The design brief was simple: “Spark conversation.”
When the new Canadian boutique agency, Wildfire Experiential and Events, needed a visual brand identity, founders Kelly Thorpe and Bianca Knop turned to their former colleagues at Vancouver-based integrated marketing firm Cossette.
The design team, which includes art director Cameron McNab, created a branding suite tied together by graphic elements, like a two-color palette and backslashes (\) that form an abstracted “W.” While the rest of their identity suite looks modern and clean, the stroke of genius came in the design of Wildfire’s interactive business card.
“The business card was the result of many concepts—we tried paper, metal, plastic, die-cutting, laser cutting, embossing—and ultimately landed on an application of a transparent adhesive mixed with tiny grains to give it the rough, strikable surface that would ignite a match,” McNab tells Quartz.
The business card concept was not only a memorable graphic trick, but it echoed Wildfire’s promise of “leaving a lasting impression.” The design has helped draw attention to the new agency that was launched in February this year.