A design and creative studio modeled on the ethos and work ethic of its namesakes
INNATE WAYFINDING
Rooted in clean design and a curious approach, Hobo Pigeon helps target audiences navigate a world full of wonder—and information—by providing thoughtful and engaging brand-driven visual solutions. Capabilities include brand identity and guidelines, editorial design, presentation design, white papers, infographics and data visualization, multimedia, site refreshes, print, and more.
FIELD EXPERTISE
Hobo Pigeon helps brands and institutions evolve their presence, perception, and impact. With a soft spot for visual identities, the studio specializes in providing multi-channel brand continuity across multiple campaigns. Whether you have established brand guidelines or are taking incremental steps, we’ll work together to find sensible solutions for your team.
Work
Hobo Pigeon has delivered high-end design, creative direction, and strategic branding to corporations, small businesses, cultural institutions, tech innovators, restaurants and brewers, and big dreamers.
Meaningful communication yields bounties.
Clients include industry pioneers Almanac Beer Company, local restaurant Union Standard, entrepreneurs from Dragonfly Castle to WorkshopSF, and global brands including Nestlé and Google.
About
Founded in 2012, Hobo Pigeon Studio has called the Northern California, Mid-Atlantic, and Pacific Northwest regions home.
The idea of a creative studio dedicated to the wonderfully pedestrian goal of making the world easier to understand took shape on San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge. Since then, the studio has provided dependable graphic design and visual strategy to corporations, partner agencies, and individuals. Guided by the intersection of its namesakes’ ethos and insights, Hobo Pigeon was founded by Bryan Keever, a Rust Belt native.
A graduate of Ohio University’s School of Art & Design, Bryan’s BFA in Graphic Design began with a childhood interest in toothpaste packaging and culminated in a full-scale fabricated highway sign and detailed guidelines manual exploring a safe, efficient, and effective system to help drivers traveling around U.S. cities. He lives and works on the north bank of the Columbia River—a mere two-bridge train ride from Portland, Oregon.
Ethos
HOBO
A hobo, traditionally, is a dedicated and skilled worker. Etymologically, the term may come from the phrase “hoe-boy,” signifying one who helps on the farm. Hobos did more than pick crops, clear fields, and log forests: They helped build towns and sustain economies—and some even fought forest fires. Notably, they shared and leveraged their learned skills and insights with others down the line. The term is often misunderstood and deserves our cultural respect: Separated notionally from those who avoided travel or work, a hobo did both—reliably providing capable, necessary, vital work.
PIGEON
The rock pigeon (columba livia) is found across the entire continental United States. While drawn in native habitats to inland or coastal mountains, pigeons in their adapted environments gather in places inhabited by humans—notably, farms or towns. True to its moniker, the city pigeon is a ubiquitous, energetic, and highly-adaptable presence in our urban landscapes. No matter the environment, these historically athletic and reliable birds—worshipped in ancient cultures and widely domesticated—have evolved with their times.
ETHOS
Hobos and pigeons are kindred spirits. Both expertly navigate, respectively via railway networks and innate systems guided by Earth’s magnetic fields. Both thrive working together: Adapting to ever-shifting environments, hobos developed a catalog of coded visual communication—widely understood markings placed on signs and buildings for others passing through. Pigeons similarly display an intuitively-understood system of syncopated turns in their daily flight routines. Both hold indelible legacies as part of the ever-changing zeitgeist of time, place, and shared experience.
Sources: Wyman, Mark. Hoboes: Bindlestiffs, Fruit Tramps, and the Harvesting of the West. New York: Hill and Wang, 2010 • Blechman, Andrew D. Pigeons: The Fascinating Saga of the World’s Most Revered and Reviled Bird. New York: Grove Press, 2006 • Audubon.org: Various contributors, “Guide to North American Birds: Rock Pigeon” • Wikipedia contributors: “Columbidae, Freighthopping, Hobo”
