What’s the deal with the hat?

Get noticed. Be remembered.

I began wearing a red beret in the mid-1980’s, when I was living in San Francisco. In the year-round wind and fog, wearing a hat was not a fashion statement, but a practical solution to the problem of a stiff wind blowing in off the Pacific. I discovered that whenever I wore my red beret, people noticed me, and remembered me. People began to identify me as “the woman in the red beret.”

When thinking up a name for my business, I thought the red beret was a good symbol for effective branding: it’s practical, yet eye-catching. Classic, but not predictable. It’s warm, yet it reaches out and grabs your attention. It gets noticed and remembered.

The Red Beret Design approach to design is similar: Solve the problem, but do it with style. Get noticed. Be remembered.