Friday Flash: Designing a new idea

I asked myself a question four months ago:

What would I do if I had a few million dollars to start a real estate brokerage company right now, free from inertia, internal politics, and conventional expectations? 

“Right now” being the important part. The dust storm of confusion and dread that has swept over the real estate industry landscape since last fall has been brutal. How might we see through it to opportunity?

I decided to explore this by creating a fictitious real estate company we’d “launch” at our inaugural 1000WATT Brand & Marketing Summit. By presenting a developed concept, we could get traditional leaders at the event thinking about how to use this moment of extraordinary change and consumer awareness to move forward, and perhaps inspire some of the proptech folks to build something new.  

Introducing Avanti

I called the pretend venture Avanti. Avanti is the Italian word for “forward.”  

I enlisted the help of three smart real estate and proptech leaders to develop the concept: Heather Harmon, Craig McClelland, and Chelsea Illegio. They contributed generously to what I came to label “The World’s first Flexible Homebuying Service.” 

Heather, 1000WATT Creative Director Brandon Sonnier, and I presented the Avanti concept on stage at the Summit three weeks ago. Jack Miller, CEO of T3 Sixty, joined us to discuss it. We not only explained the idea, but showed a full Avanti brand visual identity, high-level messaging, ads, and a home page design our team had created. 

It was one of our most popular sessions. Most everyone in the audience got something from it. And we successfully expanded the conversation about our future beyond the usual disruptor/incumbent set-up. I am grateful to our audience for elevating the discussion. 

In short, Avanti is an app-driven, retainer-and-menu model focused exclusively on home buyers. We could, and did, debate the merits of this, and our belief that context makes an old idea (menu of services real estate) newly potent, whether it is used as a lead-generator in a traditional company, or pursued as a pure play. 

Designing an idea

But that’s not what I want to show you here. I want to show you how a business idea, and a point of view, can be brought to life. Brandon and our design team created a visual identity that reflects the notion of possibility and choice at the heart of the Avanti idea. Visuals were derived from attributes carefully selected to align with the moment, and the brand’s target customer. Color, type, and photography style were calculated. 

It’s a fine example of how design is integral to business strategy. 

You can see some of the Avanti work below, and you can get a fuller picture (including the full home page design + copy) here on the 1000WATT website.