A studio for the visionaries leading their own path.
GATLING is a multidisciplinary design practice and consultancy specializing in clarifying vision and shaping identity for visionaries walking in their calling.
A visionary is someone that creates out of their vision what others cannot see. Whether it’s a company, product or project, vision takes clarity to make progress in it and it’s hard-earned. Many of the most talented minds of the day are clouded visionaries, looking to create from their purpose without a clear sense of what that looks like. Leaving them feeling lost when aiming to make what matters most.
Although it's common to find design partners who can refine branding, it's relatively rare to find a partner that clarifies vision. We assist visionaries in understanding their core essence, thereby enabling them to see what is most meaningful and providing a clear image of their fullest life and work realized. Our role is to guide visionaries towards the calling in their work, empowering them to make progress with confidence, creativity, and clarity.
Using techniques from design thinking, art direction, and brand strategy, we capture the spiritual authenticity required to identify and visually represent their unique calling with imagination. Our capabilities encompass clarifying vision (both personal and corporate), shaping brand identity, and providing strategic and creative direction.
A new path requires a different compass
If you feel lost when trying to clarify your purpose and vision, you may frequently mirror the paths of others. However, you cannot clarify your vision using someone else's authenticity. We need a new direction to give us a clearer view of where we are to go, and that is by going inward to truly see who we are. We need a new compass that will mirror who we are as much as it gives direction into our calling.
What is needed is the Vision Compass
GATLING’s signature service, the vision compass, serves as both a guide and mirror to inform meaningful direction in your life work. Serving the hidden needs of the visionary of tomorrow, we reflect spirit to inform vision.
Using an intimate and relaxed conversational approach, we look through a spiritual lens to uncover hidden truths and stir creativity. We first serve the visionary behind the vision, giving language and clarity where they were once clouded when imagining their life in its greatest and most meaningful form. We then use this to lay the foundation of the brand's purpose, mission, and vision to fully unlock the authenticity lying dormant within our client's unique calling.
A series of relaxed and thoughtful conversations
Three to four 90 minute conversations using normal words, thoughtful questions about what you know best (you), and a ready listener genuinely excited to learn about you and your vision.
A reflection of you
You’ll have a clear vision statement for your life to give you the needed energy for the path ahead, a confirmation of who you’re most fit to serve in this world and an understanding of what you must remove to best serve the people you are called to. You’ll walk away reminded of the potential in you, the purpose in your work and the beauty of your life path when aligned with your calling.
Lived-in language
You'll use language that reveals you've not only seen the vision, but have also lived in it. You'll have powerful messaging that can spread the vision beyond your own belief when shared. Your language reveals your location, and the clearer you can paint the picture of your vision at work, the more others can grasp it and make it a reality that others can touch and see.
A series of relaxed and thoughtful conversations
Three to four 90 minute conversations using normal words, thoughtful questions about what you know best (you), and a ready listener genuinely excited to learn about you and your vision.
A reflection of you
You’ll have a clear vision statement for your life to give you the needed energy for the path ahead, a confirmation of who you’re most fit to serve in this world and an understanding of what you must remove to best serve the people you are called to. You’ll walk away reminded of the potential in you, the purpose in your work and the beauty of your life path when aligned with your calling.
Lived-in language
You'll use language that reveals you've not only seen the vision, but have also lived in it. You'll have powerful messaging that can spread the vision beyond your own belief when shared. Your language reveals your location, and the clearer you can paint the picture of your vision at work, the more others can grasp it and make it a reality that others can touch and see.
Approach
Navigating creativity as a spiritual practice
Identity
The Vision Compass process starts with identifying the calling of the visionary-to-be. After a few conversations centering your life and its experiences, you will have a vision statement that captures your passions, uniqueness, hopes and heart that will spiritually charge you moving forward.
Personal Vision Crafting
Strength Inventory
Tribe + Enemy Discovery
Vision
When we understand who we are, we have a better view of the world we’re best fit to create. Using the authenticity discovered in the Identity Phase, we further clarify the image of your vision at work and determine the language needed to guide meaningful direction.
Brand Vision Crafting
Verbal Identity
Direction
A vision without a strategy is just a dream. Goals within a culture not aligned with vision-led values will lead to confusion and frustration. Our service helps identify future goals that will bring the vision to life. We will collaboratively produce a Vision Map to guide the business and brand towards purposeful activity and meaningful results.
Audience Discovery
Brand Strategy
Vision Mapping
Design
Building upon the prior foundational phases, a visual identity system will be created that best reflects the vision and truth of both visionary and brand. Crafted with spiritually informed intention and a clear brand strategy, your brand’s aesthetic will be as authentic as it is impressive.
Visual Identity
Website Development
Art Direction
Print + Digital Design
Frequently Asked Questions
What does calling have to do with branding and marketing? I just want a professional logo and website.
Looking the part is the smallest part. Looking ahead with clarity is often the missing part.
3 out of 5 small businesses every 5 years close their doors for good and it’s not because they had poor logos, bad products and sloppy messaging. It’s because their founders set out to solve problems in the world they were not spiritually fit to execute. They lacked the necessary conviction and connection to a purpose that can only be reached from within a more spiritual truth. They lacked the vision needed to lead powerfully as well as the commitment to the mission to pay what’s needed.
What makes GATLING different from other design agencies and brand consultants?
We start before their beginning.
When needing a new brand identity, many branding studios start by discussing the project or its purpose. However, we take a different approach by focusing on your purpose and identity. We have observed that entrepreneurs and founders who want to infuse their purpose into their work need a process to shape their spiritual identity first before authenticating their brand identity. Their goal is not just to appear reputable or different from others, but to be honest.
Many visionaries feel frustrated because they are alone in clarifying their purpose and vision, seeking something they have never seen before. They have questions that design practices are not interested in or capable of answering, which prevents them from accessing the true meaning in their work.
Using techniques from brand strategy and graphic design, we use these tools of clarity to bring more meaning to our clients. We design clear pathways to a purpose uniquely theirs and powerfully meaningful, with the intention of letting this force drive and refine all of the creative work to come. Designing a fuller expression of identity that is sure to clarify as it is compelling.
How long does this process generally take?
For the more traditionally packaged projects, timelines can span from 6-8 weeks.
What do clients appreciate most about this service?
The story-led approach to clarifying unique insights about their uniqueness, strengths and purpose. In three conversationally relaxed discussions, there is a one-to-one dynamic that allows for clients to feel comfortable reaching deeper within and dreaming far beyond their limitations often felt in boardrooms. Tears (and limited views of self) are often shed and new relationships to self and purpose are formed on the other side of this process.
