We only work with organizations who seek to benefit the earth or society (ideally both).
We create work with wit and whimsy that subverts expectations, breaks clichés, and makes you look twice twice.
The Office of Ordinary Things is a climate, sustainability, and social good-focused design studio based in San Francisco. Two important things to know about us:
Legacy Name
From 2010 to late 2020, we were based in Boulder, Colorado and went by Cast Iron Design. In 2020, we moved our practice to San Francisco and changed our name to The Office of Ordinary Things (aka TOOOT).
Services
We’re at our best when we can work broadly and comprehensively. Most of our partnerships start with branding and extend to print, web, or packaging. Here’s a non-exhaustive list of what we can do:
Branding
Brand Strategy
Print and Editorial
Collateral (Swag)
Packaging
Web Design
Web Development
Copywriting
Signage
Wayfinding
Photography
Motion (Animation) & Video
3D Modeling
Values are integral to our practice. We partner with like-minded organizations who lead with impact.
At a high level, we center:
Equity
Access
Sustainability
Honesty
Care
Intentionality
Our understanding of these values is intersectional: exploring and emphasizing how they are shaped by race, class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, ability, and other identities/factors.
We’re most often drawn to partners working in the following areas:
Environmentalism, Sustainability, and Climate
Antiracism, Civil Rights,
and Social JusticeQueer and Trans Rights
Animal Welfare
Feminism
Arts and Culture
Healthcare and Education
Nonprofits and Co-ops
Small Businesses
Typically, as long as you’re making a positive impact, we’re pretty excited to work with clients of all shapes and sizes. However, there are a few things that really grind our gears:
Industries that have a disproportionately harmful effect on the planet, people, and/or animals (e.g. fossil fuels, weapons manufacturing, factory farming).
Dishonest, misleading, unproven, or disingenuous marketing (e.g. oversized packaging, sketchy fine print, “healing” crystals).
Profiting off of fear and insecurity (e.g. pseudoscience, predatory mysticism, body shaming, guilt-tripping).
Ripping off a competitor’s style rather than finding your own voice.
Sustainability is one of the most pressing issues in design. We’re working to do better and help reshape our industry.
Design wields tremendous power and influence, often at the cost of the planet. We’re actively working to reduce our environmental impact while helping others to do the same, through:
Sharing our knowledge with industry peers through the sustainability segments of our case studies.
Speaking at conferences and in classrooms. We educate designers on sustainability—hoping to inspire, motivate, and catalyze sector-wide paradigm shifts.
Supporting plant-based diets and proactively avoiding support of the meat industry. Our starting point is a company-wide meat-free policy.
Being part of One Percent for the Planet. In 2023, we chose to support The Cultural Conservancy, Farming Hope, and Planting Justice.
Community is the foundation for all change at micro and macro, local and global scales. We seek to cultivate genuine, respectful, and vibrant spaces for designers to come together.
In response to a palpable lack of welcoming, vibrant, and engaged design spaces and events that focused on curiosity, creativity, and connection, TOOOT teammates Jonny and Giorgia started Designers Openly Opposing Outsize Disconnectedness (DOOOD) in 2022. Rotating hosts from the Bay Area design community lead regular events open to the public, including civic design workshops, happy hours, critical theory reading groups, listening parties, movie nights, and more!
The Office of Ordinary things is located on the unceded lands of the Yelamu people of the Ramaytush Ohlone.