Urban design firms are full of talented people who struggle to talk about themselves. The instinct is to lean on industry language — multidisciplinary, interjurisdictional, placemaking solutions — words that sound impressive but land flat. Rundell Ernstberger Associates (REA) is different. They've been transforming communities since 1979, with an award-winning portfolio spanning more than 25 states and a culture built on honest collaboration and creative follow-through. The problem wasn't their work. It was how they talked about it.

We partnered with REA to build a language system and a website that could carry the weight of their expertise — without losing the humanity behind it.

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Define

Before we could write a single word or design a single page, we needed to understand what REA actually believed. What we found was a firm that leads with authenticity — one that doesn't oversell, doesn't hide behind jargon, and builds trust through honesty. But their existing language wasn't reflecting that. It was passive, bloated, and written at arm's length from the reader. We defined a brand voice built on four pillars — authentic, inspirational, guiding, and confident — that became the strategic foundation for everything that followed, from the language guidelines to the architecture of the site itself.

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Design

Language guidelines can feel like a rulebook. We wanted REA's to feel like a conversation. We built the system in layers: a brand voice section with real before-and-after examples drawn from REA's own copy, style principles covering active voice and sentence structure in plain terms, and a nuts and bolts section handling the details that quietly erode consistency — capitalization, contractions, how to write "$4 million" instead of "$4M." With the language foundation in place, we translated it directly into the website — designing a digital experience that reflects REA's confidence and clarity. The site showcases their portfolio, tells their story, and gives every type of visitor a clear path forward, without the noise.

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Deliver

A brand is only as strong as the tools it gives the team. We delivered both a comprehensive language system and a fully developed website — two assets built to work together. The guidelines give every person at REA a shared standard for how the firm speaks, whether they're drafting a proposal or writing a social post. The website gives them a platform to prove it, putting their work, their story, and their voice in front of the clients and communities they're built to serve. When the language matches the work and the website brings it to life, trust follows.

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