News & Insights

Meet the New SparX in Branding. To celebrate our 10th anniversary, we’re introducing The Brand’n SparX Chronicles—a new comic series that takes a light-hearted look at the everyday realities of branding, marketing, and the personalities we all encounter along the way.

Why the strongest brands are built from deeper meaning, authentic purpose, and lasting human connection, not marketing alone or momentary attention. Every memorable brand possesses something that cannot be seen, measured, or manufactured. It exists beyond the logo, the products, the website, and even the marketing itself. It is the invisible force that gives every decision purpose and every interaction meaning. At Xhilarate, we call this the soul of a brand.

How Xhilarate helps brands turn strategy, emotion, design, and Artful Intelligence into stories people remember, trust, and believe. Storytelling has always been part of how people understand the world. Before brands, before platforms, before campaigns, there were stories. Stories helped people remember what mattered, make sense of change, pass along wisdom, and feel connected to something larger than themselves. They gave shape to experience. They turned information into meaning.

World Artificial intelligence is changing the speed and scale of creative work. It can generate concepts in seconds, remix visual styles, write headlines, build mockups, extend images, and accelerate production in ways that once felt impossible. For creative and brand leaders, AI is already part of creative work.
As AI becomes more capable, a question emerges: not simply what can AI make, but what should we make, why should it matter, who is it for, and how do we know when something is not just visually acceptable, but strategically and emotionally right?

Introducing Image IQX from Xhilarate—a smarter, faster, more cost-effective way to create the visuals your brand needs. From initial storyboarding to campaign imagery to product concepts, what once required hours, multiple meetings, photoshoots, prototypes, and rounds of production… can now be created instantly—with a simple prompt.

A Smarter Guide to Building Better Customer Experiences. Customer experience is often treated like a downstream function, something owned by support teams, service reps, or automation tools after the real brand work is done. But that view misses the point. Customer experience is not the aftermath of branding. It is one of the clearest expressions of it. Every message, interface, interaction, and handoff tells customers what kind of company you really are.

Creativity Is Not Magic. It Is a System.
Great Ideas Are Built Through Iteration
What often gets labeled as a big idea is usually the result of many smaller, less polished ideas that came before it. The final concept may look simple and inevitable, but that clarity is earned through exploration, revision, and persistence. Great design rarely begins with certainty. More often, it begins with curiosity and the willingness to keep going, even when the right answer is not immediately clear.

For decades, the Pantone Matching System felt untouchable. It was the global color referee, the shared language between designers, printers, manufacturers, and brands. Pick a number, send a file, and trust that your blue in New York would resemble your blue in Tokyo. In an industry defined by interpretation and subjectivity, Pantone offered certainty, and for a long time that promise mattered.

In an attention economy built on speed, scroll stopping content wins by disrupting patterns, sparking emotion, and rewarding curiosity instantly.

AI can accelerate production, but true brand value is still built by human judgment, taste, empathy, and intentional craft.

As the creative world hurtles forward, 2025 is shaping up to be more than just another year of new visuals — it’s a full-on recalibration of how we conceptualize design, storytelling, and brand identity. After Behance analyzed thousands of top-performing projects on their platform this year, a handful of standout trends emerged. These mark a shift: from static to kinetic, from polished to personal, from cold minimalism to warm authenticity. For a brand like Xhilarate — dedicated to electric energy, bold experiences, and meaningful connections — these trends are not just inspiration, but a roadmap for forging deeper resonance with audiences.

Welcome to the Era of Synthetic Cinema: What Today’s AI Video Breakthroughs Mean for Creatives, Brands, and the Future of Storytelling. This year did not simply advance video generation. It transformed it. OpenAI released Sora. Google DeepMind launched Veo 3 with synchronized audio.

The Next Frontier: GEO AI Search and the Connected Intelligence of Place.

How Artificial Intelligence Is Transforming Discovery from Coordinates into Context
For decades, digital search has revolved around one thing—language…

Geofencing: The secret to turning your next conference into a lead-generating machine. Conferences represent a significant cost—booth space, swag, travel, staff time—but geofencing offers a data‑driven way to directly capture value from every attendee.

For more than five centuries, typography has served as the silent architect of communication—shaping how we read, remember, and react. From Gutenberg’s movable type to Massimo Vignelli’s disciplined grid systems, the choice of font has always signaled not just aesthetics, but authority. But in the digital age, something has quietly fractured.
Today, designers, publishers, and developers are increasingly turning away from traditional font foundries. The reason? Licensing confusion, inflated costs, and an outdated business model that no longer serves the speed and openness of modern creative workflows.

There was a time—not long ago—when search engine optimization was the holy grail of online success. Want more website traffic? SEO. Want to rank #1 on Google? SEO. Want more sales, subscribers, and credibility? You guessed it—SEO. But that world is gone. Dead, buried, and replaced.

In the world of visual design, branding, and generative AI, we thrive on originality. At Xhilarate, we push boundaries, challenge norms, and forge connections that resonate. Yet, paradoxically, we often find ourselves confined by the very frameworks we create. This is the paradox of design conformity—where innovation and stagnation sit uncomfortably close, and where the difference between leading and following is often just one bold decision away.

Design is a conversation between precision and expression. Geometry is control, a statement of efficiency. Gesture is freedom, a whisper of emotion. Hard edges are deliberate, calculated—they command attention. Soft edges are an invitation, a suggestion—they speak to the soul. A great piece finds balance between the two. It earns respect but also invites touch. It’s the tension between structure and fluidity that makes something feel alive.

When markets wobble and uncertainty looms, the natural instinct is to pause, pull back, or go quiet. But for brands—especially those with ambition—silence can be the most deafening response of all.
Instead of retreating, this is precisely when your brand should lean in.

