Emily B Flynn

My work on a brief yet impactful freelance project with the reputable marketing and design agency, Savage Bureau, proved to be an eye-opening and pivotal experience in my career.  

These few months working with this agency helped with my impostor syndrome more than you can imagine. A former project manager referred me to this position, knowing I could flex some creative cred into a few naming projects they were pretty stuck on…I wasn’t so sure. 

My role centered on the creation of naming pitches requiring an interesting balance — they had to be concise and imaginative while immediately resonating as something sellable and exciting. What’s more, with the shifts in how the spread of development in Silicon Valley is igniting calls for consideration of established communities, I had to keep in my mind how this crafted identity might play to local residents at a town hall or grand opening. That meant having to craft copy that delivered a fine-tuned fusion of community appeal and commercial viability. 

I got the initial debrief and a week to catch up on this 1.5 year long project and next thing I know, I’m giddily researching the type of bedrock and native fish that dwell in a tiny creek in Belmont, CA the city is forcing the contractors to build around. I used this info to pitch building names like “Alluvium” and “Loma” for life sciences buildings hoping to house the makers of more ethically cultured meats or whatever. It wound up being incredibly fun and exciting to help build out these decks, and I never in a million years thought I’d get a kick out of brand creation for the “disruptor” class. I look forward to the day I can be using some sort of mini biotech gadget and can look at the person next to me and say, “Guess what? I named the building where they created this.”

Added to that was how wonderful the team of agency leads, designers, and project managers was to work with. Savage Bureau is a small, but successful firm and I learned a great deal from working 1:1 with seasoned brand strategy folks. 

This is where I got to first take my very rudimentary training in Figma and put it to the test. Though, to be fair, I used my enormous 1975 Merriam Webster Thesaurus just as much. 

March 2022 – May 2022