After spending a decade working at international design and branding agencies, Kristine Arth launched her own independent branding agency called Lobster Phone last April. Since then, she’s launched 22 brands under her unofficial tagline “I don’t sleep.” Lobster Phone, however, is all about creating iconic brands with bold personality, which Kristine passionately delivers to her clients. We spoke to Kristine about her branding philosophy, the story behind the name Lobster Phone, and why she loves working with founders.
On working with founders:
“My specialty is people, honestly. I don’t find that I focus in any category, field, or particular segment of an industry is my focus. My specialty is working with people and understanding their background because entrepreneurs have a very different outlook on life. They will climb that mountain at all costs, and I feel very similarly. My sign is Capricorn, I’m a goat. So I will always climb to the top of that mountain. I feel very in line with entrepreneurs in that way because I want to help them do their best work.”
“Kristine is what every person dreams of in a design partner to give your brand a soul and heart.” Julián Ríos Cantú, México City, Mexico, Co-founder and CEO, Eva Tech
On common startup mistakes:
“Entrepreneurs will come to me and say, “I want a logo, I want a campaign, I want this.” And I will say, you need a brand, you need strategy, you need a foundational promise to sell to your clients. And with that foundational brand strategy and a flexible brand, we’ll get what you want. The common mistake is to come with a solution versus coming in with the problem.”
Below, you’ll find the rest of the founder reviews, the full interview, and more details like pricing and fee structures. This profile is part of our ongoing series covering startup brand designers and agencies with whom founders love to work, based on this survey and our own research. The survey is open indefinitely, so please fill it out if you haven’t already.
The Interview
Yvonne Leow: Can you tell me a little bit about yourself and how you got into branding?
Kristine Arth: I originally thought I was going to be a ceramist. I went to school at Columbia in Chicago, and studied ceramics for about half a semester before I discovered the computer lab, and was like “Oh my God, everything is happening so fast there, this is amazing. It’s for me.” So I quickly moved into graphic design and never looked back. I started in advertising and marketing, and worked in Chicago for about 10 years at Leo Burnett, Wunderman, and then moved out to San Francisco to start fresh. Fuseproject, a top industrial design and branding agency, reached out to me, had me come in for an interview and the rest is history.
Yvonne Leow: Awesome. Why did you decide to start your own studio?
Kristine Arth: Well, I had a decade of corporate experience with big corporate brands before working at Fuseproject; there I learned so much working directly with clients, both startups and big guys. I designed PayPal’s logo and worked with Nivea and Western Digital, but while I was working at Fuseproject, I found out I had cancer. I think after going through that I realized that creative freedom was the most important thing for me; I didn’t feel like I had the creative freedom with corporate clients that I wanted. So that’s pretty much how Lobster Phone was born.
The reason I named it Lobster Phone is because Salvador Dali famously walked into a restaurant and ordered a lobster, and then he was disappointed when he didn’t get a boiled telephone. The story is that even though he asked for something that he wanted, they should have given him what he needed. And that became the business model for Lobster Phone. It’s knowing what they want but giving them what they need.
Yvonne Leow: That’s really cool. As an independent designer, what’s your branding philosophy?
Kristine Arth: I work with clients directly so, I’ll get to know them as a person and from there as a brand. Founders are intertwined with their brand. The client built that city and they’re the one who is going to carry it forward, so I want to really get to know them first and understand who they are. What I’m doing is discovering the intricate pieces of their personality so I that I can incorporate them into the foundation of their brand. That’s crucial for me because I can work efficiently when I have a direct connection with the CEO or entrepreneur.
The other thing to note is that I create brands with personality that are sometimes risky, bold brands, because it reflects the personality of the entrepreneur…but I also want to create flexible brands so they can grow and change over time. As startups, they don’t always know if their business is going to work. We’re all human. We don’t know if what we’re doing is always right. We just know that it’s right, right now. So I try to create a flexible brand system for them that will be able to adapt with their needs over time. I also make sure they have a very strong brand strategy, which shouldn’t change. That’s their position, their promise for what they’re going to deliver every day.
Yvonne Leow: What other factors do you consider when you’re taking on a new client?
Kristine Arth: Factors for me are, one, is it interesting to me? Because I am Lobster Phone. Is it work that will make people think better? Differently? Will it change their perspective in some way that is for good? I want to make sure the work is something that is good for the world. I also have to be able to work directly with the entrepreneur, and see that they are invested in the work and our vision is aligned.
Yvonne Leow: Can you tell me a little bit about what’s your favorite project so far and why you loved it?
Kristine Arth: Oh gosh there’s so many projects. This is really hard for me because every single project I work on is my favorite project because I pick clients that I love. I love what they do, I love who they are, I love what they’re trying to accomplish, and I devote myself to what they do. So when it comes to favorite projects, it’s really hard to single out one client.
Yvonne Leow: Haha, fair enough. If I’m a founder and we decide to work together, what’s the process like?
Kristine Arth: First we would take a call and I would want to find more about you: what keeps you up at night, and what you’re struggling with. I’d rather know the issues than what your solutions are because I want to understand how you’re thinking in order to solve what you need. I often go on site and work directly with my clients. We have weekly collaborative meetings with my strategy partner so that we can take clients along on the process. Nothing should be a surprise. What we’re designing and what we’re creating foundationally shouldn’t be a surprise when clients see it and hear it. It should be a playback of what they know, but maybe something they haven’t thought of.