Words aren’t just read—they’re experienced. In great design, copy isn’t isolated from the visual system; it’s part of the rhythm. Macrocopy sets the tone, guides the eye, and carries the message. Microcopy, meanwhile, whispers through the interface—calibrating mood, clarity, and interaction. Together, they create a cadence that moves users seamlessly through content and experience.
This article explores how the harmony between big-picture messaging and tiny textual cues creates a layered visual tempo—one that builds trust, sparks engagement, and shapes how users feel as much as what they see.

Step into a dreamscape where creativity becomes a living, breathing universe.
In every quiet moment between thought and action, there is a subtle echo—an invitation from the creative universe itself. It whispers not with answers, but with questions: What if? Why not? These echoes don’t just call us to create; they invite us to dream—to shape a dreamscape of wonder. They guide us toward deeper meaning and infinite possibility. In a world obsessed with speed and productivity, dreaming isn’t a luxury—it’s a language. A way of seeing. A way of becoming. A way of remembering what it means to truly create.

Creativity isn’t chaos—it’s the raw material of strategy. The best brands don’t just look good; they feel like they were meant to exist. That kind of resonance doesn’t come from a formula. It starts with vision, evolves through design, and gets sharpened by intention. This is how you build a bespoke brand—from spark to structure, imagination to identity.

Ever feel like your brain won’t stop buzzing with ideas—like you’re caught in a creative storm with no shoreline in sight? You’re not alone. For many creators, the problem isn’t a lack of inspiration—it’s too much of it. This piece dives into the emotional waves of idea overload and offers a more human, empowering perspective: what if drowning in ideas isn’t a crisis, but a sign that you’re truly alive?
When creativity overflows, it can feel overwhelming—like you’re lost in a tide of thoughts and possibilities. But within that chaos lies clarity, beauty, and direction. This is a story about learning to trust the current and turn idea overload into purposeful momentum.

We often talk about curiosity, creativity, mindset, and emotional intelligence as if they’re interchangeable buzzwords—but they’re each distinct, deeply human capacities that shape how we engage with change, solve complex problems, and drive innovation. While they are interconnected, each plays a unique role in how we think, lead, and collaborate. When understood and cultivated together, they become a powerful psychological framework—one that supports meaningful, adaptive, and sustainable growth across every level of the modern workplace.

Color is more than just an aesthetic choice—it’s a critical branding tool that influences how consumers perceive and connect with your brand. From evoking emotional responses to conveying cultural meanings, color plays a powerful role in storytelling. This four-part series explores the psychology, cultural perspectives, emotional triggers, and even the mystical realm of Colorstrology, all aimed at helping brands harness the true power of color.

Boozibles, the bold and playful alcohol-infused gummies brand, is proud to announce its prestigious Gold Award win at the 62nd GDUSA Package Awards. Selected from over 2,600 entries, Boozibles’ innovative and eye-catching packaging earned its place among the top 10% of submissions, a testament to the brand’s creativity and effectiveness in packaging design.

Color is more than just a visual experience—it is a powerful force that influences nearly every aspect of our lives. It shapes our emotions, defines cultural identities, and plays a critical role in psychology, design, and even metaphysical beliefs. From the warm glow of a sunrise to the rich hues of a painting, color has the ability to evoke deep-seated feelings and associations. But what is color, truly? Philosophers, artists, and scientists have long debated its essence, questioning whether it is an intrinsic property of the world or merely a construct of human perception, shaped by biology and cognition.

In an era where excess is the norm—more content, more choices, more noise—minimalism stands as an act of rebellion. It’s more than an aesthetic; it’s a philosophy, a mindset, and a strategic approach that challenges us to strip away the superfluous and amplify what truly matters.

Creativity is often misunderstood as an exclusive gift possessed only by artists, musicians, and innovators. In reality, creativity is a fundamental human ability, present in problem-solving, leadership, and daily decision-making. The challenge is not whether we are creative, but rather how we can cultivate and channel that creativity effectively (Runco & Jaeger, 2012).

There are those who walk through life content with the world as it is. And then there are the artists—the ones who look at a blank page, a silent instrument, an empty stage, a cityscape, or a block of stone and feel an undeniable urge to shape, compose, perform, or build.

In the world of visual design, branding, and generative AI, we thrive on originality. At Xhilarate, we push boundaries, challenge norms, and forge connections that resonate. Yet, paradoxically, we often find ourselves confined by the very frameworks we create. This is the paradox of design conformity—where innovation and stagnation sit uncomfortably close, and where the difference between leading and following is often just one bold decision away.

Last year, we adopted a dog, Cookie, who we were told is about 5 years old. Since she came from a puppy mill, her exact age is uncertain. Cookie quickly became part of our empty nest family, which included Chester, our beloved 17-year-old Maltipoo, who recently passed away. Chester was more than a pet—he was part of our lives for 17 incredible years. During their time together, Chester’s wisdom guided Cookie, teaching her how to be a dog, while Cookie’s youthful energy kept Chester young at heart. Their bond was a reminder of how experience and youth can complement each other.

Xhilarate Wins 2024 Platinum Crushies Award for Best Craft Beer Rebrand. Xhilarate is thrilled to announce that it has been honored with a Platinum award for Best Brand Refresh

3 Ways to Safeguard Against ‘Blandification’ in the Age of AI. The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) has undoubtedly revolutionized various aspects of our lives, including the intersection of

Brands Thrive on Consistency. Retailers Need Something Else. Winning loyalty requires a very different strategy for stores. Breaking the rules: That’s how many branding experts viewed Barnes & Noble‘s new, idiosyncratic approach to its store designs as it mounts a comeback and tries to fend off the likes of Amazon.

