Not quite. Try again.
Amy and Keith have the passphrase. If you need it again, email chris@innovativedesign.us.
Everything here is built from what CKD already says, on the boards of 3 September and on your own website. Nothing has been invented. This is the document the whole studio pulls from for proposals, the website, LinkedIn, and the conversation at the end of a site visit.
A brand is not a single sentence. The mistake most firms make is picking one line and then trying to force it to do four different jobs. These four sit on top of each other, they never compete, and each has a place it belongs.
On "sustainably." Your current line ends with it. Our recommendation is to keep it in the body copy and take it off the front. Amy told us the Bay Area has regulations that push every firm in that direction, which makes it difficult to use here as a point of difference. It is table stakes in this market rather than a claim. If you would rather keep it at the front, the line becomes "Designing how people live and work together outside, sustainably." Both work. This is your call, not ours.
On "woman-owned." We looked at how thirteen peer firms describe themselves. Two mention being woman-owned and neither builds anything on it. Your site states it once and moves on. It is a genuine differentiator, it is a scored criterion in a good deal of public procurement, and right now it is sitting unused.
Two of these face outward and two face inward. Keeping them separate is what stops the internal story going stale and the external story going corporate.
On "Engage. Entice. Enrich." These are still good and we are not replacing them. One observation worth sharing: across four hours and three recordings, nobody said them once. Our suggestion is to move them rather than retire them. They describe a design process, engage the community, entice people into the space, enrich the place, so they belong on a how-we-work page. They do not work as the brand idea because they are not in anybody's mouth.
Both columns came out of the room. The right one matters as much as the left, because a brand that will not rule anything out cannot mean anything.
The clearest statement of the right-hand column came from Monty, unprompted: "I'm happy to work for a firm that doesn't have a star architect running it. Somebody with a big ego who's wearing a cape. It's more important in this industry to do really good, functional design that's beautiful, rather than have some unique, bespoke symbol that you leave behind as a breadcrumb of your existence."
A platform is only worth the evidence behind it. These three came out of the session and each does a specific job. Use them.
Monty on the Willow Shopping Center: "there were play areas there that you didn't have to go shopping to enjoy. You could use it just as part of the community without shopping."
What it proves. That the community mission does not switch off on private work. This is the story to tell a developer who assumes a public-sector firm will not understand commercial goals, and the story to tell your own team when they worry that private work means abandoning the mission.
On 8th Street CKD sits in the meetings with the city, hears the requirements first hand, and delivers what was actually wanted. On another project where all communication routes through the architect, the client believed the work was at 100 percent design development while the city believed it was at 90 percent construction documents.
What it proves. That access is not a nicety, it is a delivery risk. This is the argument for writing direct client contact into scope, and it is a genuinely persuasive thing to say in a pitch.
Amy: "we started out at the master planning level, working with the community, talking to them, finding out what they wanted, what they needed in their area, and being able to provide a design that meets their needs." Started 2022, roughly two years to go.
What it proves. That "community engagement" at CKD is a working method rather than a line in a proposal. It is also the clearest live example of getting in early.
The gap. Every one of these is told in CKD's voice. Not one is told in a client's voice, because we have no client quotes at all. Two or three would strengthen this section more than anything else we could write.
This is organising structure, not a headline. It exists so the right story reaches the right buyer without confusing either. We looked at how comparable firms handle this and the pattern is consistent: the strongest ones keep a single brand with clearly named practice areas underneath, rather than splitting into separate identities.
School districts, cities, counties, public agencies and public healthcare. The 38-year record, the certifications, the bid-ready practice. K-12, civic and justice, parks and recreation, affordable housing, streetscape and plaza.
What the private side lends it: design ambition. Proof CKD does not do generic.
Housing developers, private healthcare and senior living, hospitality and wineries, mixed-use and selected commercial, and the architects who bring CKD in. Growing deliberately and selectively.
What the public side lends it: trust. Thirty-eight years of bond budgets, regulation and public schedules means a private project is in safe hands.
One caution worth stating plainly, because Keith raised it himself on the day: private developer work generally comes with less public engagement. That is a real trade and it should be managed rather than ignored. The Concord story is the proof it can be managed well.
Same idea underneath, different words on top. If somebody at CKD reads only one part of this document, it should be this one.
"We design the things you never think about. The bench with shade on it, the path to the bus, the schoolyard. Everything outside the building. If you never notice it, we did our job."
"CKD designs everything outside the building. Thirty-eight years, woman-owned, based in Oakland, mostly public work across the Bay Area. Where we add the most value is early, while you are still deciding where the building sits and how people move through the site, rather than at the end once the budget is set."
"We are the studio that takes the projects with real constraints. Public budgets, live campuses, community process, and now the new state water rules. We are usually the ones asking what the community actually needs before anybody draws anything."
"You are not here to tell people how great CKD is. You are here to tell them what you find interesting about this work. If people know who you are, they will trust what we make."
Both of these came up repeatedly in the session. Everyone should have the same answer ready.
Monty already wrote the answer and it is perfect: "Did the architect build your house? Did the electrical engineer do your wiring?" Then follow with what you do: "We decide where it goes, what survives there, how people move past it, and who it is for."
Do not define the profession. Describe the result. "Everything outside the building. Where the paths go, where people gather, what grows, how you get from the car park to the front door without getting wet or lost." If they want the category afterwards, they will ask.
These came off your boards, repeatedly, from more than one person. Use them freely.
Not because they are untrue, but because every firm in the category says them, so they carry no information. We checked thirteen peer firms and these appear almost universally.
One of these is worth a specific note. Your current homepage headline is "Innovative landscape solutions." It uses two of the most crowded words in the category and says nothing a competitor could not also say. Replacing that headline with the positioning line is the single highest-value change available on the site.
For proposals, submissions, directories and press. Copy them exactly, so CKD reads the same everywhere.
Cupples Keller Designs is a woman-owned landscape architecture studio in Oakland, designing public space across the Bay Area. Everything outside the building, for the people who use it.
Cupples Keller Designs is a woman-owned landscape architecture studio in Oakland, founded in 1988. We design everything outside the building, schools, parks, civic plazas, healthcare campuses, streetscapes and housing, across the Bay Area. We work best when we are involved early, while the shape of a site is still being decided, and we design for the people who will use the space every day.
Cupples Keller Designs is a woman-owned landscape architecture studio in Oakland, California, founded in 1988. We design everything outside the building: schoolyards, parks and recreation, civic and justice, healthcare campuses, streetscapes, plazas and housing. Most of our work is public, which means we are used to real constraints, bond budgets, live campuses, community process and long review cycles, and we are comfortable in all of them. We work best when we are brought in early, while a site is still being shaped, rather than at the end. Whoever is paying for a project, we design for the people who will be there on an ordinary Tuesday.
Four sentences, in this order, every time. It works for the website, a submission, a LinkedIn post and an award entry, which means writing it once does four jobs.
Leave out: the size in acres unless it matters, the plant list, the phrase "we were tasked with," and any adjective from the avoid list. Put in: one number that is easy to picture, and one thing you can only know by having stood there.
This document is yours outright. Print it, mark it up, forward it, edit it. The Word version is there so you can change wording and keep going without us.
This is draft one and it is meant to be marked up. The two things that would help most:
Both versions are in section 01. It is your call and there is no wrong answer, only a trade.
Section 04 is the weakest part of this document and it is entirely because every story in it is told in your voice rather than a client's. Two or three remarks that stuck with you would fix it.
Once this is agreed, it stops being a document and becomes the thing everybody pulls from. That is the point of it. The session readout is here if you want the evidence behind any of it.
