The magic number: Celebrating three years of Treebird

Apr 14

The three great essentials to achieve anything worthwhile are:
Hard work, Stick-to-itiveness, and Common sense.
-Thomas A. Edison

To succeed in life, you need three things:
a wishbone, a backbone, and a funny bone.
-Reba McEntire

Humans like to make a big deal about the number three. You’ve got the Holy Trinity and the shamrock and the triangle. The Borromean Rings and the Valknut. Three witches in MacBeth, the three-eyed raven in Game of Thrones, three wishes from the genie’s bottle, three strikes and you’re out, Three Dog Night. Third Eye Blind—that’s the kicker.
At Treebird, we’re doing our best to balance Edison’s three great essentials with Reba’s. We believe hard work takes a backbone, stick-to-itiveness requires a funny bone if you’re going to avoid being a monster, and sometimes all you have to wish for is common sense.
Which brings us back to the number three. Think of a stool. A tripod. The balance and support conferred by three perfectly positioned legs. Support and balance—with our team, with our clients, with the wider world—has gotten us to where we are today. Here’s a slightly self-indulgent glimpse at how (hey, we only turn three twice!).
‘Birds flocking to a new office
You know what time of year is the least optimal time to move your office? If you thought “Well, right around Christmas would be pretty terrible,” then you’d be correct. But due to a series of circumstances beyond our control (which are also the worst kind of circumstances to face, by the way), we found ourselves doing just that.
So it was goodbye to our homestead on Ralph McGill and hello to our new hub at the Goat Farm. And we did so seamlessly, with grace and aplomb, because of the mutual support we all extended to each other. Paloma and Tina, Kyleigh and our newest ‘bird, Erin (more on that later) all pulled together to support an otherwise very stressful event. At a time when stress levels ran high and we could have let the situation control us, rather than the other way around, we pitched in, worked together, and, in the immortal words of Tim Gunn, made it work.

So now we’re settled just steps away from the animal pen where we sometimes spend our lunches feeding carrots to all manner of animals, a bucolic slice of life here in the heart of the city. And last year we also welcomed our newest staff member, designer Erin Rahill, who brings our SCAD alliance up to three, and who serves as our resident illustrator of things from type to graphic elements to Bob’s Burgers’ characters (see below). All told, there are five of us at the Goat Farm on any given day, with Jason crunching numbers from afar and Patrick popping in at random times dressed as if he’s on perpetual spring break.

Erin's interpretation of our Tina as Tina Belcher

So we moved. We’re growing. And we couldn’t have done it without us.

An ever-growing family of clients

Good fortune has run deep at Treebird for all of our three years, and for that we have our clients to thank. This year was no different, as we’ve built on established relationships with chef Ann Quatrano, Taste of Atlanta, and the Indigo Road Restaurant Group, with Greystar Residential and Marty Mason Collected Home, and with an assortment of fellow small, entrepreneur-driven businesses. We’ve also welcomed some exciting new clients into the fold, including Monogram Residential Trust, Perennial Properties, Rivergate KW, Gregg Irby Gallery, 4th and Swift, and local Atlanta celebrity Baton Bob.

Our client relationships are symbiotic—mutually supportive, reinforcing, and energizing. They keep us looking for unexpected and unique solutions, and we keep them looking fresh, sounding compelling, and communicating with authenticity.

It’s a true partnership, and we’re thankful that we can relate to each one of our clients not as a vendor or a mere provider of services, but as a valued part of a meaningful relationship. Thank you, one and all.

Oh—and we also refreshed our brand and website for our third year. Feel free to poke around while you're here.

Three years, by the numbers

7 employees.
231 clients.
57 website launches.
66 logos created.
22,088 emails.
3,012 phone calls.
102 meetings.
Zero dreams deferred.

Thank you all for being part of our Treebird adventure, which has always existed in a triad: entrepreneurial zeal, passion sharing, and good-willed effort. And we’d have it no other way.

Jaci Lund

Jaci Lund partner, creative director, designer Jaci’s quick wit and native intelligence comes across as soon as you meet her—and carries over to her design, where she fuses fun and sophistication in just the right doses. With a dual focus on creating original branding for new concepts and revitalizing the look and feel of even the most-established brands, Jaci approaches each project with a fresh and thoughtful perspective. While she recognizes the relevance of current trends, she’s hyper-conscious of the fine line that separates “trend” from “fad,” and tends toward more timeless and classic looks for her clients. Before founding Treebird, Jaci was instrumental in growing the design department at Atlanta’s The Reynolds Group, Inc. Through a five-year tenure that saw her quickly ascend to senior designer and then become the company’s first creative director, Jaci worked on design and branding projects with visionaries, entrepreneurs, and business leaders whom she admires greatly and whose own passion elevates her sense of what’s possible through new design, branding, and communication. Jaci has won nine ADDY Awards (and counting) for her design and branding work and has twice been featured in the national design blog “Art of the Menu.” She holds a B.A. in communications from Michigan State University and completed the graphic design program at The Creative Circus, where she also teaches a quarterly course called “Introduction to Creative Thinking.” To see Jaci's previous work please visit jacilund.com.

treebirdbranding.com