In the extensive realm of artificial intelligence, Generative AI emerges as an illuminating force, unveiling fresh bespoke creative possibilities. It ignites boundless imagination, enriches the ideation process, crafts tailored content, and propels prototyping forward with extraordinary efficiency and precision on this visionary journey. The symphonic and creative alchemy collaboration of Midjourney, Photoshop, Runway ML, ElevenLabs, and ChatGPT crafted a visual odyssey, encapsulating the essence of our generative AI video showreel.

We believe that 2024 will shape up to be an exciting year for branding, with a focus on authenticity, experience, and a splash of playfulness. Here are some key trends that our team predicts.

Xhilarate Honored Among The Top 10% Global Winners as a Clutch Champion for 2023. Branding and design agency, Xhilarate, today announced that it has been recognized as a 2023 Clutch Champion by Clutch, the leading global marketplace of B2B service providers. Clutch Champions is the company’s newest award given to the top 10% of Clutch Global winners, a designation that recognizes business service providers across the world for their industry expertise and ability to deliver exceptional results compared to other companies in their line of service.

LEGO Letterpress: Bird Species from The Netherlands Are Printed with Everyone’s Favorite Toy Bricks. Back in 2017, designer Roy Scholten and collaborator Martijn van der Blom brought LEGO into their letterpress workshops for elementary school students. Small and accessible to most, the ubiquitous plastic bricks were easier and faster to use than traditional lead type and were familiar creative tools for many of the children. Around the same time, the pair also developed a series of LEGO dinosaur prints in subtle gradients, an early collection that inspired Scholten’s ongoing project using the unusual material.

BMW makes it real with virtual creator Lil Miquela. German automaker BMW has unveiled its latest iX2 campaign featuring virtual creator Lil Miquela, to create an immersive experience for its target audience. Also known as ‘Make it Real’, the campaign idea aligns with the brand vision of “Freude Forever”. It will be available globally and launched in BMW’s core markets across EMEA, APAC and the United States.

How the Internet Has Become a Beacon For Artists. Time to use the internet to your advantage for showcasing your talent and launching your artistic career.

Adapt, Evolve, or Go Extinct: How to Design Successfully by Fusing Imagination with AI. I’ve been on a mission to discover how far I can stretch my creative abilities using new AI design tools. While AI offers the potential to streamline workflows, generate new ideas, and push the boundaries of innovation, concerns persist around biases, over-reliance, and the irreplaceable need for emotional connection, human intuition, and critical thinking.

Copy, Transform, Combine. Humans are inherent copy machines. Emulation is how we learn to walk, talk and navigate the world. But when it comes to ideas—especially ones we deem “original”—things are different. We become hyper critical of imitation and resent anything close to a copy of our own. Obsessing over ideological ownership. But what we don’t do, is turn that critical lens on ourself. Copy, transform, and combine. According to Kirby Ferguson, this is the recipe for creativity.

Rebranding Becomes a Family Affair for Three 3’s Craft Beer. Philadelphia, PA – June 12, 2023 – Mike Geller was living in Massachusetts, sharing his love of New England craft beers with his brother, Jon – even dabbling with brewing their own. So when their father alerted them to a brewery for sale just outside of downtown Hammonton, NJ, a road trip was in order. They visited, fell in love with the beer, and brought the idea back to their mom. That’s how a family craft brewery business became a reality.

Meadowood Unveils Rebrand Designed to Differentiate From Other Life Plan Communities. New look reflects the natural beauty, special amenities of an active lifestyle destination. Philadelphia, PA – May 30, 2023 – With the arrival of spring residents at Meadowood, a non-profit Life Plan community, can walk along its 135 acres exploding with color from lush gardens and wooded areas filled with birds and wildlife. Located in Worcester Township, PA, the college-like campus resembles a nature
preserve, offering a full-range of lifestyle choices, services, and amenities for people 62 and over.

The Rhythm of Your Screen. Length is not the problem; lack of rhythm is. It’s 2023 and I’m still frequently asked by clients about scrolling. I understand why. Every design comes with assumptions about how much content will be seen by people because the space in which people access our designs is the one thing we cannot control. Even with responsive design and scaling techniques, we don’t really know how much of what we make will appear on the screens of everyone who will look at it.

Reinventing the carousel. The research and design behind the evolution of the Material 3 carousel. For many users, there’s nothing like relaxing after a long day by scrolling through some of their favorite content. Maybe they’re feeling nostalgic, looking through photos of an old vacation they fondly remember. Scrolling horizontally back and forth, they can piece together the shape of those earlier days, recalling the exact moments the images captured.

How to Combat App Fatigue and Grow Your User Base. In the fast-paced world of mobile applications, app fatigue has become a common challenge for app developers. App fatigue refers to the weariness and disengagement users feel towards mobile apps due to the overwhelming number of options available. To combat this issue and attract more users, it is essential for app developers to understand the causes of app fatigue and implement effective strategies. In this comprehensive guide, we will explore how to cut through app fatigue and successfully grow your app’s user base. 

The world is changing rapidly, and it is no longer enough for graphic designers, illustrators, and photographers to rely solely on their artistic skills to create stunning designs. As technology continues to evolve, the demand for faster, more efficient, and cost-effective solutions is also increasing. In this era, it’s essential to embrace artificial intelligence (AI) design to stay relevant in the industry.

Unleashing the Power of Leonardo AI: The Future of Artificial Intelligence. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly changing the way we live and work, and one of the most exciting developments in this field is Leonardo AI. Leonardo AI is an advanced AI platform that uses machine learning algorithms to analyze data, make predictions, and automate processes. In this blog, we will explore what Leonardo AI is, how it works, and what its potential is for the future.