Yvonne Leow: What kind of advice would you give founders who are trying to decide between going with Lobster Phone or a bigger agency, especially given your experience on both sides?
Kristine Arth: Lobster Phone is about creating iconic brands with bold personality. If they want to be safe, or be something that they’ve seen that makes them comfortable, it’s probably not going to be with me and I would say that a lot of entrepreneurs feel more comfortable when they’ve found a brand that looks like something that they’ve seen before.
I really encourage them to stand out and make something that is slightly uncomfortable, but makes them feel that their unique personality is reflected in their business. So I would say that I’m looking to embody the personality of the entrepreneur and bring that to life, and that would be the difference between Lobster Phone and going somewhere else.
Yvonne Leow: In terms of the different verticals that you’ve worked in, do you feel like you have developed a specialty or expertise you want people to know about?
Kristine Arth: My specialty is people, honestly. I don’t find that any category, field, or particular segment of an industry is my focus. My specialty is working with people and understanding their background because entrepreneurs have a very different outlook on life. They will climb that mountain at all costs, and I feel very similarly. My sign is Capricorn, I’m a goat. So I will always climb to the top of that mountain. I feel very in line with entrepreneurs in that way because I want to help them do their best work. I think that’s why you’ll see a lot of entrepreneurs now that are hiring experts to do their technology, experts to do their research, and experts to help them do their best work and the same thing goes for branding. The best thing they can do as an entrepreneur is to hire an expert and to let them do what they do best.
Yvonne Leow: Totally. What do you think are some common mistakes entrepreneurs make when it comes to branding?
Kristine Arth: Entrepreneurs will come to me and say, “I want a logo, I want an advertising campaign, I want this.” And I will say, you need a brand, you need a strategy, you need a foundational promise to sell to your clients. And with that foundational promise and with that flexible brand, we’ll get what you want. You’ll get those things. So that’s the common mistake is to come with a solution versus coming in with the problem
Yvonne Leow: Well said. Last question, what does your pricing structure look like for startups?
Kristine Arth: At Lobster Phone, we have three tiers for startups. We definitely want to give you everything that we can and that’s our top tier. I will also take on nonprofits and work pro bono as it interests me. You shouldn’t have to mortgage a house in order to have good design, and I strongly believe that being efficient and working efficiently, which is what I try to do at Lobster Phone, is really important to a startup’s process. We deliver what the brand needs and tailor that to each project. We also work for equity, but only for brands we’ve created from the start and built a relationship with.
Founder Recommendations
“Kristine from Lobster Phone designed our brand identity and narrative from the ground up, synthesizing our rough ideas into a compelling visual presentation of our mission. In particular, her superb work on our logo- which perfectly distills the ethos and focus we crafted as a start-up philanthropic initiative- allowed us to elevate how we present our organization.” – Bennett Rathbun, Boston MA, Adviser & Investment Committee Member, High Water Global
“Kristine is what every person dreams of in a design partner to give your brand a soul and heart. She has an amazing ability to take complex ideas and turn them into art, communicating them in a simple, yet powerful and beautiful way. She was instrumental in our transition from a medical and cold brand into a much more user-focused branding, this helped us increase by 177% the amount screened patients with our breast cancer detection technology (4500 total patients enrolled in trials).” – Julián Ríos Cantú, México City, Mexico, Cofounder and CEO, Eva Tech
“Company name, brand identity, company logo and product names.” – Hasier Larrea, Boston, MA, Founder & CEO at Ori
“Kristine is a vision partner – she’s able to bring to life what I see in my head and is also full of new ideas and creative ways. She gets things done, fast.” – Julia Plevin, SF, Founder, Forest Bathing Club
“Completed a comprehensive rebrand of packaging and identity and did so on expedited basis. She has also gone well beyond rebrand in developing go to market strategy. Recently developed a brand from scratch in time for retail entry in a new category.” – David Urman, Washington D.C., President and Chief Revenue Officer, Best of Organic
“Kristine is a transformative branding visionary and architect of some of the most well-known and innovative brands of all time such as Nivea, Paypal, LOLIWARE, AIGA, CoffeeMeetsBagel, & EVA. Aside from being a complete design genius, Kristine is one of the most hard-working, efficient, dedicated & committed design professionals we’ve ever worked with. We trust her implicitly.” – Chelsea F. Briganti, NYC, Co-Founder and CEO, LOLIWARE
“Kristine helped McVicker Pickles establish a brand identity that communicates our balance of authenticity and playfulness. Our previous designs were created one by one as we added new products, and as a result lacked cohesion. Working with Kristine, we were able to bring the logo, labels and marketing materials together into one brand identity that can grow with the company. Her ability to understand the core qualities of our brand and product and translate that into design was impressive, and she achieved it quickly.” – Kelly McVicker, SF, Owner, McVicker Pickles
“Kristine Arth from Lobster Phone, was one of the initial members of Flying Carpet Festival collective and has contributed immensely to our social project. She has brought several layers of depth and meaning into the visual aspect of our project, which are also reflected in every aspect of our festival and how it is curated very organically.” – Sahba Aminikia, SF, Founder and Director, Flying Carpet Music Festival