Simpleton is a simplification company. We take your message and distill it down to the bare essentials to make it easier for anyone to understand. So the name comes from a world in which everything is easily understood.
But also, you have to assume everyone you’re going to present to is a simpleton. And those people are going to re-present your work. So if someone who has 10% your knowledge is going to take your place when telling their boss about it, it had better be really easily understood.
I started Simpleton after spending 20 years making my way from Art Director to Creative Director in the advertising industry. I’ve made TV commercials for Corona, websites for Panera, rebranded the University of Oregon, and am fairly certain I helped redefine the entire graphic design language for Coca-Cola though I can’t prove it. (But it’s a heck of a story.)
All the work I’ve made began as a presentation of literally nothing. Selling ideas in advertising requires taking pretend work and sharing it in a way that feels real and exciting before it’s been made. To understand an audience and how best to vary communications with them – pitching the CMO is very different from day-to-day contacts.
So I began Simpleton to bring those skills to my clients. To combine the ability to convey information succinctly and beautifully in advertising with years of presentation-making and coaching. All information has a story, from year end reports and financial information to pitching a new product, and Simpleton wants to help you tell it better.
Almost forgot to mention that part. Powerpoint is a wholly unintuitive, ugly thing that makes elegant design hard. So I embraced it, learned to do it better, and now make better presentations with slick animation and interactivity. Cool?
Cool. Cool. Cool.