The Rise of AI Design and Its Creative Possibilities. AI design is changing the way Xhilarate thinks about creativity. New technologies like Midjourney AI, DALL-E, and Stable Diffusion AI are expanding the creative possibilities of design. In this blog post, Xhilarate explores the creative power of AI design and the boundaries-breaking future of these technologies.

6 A.I. Tools That Could Help Your Small Business. There’s a lot of talk about A.I and businesses lately, but as a small business owner, it can be difficult to tell the difference between what’s marketing jargon and what’s really going to help you run your business. In this video, I share 6 A.I tools that could have a huge impact on how you market and run your business.

Identifying the ROI of Design Systems. A design system is one of the most valuable tools a product design team has for maximizing the success of a project. It’s not a coincidence that virtually every major tech company, from Airbnb to Google and IBM, is heavily invested in their design systems.

GDUSA Honors Xhilarate’s ProFresh Breathcare Packaging. The packaging created by Xhilarate Branding and Design for the ProFresh Breathcare System was awarded top honors by GDUSA in its 2022 Health+Wellness Design Awards Annual.

3 Essential Design Trends. There’s a lot of experimentation happening in website design right now. Of course, there are micro trends everywhere, but these three elements seem to be holding steady and gaining more traction than most. This month’s biggest web design trends will look at a user interface element, video, and color. Here’s what’s trending in design this month.

Is Logo Design Worthless in Today’s Digital World? Logo design has been around for centuries, and it’s one of the most important aspects of branding. Logos play a vital role in helping businesses to establish their identity, build trust with customers, and create a lasting impression.

2022 Logo Trend Report. The 20th Annual Logo Trend Report presented by LogoLounge is full of all the good, the badass, and the ugly.

The rise and fall of neumorphism. How and why did neumorphism’s subtle blend of light, shadows, and curves come in and out of fashion so quickly?

3 Quick Tricks to Boost Customer Retention. Acquiring a new customer is difficult, but retaining an existing one is even more challenging. Yet, statistics show that efforts focused on retention bring way more value.

How to Create a Powerful Brand Identity: Quick Tips You Need to Know. Most organizations understand the importance of a logo. After all, first impressions are everything, and your logo plays an important role in making a memorable first impression.

Stylescapes: The Secret to Branding Success. When helping a client build their brand identity, a lot of things can get lost in translation. To avoid this, we use stylescapes before creating a concrete mock-up.

Top 10 graphic design trends to inspire your work in 2022. There can never be enough emphasis on the role that graphic design plays in our daily lives. Good design enhances the identity of our favorite brands and extends far beyond the appearance of an entity. We use it to provide information, convey messaging, or convince our audience through combinations of images, shades, and shapes.

Take Your Customer Experiences to the Next Level With Xhilarate. The customer experience you provide can make or break your business. From initial discovery to checkout, it’s important that you design experiences that appeal to each stage of the customer journey.

8 Trends That Will Shape the Future of Design. Design is largely driven by overarching trends, whether we’re talking about arts, fashion, or anything else. Web design is no exception, and businesses are taking note because site design dictates the user experience for your current and prospective customers.

The Dark Side of Minimalist Design: Reviewing Dieter Rams’ Iconic 10 Principles. Dieter Rams is one of the most influential industrial designers to ever live.

How To Spot Bad Graphic Design. Graphic design — beautiful and mighty. How to be the best at it? Let us find out together!

Repositioning an e-commerce brand to better define its target, messaging and overall look and feel. A robust Discovery process, including consumer research, provided insights for repositioning ProFresh – a brand that has been around for over 30 years. With research indicating that chronic bad breath is a challenge for millennials and boomers alike, the brand needed to strengthen its position and messaging, and refresh its appeal to engage with this broad audience.

The 5 biggest design trends you need to know in 2022. In the past year, trends in innovation and culture have changed more quickly and dramatically than ever before.

How to Give Your Content a Boost: Quick Tips You Need to Know. A beautiful design with user-friendly buttons and graphics will only get you so far if you don’t have the right content for your SEO marketing initiative. The meat and potatoes of your website and social media posts will ultimately dictate your ability to generate backlinks and attract new traffic.

The Impact of AI on the Branding Experience. Marketers are always looking for new ways to appeal to their customers’ ever-changing needs and preferences, and branding is the key to connecting with the audiences most interested in you and your product or service.

5 Big Web Design Predictions for 2022. Every year, at this time, blogs like this one like to try and predict what’s going to happen in the year ahead. It’s a way of drawing a line under the archive and starting afresh. A rejuvenation that, as humans, we find life-affirming.

10 design principles every designer should know. Simple rules guide you towards appropriate design decisions and help you make a more compelling case for decision-makers.

Xhilarate Births a brand. As any new parent knows, it is one thing to read about parenting. It is another when you bring that bundle of joy home, and it is all yours to nourish and grow.

Top 5 Logo Design Trends For 2022.

Pantone Color Of The Year 2022: Very Peri. The new color celebrates inventiveness and creativity and comes as a tribute to all creators worldwide.

13 Graphic Design Trends For 2022: Retro Uprise & Bold Ideas. What the future holds in graphic design trends 2022? Let’s get acquainted with the most distinguished ones.

Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives.

Xhilarate’s design for the Bertelsmann Foundation’s CEPI Program publication – The Human Program, A Transatlantic AI Agenda for Reclaiming Our Digital Future—was recently award Gold.

Is your project too human-centric? A successful product innovation fulfills the “three lenses of innovation”: desirability, viability, and feasibility. If your innovation process emphasizes one of them over the others, it is likely to fail spectacularly.

