across DC and San Francisco, I thought that Brllnt consistently had the most creative designs. Melanie had a creative eye in terms of fonts, colors, and shapes — she had a truly brilliant mind for those things. As a result, when I had a meaningful budget to spend on our rebranding effort, I thought about working with Melanie and her team. That was how we decided to hire them for this project.
How much have you invested with them?
We spent around $160,000 on Brllnt’s services over the past year on a variety of projects.
What is the status of this engagement?
This project lasted from November 2020–June 2021.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
We received a lot of compliments for our website. Previously, people would call us after looking at our website and ask us to explain what we did. On top of that, we’d never had a lead on our website in seven years. By contrast, we’ve received 13 leads from it last week. In other words, our ability to tell our story clearly has truly improved.
Another interesting anecdote was when we kicked off a project with a major Fortune 100 company in December 2020. We already won the contract and started doing work. Then, our client called us to present ourselves to her boss, who wanted to know who we really were and why they hired us. I suspected that she went to our website and wondered whether our organization was real. Around 6–7 months later, people started calling us; they were interested in our services. I asked them how they found us, and they said they looked at our website. They thought we were a big and established company. All of that came out of the work that Brllnt did within a few months.
Further, this wasn’t the first time we tried to redo our website or branding. In fact, we’d spent untold amounts of money redesigning our website in 20 different ways. When we decided to bite the bullet and spend a bunch of money for it once, Brllnt delivered this success to us. Given that, when we wrapped up the project, we knew we’d want to do more with them, though we didn’t have the money yet — I hope I can do that with them soon. Overall, I’d love for them to get bigger as they continue to exist so we can continue working together.
How did Brllnt perform from a project management standpoint?
Their project management was great. They’ve been around for a while, so they had their processes on rails; they were totally smooth.
What did you find most impressive about them?
Brllnt was truly thoughtful about designs. I’d seen other agencies whose designs only looked fine. By contrast, Brllnt’s websites and branding campaigns always popped and captured my attention. In other words, their strength was that they were truly powerful from a creative standpoint. They truly understood how to handle different design elements, be it space, geometry, colors, letters, or fonts.
Are there any areas they could improve?
No, there weren’t any.
Do you have any advice for potential customers?
Remember that Brllnt isn’t a company that you hire when you have a small budget; they’re a company you hire when you want to look like a million bucks. Moreover, you have to know what you want. On top of that, know who you’re designing for; this will help them get in the head of your customers. They’ll dig into that because they won’t design things just to make them look pretty.
If you come to them and say that you simply want something pretty, you’ll get that. Whether or not it has an impact on your company will ultimately depend on how well you know your business.
the project
UX Design & Marketing Strategy for Financial Software Firm
"We throw a lot of different things at them, and they’re always willing to work with us and adapt."
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
I’m the COO for a financial services software provider. We make solutions for consumer lending and mortgage compliance.
What challenges were you trying to address with Brllnt?
We hired Brllnt to help us launch our company. The work included web development, marketing, branding, and UX design.
What was the scope of their involvement?
Our work together started with developing our brand voice and key messaging for the company. Their team built our website and created a brand guide for our developers to follow. They helped us design the user interface for one of our newer software products. They also provided design updates for our older apps to bring them in line with our brand.
They’re continuing to work with us on social media strategy, marketing collateral, and other needs as we launch new products and services.
What is the team composition?
We’ve worked with at least 8 people. We have a few primary points of contact, but additional specialists come in to work on different tasks.
How did you come to work with Brllnt?
I met one of their principals at a networking event in DC. At that point, we’d tried a few other marketing companies that hadn’t worked out. We decided to give Brllnt a try. We started with a smaller project and grew our relationship from there.
How much have you invested in them?
We’ve invested somewhere between 1 to 1.5 million dollars.
What is the status of this engagement?
We started working together in mid-2017, and our relationship is ongoing.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
Their work is very high quality. I particularly like their designs. They’re creative and have come up with interesting ways to modernize our brand. They’ve rolled with the punches, and we’re doing better now than we’ve ever done.
How did Brllnt perform from a project management standpoint?
In general, they’re good project managers. It was a little hard to manage approvals, but we settled on a roadmap and calendar of their activities that we use to manage and review their content. We’ve got a good balance now. We’re using Google Sheets and Google Docs to share work. They use their own design tools to share their ideas with us as well.
What did you find most impressive about them?
They helped us prototype a new app from scratch and they worked independently, which was impressive. They’re also passionate about improving the user interface and experience. They’ve shown that they’re not afraid to be bold in coming up with creative themes.
We throw a lot of different things at them, and they’re always willing to work with us and adapt.
Are there any areas they could improve?
Brllnt is a young firm, so they’ve been a little slow to get into the headspace of our industry sector. At first, we weren’t sure how much content we should provide them, but we’ve reached a happy medium now.
They could also continue to do a bit more QA, especially when junior staff is working on projects. In addition, sometimes they seem to brush aside some of our comments which is common with those in the creative industry. I’ve brought up these concerns to them though and have seen some improvements. None of this has been cause for me to want to find a new vendor.
Do you have any advice for potential customers?
Be thorough in scoping and encourage iterative development of ideas and designs. Be interactive and collaborative.