Austin Franke

I am the founder of Woo Punch Creative, a design consultancy rooted in the science of how brands grow. My philosophy around brand design is largely rooted in the research of Byron Sharp, Jenni Romaniuk, Daniel Kahneman, and Robert Heath.

A few years ago when I taught myself design and started designing brand identities I came across Sagi Haviv's TED Talk and that really helped me wake up to what makes a logo great. Since then, as I dug into the science of how brands grow, I came across empirical research that verifies what seems to have been intuited by Chermayeff & Geismar & Haviv. Simple and distinctive design (in fact, meaningless design even) is a powerful tool to get inside consumer's heads.

Over the last 3 years I have been discovering and writing about the myths in the brand design industry that have been perpetuated by gurus without evidence to back their claims up.

More recently, I have started transitioning back to design after discovering how effective distinctive design is as a tool for brand growth. That is why I am taking this course, to sharpen my design skills.