Design is not art, and UX is not design. Why designers have ditched the art persona and hijacked the UX industry.

Xhilarate is celebrating its 5th birthday and as we celebrate this milestone we would like to thank our Xhilarate family, friends and clients. We’ve come a long way and we could not have done it without your trust, partnership and ongoing support.

Xhilarate Featured on Design Rush as a Top Philadelphia Branding Agency. Xhilarate is a leading full-service, branding and design agency whose arsenal of innovation engages, excites and inspires its clients and its clients’ customers. We are a nimble and passionate team who collaborates with our clients to create and evolve brands to help their businesses grow.

Clutch Celebrates Xhilarate as Pennsylvania’s Top Branding Agency for 2021. Branding is one of the most common words thrown around by business owners and marketers today. What is branding and how can businesses capture its essence? Well, we have those answers and more at Xhilarate!

Xhilarate Creates a Visual Expression for FlowMetric’s VaxEffect®. FlowMetric, a Bucks County life sciences company, partnered with Xhilarate Branding and Design to create the visual brand expression for its recently introduced VaxEffect immune response test.

The Bertelsmann Foundation’s CEPI Program explores how Artificial Intelligence (AI) will impact our everyday lives around the globe—at home, at work, and at play.

UX Design Doesn’t Stop After You Launch: How to Keep Improving. It’s essential to continually optimize UX post-launch. With the constant changes of the internet — like the rapid rise of mobile and the massive pivot to e-commerce — being agile is a major part of user satisfaction.

The future of digital product design. Where will our industry be in five to ten years? In this article, I take a step back and share my ideas of how digital product design might progress. The exercise tries to connect the dots of technology, market evolutions, and design trends to surmise where the future value will be. Additionally, I’ve reached out to three additional Product Designers I respect and asked them to share their predictions as well.

The company was highlighted among the most innovative service providers for startups and small businesses.

Website design and development requires a step-by-step process to yield good results. Xhilarate visually maps out a step-by-step website creative and development process to ensure that its agency’s teams and its clients understand what is required to achieve success.

A partnership with Temple’s Beasley School of Law. In 2019 Xhilarate was selected as a preferred branding agency by Temple University’s Strategic Marketing Communications team.

A guide to the Modern Minimal UI style. Functional, readable, sleek, and sexy. There wasn’t a thing like this one until a long time and I feel like I’ve been waiting for a new, functional, and visually appealing design style to emerge. And it stole my heart completely.

Cognitive Bias and the Design Process. Designers are just as vulnerable to the blindspots and fallacies that come with cognitive bias as the people who use the products and services we design. Bias can creep into the design process when we aren’t diligent enough to identify and mitigate it upfront. A big part of avoiding this is by cultivating awareness of when and how they can be introduced into the design process and influence design decisions.

The Logo is Not Enough: The True Nature of Branding. With so many people still thinking that branding is superficial and unneeded, there are just as many people thinking that creating a logo and brand identity will magically transform their business into a brand.

What Is Microcopy and How Can You Use It on Your Website? Clean and concise copy on your website can be incredibly powerful. If you have to write an entire novel to convince your site’s users to take action, you’re probably doing something wrong. In many cases, only a few words should suffice to drive conversions.

What Is a Mobile First Strategy? Mobile first strategy is a web design and development approach that prioritizes the User Experience (UX) for mobile devices over desktops. With a mobile first strategy, the initial concept and subsequent prototype for a website or application will be created with mobile devices in mind. Designers and developers will consider the properties, features, and limitations that are unique to cell phones and tablets, including screen size and processing time, and design the prototype around those constraints to ensure optimal performance and visual appeal. The design will then be modified as needed so it can be desktop compatible.

Is your website extinct? Now, more than ever, your website needs to be operating at optimal levels.

Your website is your most valuable asset. It serves as the primary hub where your customers and stakeholders obtain information about your company, its product and service offerings, its core values and its position on sustainability and diversity and inclusion. It is where your customers are turning to fill the void that is the result of the loss of many in-person experiences due to Covid-19 restrictions.

Visual Branding: Don’t Launch With a $25 Logo. Let’s face it: cheap logos look cheap. There’s really no way around it. And as the first impression of your business and a reflection of your brand, you do not want to start off with a poor representation. Everything after will be an uphill battle.

You probably don’t need A/B testing. The best way to optimize your website is usually the simplest. More than ever, I speak with businesses that have ambitions of setting up their own optimization programs. They’ve heard the success stories, swallowed the hype and are ready to strap their conversion rate on a rocket to the outer reaches of the stratosphere.

The principles of sensory design. Sight isn’t the only way to experience the world: Senses work in tandem to guide cognition, movement, and communication. Experts posit that humans possess between 9 and 33 distinct senses, yet digital design routinely ignores neurological factors beyond sight. Sensory design principles emphasize the interconnection of human perception and prompt designers to explore non-visual solutions.

How to Create a Powerful Brand Identity: Quick Tips You Need to Know. Most organizations understand the importance of a logo. After all, first impressions are everything, and your logo plays an important role in making a memorable first impression.

How Web Design Can Turn Longform Content Into a Visual Story. Web design, websites, user journeys—there’s nothing new about these terms. They’ve existed for decades now.

GDUSA Presents Xhilarate with an American Package Design Award. The 58th GDUSA Package Design Awards recognizes Life’s First Naturals (PanTheryx, Inc.) as a winner in the Health and Wellness category.

Why video is a powerful vehicle for telling your brand’s story. Having a well-liked brand, product or service no longer guarantees success. Customers are seeking ways in which they can frequently engage with your brand on many levels.

Xhilarate Revamps Oakley Commercial Flooring’s Website. A new look and feel and user experience helps to take the Oakley Commercial Flooring brand A Step Above its competition.

