Since the start up’s fall 2012 inception, Find & Form has provided corporations as well as non-profits with innovative and dynamic branding, web design, and development products. And now that the company has its home base in the South End, the creative crew is preparing to reach out to the South End neighborhood and give their one-of-a-kind products–pro-bono–to causes in the Boston community. The team's newest project? Helping a thirteen-year-old boy launch his idea for a music event aimed at raising money for a Camp Kesem, a summer camp for kids whose parents have cancer.
When it comes to giving back, the Find and Form philosophy is, "if you're going out of your way to help your community and doing everything you can, then we're going to make that push as well," John Lopkin, one of Find and Form's founders, says.
Find & Form forged its collective mindset back in 2011, when the company’s founders, Darion Miller, Dave Widger, and Jon Lopkin, joined professional forces at the Newbury Street co-working space, N. Candle. (The three men have known each other for a while–Miller and Widger are cousins, and Lopkin is one of their best friends). Their first big assignment together was a website development project for Tro Jungl Brannen, or Tro JB, the global architecture firm responsible for building the State Street Financial Center. Once they got a few more successful projects under their belts, the threesome decided it was time that they looked for an office of their own. "We graduated from the co-working space," Lopkin jokes. "We needed to find some place where we could put graffiti on the walls, that was the main thing."
And graffiti they did, once Find and Form officially moved to it Harrison Ave. space in October 2012. It's hard not to notice the light gray spray of shapes and forms that stretches down the exposed staircase, through the [typically open] door of the studio, and sweeps over its white-washed walls. A couple of brightly hued modern paintings and a pair of cardboard animal heads also adorn the space, while a large iron ampersand perches in a window frame above a record player, looking ready to be fed a fresh vinyl.
Once they settled into their spunky new spot, Miller, Widger, and Lopkin soon began taking on clients under the Find & Form name and added two more to their team: Yifan Frances and Jenny Miller. Find & Form’s motto, "the digital world craves old school craft," sums the start up’s unwavering commitment to offering high-quality services in a world saturated with shoddy and self-limiting technology. “We’re really getting back to idea of craft, like a blacksmith, taking the digital world but using your hands to create it,” says Lopkin. “If you’re goal is to create a brand and stand out in more ways than one, then that’s where we come in," Widger explains.
What Find & Form promised, it delivered. The company began to get into partnerships with companies such as Berman Creative and e-commerce agency One Pica, which allowed them to pick up work with audio company Tivoli and the Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay.
Even though Find & Form has some big names on its resume, the start up works most often with companies of its own breed: young Boston enterprises looking to make a difference in their respective markets. “We work with start ups...about 70 or 80% of the time,” says Widger. “We truly care about the success of our customers, and we don’t like to see people fail,” Miller shares. “We go above and beyond just the design and development, we give them experience advice.”
The six person team most recently worked with an eclectic slew of clients including, Haymakers for Hope, an organization trying to K.O. cancer through community boxing matches, the Sneaker Museum, a shoe lover’s expansive and colorful display of his Air Jordan kicks collection, and the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center’s One Hundred, an event that took place June 5th honoring individuals' fight against cancer.
The latter project led Find & Form to its current pro-bono work for the company’s youngest client to date: 13-year-old Corey Jacobsen. Though neither Jacobsen nor any of his family members have cancer, Corey is committed to raising money for Camp Kesem, a camp for children of cancer patients, through an annual concert, put on by he and his brother. “We had never seen that before,” Widger shares, “we thought, ‘we really want to work with this kid and help him stand out.’”
Though they have not officially decided yet, the good people of Find & Form will probably be taking on about one or two pro-bono web design and development clients a year for causes the team really cares about.
And now that the company has settled into its South End space, the team is eager to bring fellow creatives in to use their office’s “positive, creative atmosphere” to engage the community in ways that Find and Form can’t. Because Find and Form is located right next to the SoWa Market, the space "get[s] a lot of foot traffic past here,” says Widger. “We’d like to have some more pop-up shops and art shows in the space.” Currently, Find & Form hosts “First Friday” events, where everyone is welcome to come sip some spirits (whiskey is the team's libations of choice) and enjoy whatever art grazes the office’s walls (Yes. Oui. Si. has been there). This community–minded graphic design start-up is ready to give back in every way it can. And it looks like Boston is ready to support them.
