Goodby Silverstein & Partners launches design practice

Goodby Silverstein & Partners is launching a design unit that flips the switch on the 43-year-old agency’s name: It’s called Silverstein Goodby & Partners. The department will be led by the agency’s co-founder, Rich Silverstein, and its first project is a logo design for the NBA’s Golden State Warriors. 40 under 40 entries are open The final deadline for nominations is Aug. 2 Enter here While the shop has always leveraged its design skills for brands such as HP and its famed “Got Milk?” campaign, it aims to drive awareness of those capabilities by formalizing the practice. The agency said its design revenue has more than doubled over the past two years, thanks to work for clients including Advance SF, Autodesk, Berkeley Space Center, Comcast Business, Frito-Lay and others as clients seek stronger branding. Meeting a need “[We’re] in this new world where sometimes brands aren’t looking for TV commercials, they’re looking for something else,” Silverstein said. The agency’s momentum is partly due to an increase in new business opportunities related to design and strategic thinking work, according to Jenna Duboe, the agency’s director of account management Much of that, she said, has stemmed from the success of the agency’s Brand Camp offering which is dedicated to solving business and marketing problems in a short amount of time. “What’s the natural next step after you know what your brand stands for? It’s (creating) a visual ID,” Duboe said. “So clients started asking for that more ... they want us earlier, more upstream, they want more strategic thinking and they want design baked into everything.” The unit has created designs for the Golden Gate National Parks and Berkeley Space Center. Earlier this year, the agency’s design team concocted the new brand identity for Bay FC, the new women’s professional soccer team in the Bay Area. Solving pain points Clients have also begun to approach GS&P for help dissecting and reimagining brand guidelines that another design company created. “It’s a pain point that these clients are feeling,” Duboe said. “They have these 100-page brand guideline documents that say how they should use their brand but when they start applying it, and they start using it against six different partner agencies, it doesn't work or it doesn't hold up,” Duboe said. Silverstein, who started his career as an art director at Rolling Stone, envisions that startups will gravitate toward this type of offering given the agency’s location in San Francisco, a hub for startups. He is also believes startups often need help imaging their long-term voice and design strategy. The new design unit will have 14 employees to start but will and will enlist other employees across the agency as needed. Employees include designers, animators, motion designers and strategists with Duboe as a business lead. The Golden State Warriors As part of the unit’s official launch, the agency is unveiling a new secondary logo design for the NBA’s Warriors. Secondary logos are alternate versions of the main logo for NBA teams but still show up in a myriad of ways. The new logo will be featured on the belts of all of the team’s uniforms as well as on the shorts of the team’s statement jerseys, which are alternate uniforms worn during nationally televised, rivalry or other significant games. The alternate “W” logo doubles as a net with a slight arch in the “W” meant to give the impression of a ball dropping through, said Benny Gold, GS&P’s design director. This is also meant to highlight the team’s three-point shooting that has become synonymous with the team over the past decade thanks to star players Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson, according to Amanda Chin, senior VP of marketing for the Golden State Warriors. When the team redesigned its visual identity in 2019, Chin said that there wasn’t as much thought put into the W logo as the main logo. Since then, she said the team felt there was an opportunity to revamp it into something minimalistic but also unique to the team. The team had to get league approval in 2022 before being able to work on the design. “When we sat down with Benny and the team, one of the first things we talked about, especially as it pertains to this logo was [the idea of] a ‘splash’ and like what does ‘splash’ mean,” Chin said. (The Warriors’ backcourt, which for the past 12 years has consisted of Curry and Thompson, have often been referred to as the “Splash Brothers.”) The new logo will be formally announced today, the first day of the NBA Draft. Reinvention Goodby isn’t alone in gravitating toward design: Other agencies such as Globant’s Gut and Interpublic Group of Cos.’ McCann have also recently launched design practices. For Omnicom Group’s GS&P, the creation of the new practice is part of a move by the founders to evolve different aspects of its business, Silverstein said. His co-founder, Jeff Goodby, will work on elevating the agency’s new business efforts while Silverstein leads the design work. “We’re always reinventing,” Silverstein said. “An agency has to reinvent or it’s nothing. You don’t want to say ‘They used to be good.’”

Goodby Silverstein & Partners launches design practice

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