The 4 most common design systems myths (and how to get past them). Creating a design system can be overwhelming, especially if—like at many organizations—it starts with a small team dedicating only a couple of hours each day to the effort. But even small teams can have a big business impact with the right processes and supports in place.

Is your brand ready for 2021? For a multitude of reasons 2020 was a year like no other– Covid-19, continued racial injustice and inequality, the stock market roller coaster and the election…to name just a few.

10 Graphic Design Trends for 2021: Experimental Art Arises. Have collected the major trends in graphic design for 2021 and asked the designers what they think about them.

2020 Year in Review. A Year For Which We Are Truly Thankful. We want to thank our team and our clients for helping to make us stronger and better in this very challenging year.

How Digital Art Space Artechouse Helped Pantone Unveil its Colors of the Year for 2021. The tech-centric art exhibition is looking to expand into more partnerships of a similar nature.

Xhilarate Becomes a 2020 Global Leader. Branding is the marketing practice of shaping your company’s identity through creativity and strategy. A brand can help your organization become recognized and if successful, help you stand out from the rest of your competition and establish a connection with your audience.

Xhilarate Awarded 2020 Global Top 1000. Clutch, an independent market research firm based in the heart of Washington, DC, released their 2020 rankings for the top 1000 B2B Branding and Design companies globally.

Brand Science 101. For me to use the term “branding industry” often feels odd, even though I work within it. The entry point for agencies and designers is low, and the speed at which consultants and authors have dominated the content space is enormous.

How to Build Social Media Presence: Tips For Designers & Creators. You tell your story by doing your creative work. But where will you share it if not on social media?

Creating The Visual Identity for Your Business. There are so many things to think about when first starting a business. What will your business offer? How will this differ from existing solutions? Who will benefit most from your offering? And why are you so passionate about this?

Bauhaus Posters: Getting Back to the Roots of Minimalism in Design. As legendary is the school, as inspiring this Bauhaus poster design will be.

How Creating a Unique Font Will Foster Your Brand Recognition. The value of having a unique font available for marketing and brand recognition purposes cannot be overstated.

Russ Napolitano Featured Guest on Be Your Best Podcast. Recently, Russ Napolitano, Partner, Xhilarate Branding and Design, was a featured guest on Gil Hanson’s Be Your Best podcast series.

Josh Higgins: Obama’s former design director on the new wave of political branding. I’d like you to pretend that I just handed you the world’s most mysterious design brief.

Xhilarate Supports OddsChecker in Creating New US Brand. A new logo, tagline and visual identity.

Clients loved this designer’s work. Turns out, he was an AI. A Russian design firm passed off computer-generated work as human, and it’s a peek at things to come.

Xhilarate is celebrating its 4th Birthday and is finding that its biggest gift is being “smimble.” Xhilarate is small, nimble (smimble) and we are quite proud of it!
During this current environment, brand marketers are being forced to zig when their original strategic plan was to zag. They are witnessing their best laid plans fall by

The 3 problems everyone has when first working remotely (and how to solve them). n hopes of containing Coronavirus (and keeping the global economy as stable as possible), many businesses all over the world are doing their part to limit unnecessary person-to-person interactions by requiring some or all of their employees to work from home for the time being.

Philly Branding Agency finds that it pays to be “smimble” during times like these. Xhilarate is small, nimble (smimble) and quite proud of it!

Keynote vs PowerPoint: Choosing The Best Presentation App. Picking one to meet your needs, projects and state of mind.

6 ways you can make your design more inclusive and equitable. Imagine: You’ve spent months working on a new product. You feel like you’ve crossed all your T’s and dotted all your I’s—but then the feedback comes pouring in that… your product isn’t as inclusive as you think it is. You’re stressed out, reactionary, and probably defensive. Ultimately, it feels like, despite your best intentions, you’re unable to create a product that’s truly for everyone if you’re only one person—so why even try to create for those who are different than you?

Social distancing creates new PPE brand touchpoints. As stay at home mandates are starting to lift and companies must think about how they welcome back employees to the office work environment, your employees’ well-being must be top-of-mind before you roll out the welcome mat.

What’s Good About Variable Logos — And Whether You Need One. A logo builds your brand’s image in the eyes of your audience. By making it unique and identifiable you manage to stand out from your competitors — as well assert yourself, tell your brand’s story, carry its message and capture its philosophy.

How effective is video advertising? 5 reasons to add it to your toolkit. Proof of video’s massive popularity is everywhere. Just consider this info: mobile video consumption rises by 100% every year, while video is expected to make up 82% of internet traffic by 2021.

The 3 problems everyone has when first working remotely (and how to solve them). In hopes of containing Coronavirus (and keeping the global economy as stable as possible), many businesses all over the world are doing their part to limit unnecessary person-to-person interactions by requiring some or all of their employees to work from home for the time being.

Why this is the best time to evaluate your website? I am a strong proponent that, while we are certainly experiencing epoch-making times, this is not the time to hit the brand pause button. Now, more than ever, your brand needs your attention; it needs you to identify what life-saving strategies can be implemented to ensure that your brand is thrown a life preserver so it can remain afloat as we move into recovery mode.

3 Essential Design Trends for 2020. Color, heroes, and a new way to create design depth are what we are looking at this month. Two of these three trends comes with some usability concerns but are a lot of fun to look at and play with. Would you take the risk of trying one of these design techniques? The third trend (up first in this list) is a new take on bold color palettes that shifts from some of the colors that have been overwhelmingly popular for a while.

All the things COVID-19 will change forever, according to 30 top experts. Tech exec, VCs, and analysts—from WhatsApp’s Will Cathcart to AOL cofounder Steve Case—on the pandemic’s lasting impact on how we live, work, and think.

Is this the right time to hit the “brand pause” button? These certainly are unprecedented times with the Covid-19 pandemic impacting everyone. There is no region, gender, age, race, culture, religion, economic status, or brand that is exempt. As far as humans go, we are all on an equal playing field.

Helping two cannabis entrepreneurs bring their dreams to life through branding that embraces their trusted roots and their farm dog, Truman.

Xhilarate extends its branding experience into the cannabis space through the launch of Fluxsy. Fluxsy – a one-stop branding and design agency with a focus on customer-facing cannabis brands in the health & wellness, food & beverage, pharmaceutical, wine & spirits, CPG, pet care and adult recreational industries.

6 underestimated soft skills that will make you a better designer. As a designer, you’ve heard a lot about building empathy, teamwork, creative thinking, and communication. Nowadays these soft skills are paramount to a designer’s skill set. But there are a few other overlooked soft skills that are also essential for designers. Below I’ll explain what these are and provide some tips for how to develop them.

Rise & Grind. We hope that you and your loved ones are safe and healthy during this challenging time.

Equipping two known lawyers with the branding tools needed to expeditiously launch a new law firm that was public facing within one month’s time.

How to maintain connections during these challenging times. Maintaining internal connections. Xhilarate has been a remote company since its inception. Here are ways we stay connected and engaged and how you can
maintain your company’s culture when everyone is working remotely.

The key lessons from where good ideas come from: by Steven Johnson. About the natural history of innovation.

7 Questions to Ask Before You Start Working With Your Creative Agency. A creative agency can be a great partner to help you achieve your marketing goals. Whether you need someone to help you produce content or figure out your KPIs, they have the knowhow to help you succeed. (Not sure if you need one? Here’s how to figure out.)

Naive Art, a Non-Professional Style that Favours Digital. Naive art raises mixed feelings, something between “my son can do better” and “wow, that’s gorgeous!” Is that why it’s so popular?

Design Trends Make You Average. Everyone wants to be trendy. In all relations. Everywhere. Just think how everyone is possessed with those articles about design trends for 2020, 2024, 2199 and don’t tell me you aren’t one of them.

How to crush your next business presentation as a designer. Every designer, no matter your role, must at some point give a business presentation. And whether you’re presenting research data to your team or project proposals to the C-suite, it’s important to think about how you’ll be delivering your message.

Everything is a Remix…Creativity and originality are very complex concepts.
How is the process of generating new ideas?

Steve Jobs’s real talent wasn’t design—it was seduction. Here’s what Jobs taught me about how sex sells.

Dieline’s Top 50 Package Designs of the Decade. Even though Dieline started back in 2007, this is the first time we’ve been able to take a look back at the entirety of a decade, and we’d be lying if we said that there wasn’t a seachange in the industry.

The hottest trend in book covers is colorful blobs. Designing book covers is famously difficult. It’s so hard we have an entire idiom that asks us not to judge the worth of something just because its cover turned out really, really ugly.

Why Businesses find Our Branding Work eXhilarating. When it comes to establishing an identity and voice for your brand, there’s both good news and bad news. The bad news is that the marketplace has never been as crowded and difficult to stand out in as it is today. The good news, however, is that if you can create something truly special, you could never have had an easier time putting your brand in front of millions of potential customers.

7 ways you can make your design metrics even more effective. Recently, I hosted a Fireside Chat about how to best communicate the value of design with Leanne Waldal (research leader at Dropbox, Autodesk, and more) and Kerry Rodden (co-creator of Google’s HEART framework).

Why Kodachrome was the Instagram of its time. Past Lives in Kodachrome: Anonymous family photographs from the midcentury

How To Decide Color Schemes For Websites And Brand? The color plays an enormous role when it comes to branding and designing.

UI/UX Design Trends for 2020. Twenty design trends for everyone in the world of user interface and experience to watch(out) for in twenty-twenty.

What Will Web Typography Look Like in 2020? Get ready to conquer the audience with your typography!

How a human-centered design system can transform customer experiences. Join us while we solve the mystery of building a human-centered digital banking experience for a 200-year-old French institution. Hint: Gringott’s vault door from Harry Potter has something to do with it.

Xhilarate Ranked as a Top Graphic Design Firm 2019 by Clutch. Here at Xhilarate, we understand how important a company’s branding design is to their growth. We aim to fulfill our client’s branding needs by crafting designs that speak true to their values and image.

5 trends UX designers should know for 2020. As UX design continues to transform companies and the products they create, the new year will see not only the permeation of design practices into all areas of successful businesses, but also the kind of cross-functionality, inclusivity, and specialization that’s indicative of a mature field.

Color Trends 2020 – See the Spectrum. Discover Lush Lava, Aqua Menthe, and Phantom Blue—three shades that will dominate 2020 and showcase the trend towards maximalism and saturated hues.

Back To Basics: What is Digital Marketing? The Internet has opened the floodgates for a wide variety of opportunities for businesses of all sizes. According to Internet Live Stats, almost 4.5 billion people—more than half the people on earth—have used the Internet. That number was just 400 million in 2000.

Building stronger women executives in the wellness landscape across the retailer, supplier and business partner communities.

Geometric design of grid-based artistry.
Put together the plain geometric shapes to carry out the majestic composition, praising modern abstract art.

Have a fiscal year-end surplus? Turn it into more revenue in 2020. Don’t give back your 2019 budget surplus to Finance or lose it to another brand-turn it into cash flow with a stronger brand in 2020.

A Typeface Created From Berlin Wall Graffiti Is a Sobering Reminder of Why Freedom Matters

‘Rising Oases’ project imagines a city of airborne architecture

One of the downsides of living in a major city is the lack of space. Packed train carriages, shoebox apartments, and traffic jams are among the regular reminders that space is a rare luxury in the most populous hubs.
But what if we could rise above it all, leaving the crowds and traffic behind for a peaceful haven in the urban skies?

Storytelling is a powerful communication tool — here’s how to use it. Many of the best TED Talks are built around stories, with speakers’ personal anecdotes helping them bring their ideas to life.

With new leadership who has a short-and long-term vision, FLDG is on a path to greatly impact the brand display market and grow their business by expanding capabilities among current clients, reaching new clients and entering new market segments.

A content creator produces entertaining or educational material that caters to the interests and challenges of a target audience. The content he/she produces can take many forms, including blog posts, videos, ebooks, photos, and infographics.

Over the past 14 weeks, Russ Napolitano, one of our Partners, participated in the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program (aka 10KSB) here in Philadelphia. Russ’ participation in this program meant a commitment to spend the entire day each Thursday in a cohort classroom environment at the Community College of Philadelphia – the site selected by Goldman Sachs for this program.  Russ officially completed the program by graduating as part of Cohort 19 on August 15, 2019.

Xhilarate Named Top Creative and Design Agency 2019. Clutch’s new data highlights the top Creative and Design firms in 24 U.S. States.

Zave has been capturing moments in-and-around the Philadelphia area for years now. Though he is often out-of-town on assignment, he is quite proud of his Philly roots. Zave has a knack for making people comfortable in any setting, putting them at-ease and capturing unique, candid moments.

This month, we celebrate the independence that our country strived so hard to achieve. It was the spirit of many like-minded people that drove the effort and helped to maintain the energy to ensure the vision was realized and that we paved the way for a new kind of society that respects individuality and the liberty to think, speak and act freely.

Xhilarate’s Unique Collaboration Helps Promote Web Accessibility and ADA Compliance.

Ethan Feinstein handcrafts drums because every musician deserves a unique bond with their instrument. Zave Smith captured some great shots of Ethan as he was in the zone doing one of the things he does best, crafting his own signature custom drums.

Design Mind Consulting is a full-service digital agency who required a unique identity that reflects their flexible and agile process. Our design team provided an array of logo options with bright, powerful colors and modern fonts to underscore the energy the Design Mind Consulting team brings to their clients.

Life was simpler when web designers only had to worry about formatting sites for desktop computers. Most monitors and displays were easy to design for, and one size fit most. Then came the rise of the mobile web.

Partnering with Bongo Marketing, we assisted Jeff Dailey as he prepared to launch his new law firm Dailey LLP.

Xhilarate understands that technology has entirely disrupted every industry imaginable and we could not be more excited to work with our clients to help optimize brand experiences across many brand touchpoints.

I am a designer by trade, but I often work as a project manager and I thoroughly understand the importance of both setting milestones

17-Year-Old Stanley Kubrick’s Photos From 1940s New York Reveal That He Was Always A Genius

100 years of Bauhaus: what today’s famous logos would look like in Bauhaus style.

World renowned LogoLounge recognizes Xhilarate for its creativity.

Your brand now lives in an environment requiring elasticity and flexibility. Is your identity able to traverse the multiple landscapes?

Explore design’s astronomical impact on business. We’ve all seen organizations throw money and headcount at design and remain stuck on the proverbial launchpad. So what’s the secret behind using design to power business outcomes?

I attended SXSW in 2011 and was met with the sights and sounds of people from all over the world gathering in an amazing display of diversity and personality types.

Your brand’s core messaging must be consistent to reflect its overarching positioning and promise.
Your brand messaging must also be tailored to speak specifically to each stakeholder group.

Take Stock of Your Brand’s Photography. The journey seems simple enough to embark upon, based on a theme or key message, you seek out an image that will best match your layout.

10 Great Sites for UI Design Patterns. You don’t want to spend your whole life redesigning the wheel do you? No, neither do we. If you are looking for a design that solves a problem that has been solved inside a different application before; then the template for your wheel is probably already out there.

10 fonts that you want and need for 2019. We’ve scoured the depths of the internet so you don’t have to, coming up with 10 of the best fonts for 2019.

2018 Year In review. Together we’ve conspired, collaborated, and created memorable moments and incredible results.
We’ve come a long way – thanks to you!

Design leaders at Microsoft, Google, Ideo, Pentagram, Gensler, and more weigh in. Everyone is overworked and unhappy. Digital platforms have sucked the last of our attention and sanity.

One agency leader said they have four generations of employees working there. I see this myself when I visit agencies and see the age spectrum.

Clutch names Xhilarate a creative and design agency ‘Global Leader’ based on our
overall performance and what our clients are saying about us.

Everybody makes mistakes—that’s a given—but we don’t always learn from them. Sometimes we make the same mistakes over and over again, fail to make any real progress, and can’t figure out why.

Storytelling through video can provide your audience with brand impact and play a dynamic role in your overall content strategy.

Culture increasingly has the potential to negatively impact agency new business, as brands demand more gender and ethnic diversity.

We strive to provide great work for our clients and we love being recognized for it.

Philly Ad News featured a close-up of our agency in their November-December issue.

Ideas don’t care where they come from. Be sure your purview is always set on wide.

Once again, our clients express their high satisfaction with the great work we do together.

Study doesn’t have to be arduous. A constant state of observation can go a long way.

Brainstorming can make your brain hurt, but if you change your approach, you can turn headaches into a head rush.

Imagining a new brand or offering in the real world can help your client team to see your vision more clearly.

Not everyone has a nuclear engineer for a father, but my dad taught me a few things about outlook.