You can tell you are walking into a room full of creativity when you walk through the doors of Lemonly.
There is no other way to describe their Main Street office in Sioux Falls other than aesthetically pleasing (and their branding game is strong). Not only is there a giant yellow wall right in the entrance, but there are lemons everywhere, from decorations to business cards to their logo. Their website, lemonly.com, has the same effect. When you walk through the doors, you will pleasantly be greeted by a Lemonhead (the word they use to describe their team members), and beyond that is where the magic happens.
The journey to creating the home of the world’s best infographic started out as a side project but flourished into a world-class company. Eight years ago, John Meyer, co-founder and CEO of Lemonly, and his brother started up an inbound marketing company called 9 Clouds. The brothers decided to hire their first employee, Amy Colgan, co-founder and creative director for Lemonly, to help them update their Facebook page and create posters, etc.
“Lo and behold, we started designing websites and a little bit of everything. We started making these things called infographics, which in 2011, started becoming really popular,” remembered Meyer. “Amy and I said, ‘What if we did this full time?’ It didn’t start as full time, and we just kind of did it as a side project with 9 Clouds, but then the phone just kept ringing.”
The duo left their positions at 9 Clouds to pursue their fast-growing business and now create visuals for numerous world-class companies such as Disney, Marriott, Major League Baseball, NHL, and NFL. When choosing people to join their team, Lemonly values creativity and talent over the location. Two of their 19 employees are based in Vancouver, Canada and in the past have had designers in Miami and Serbia.
“We were just looking for talent and to hire the best people we could, and if they happened to be in Sioux Falls that was great, but it was just really important to find somebody who is great at explaining things,” said Colgan.
Lemonly summarizes what they do as visual storytelling. Meyer said visual storytelling is important because it’s a way to get your information out in a unique way. Due to social media being a big part of people’s everyday lives, there is so much content to look at, and it’s easy to scroll past certain things. Visual storytelling helps fix that by making things stand out so it’s eye-catching and makes people want to look at it longer.
To make a great visual, it is important to find a balance between the visuals and the text that goes along with it, explained Meyer. He said a graphic has to be more than aesthetically pleasing, and it has to be more than a block of information. When you find that perfect balance, the graphic can really shine.
Amy said her favorite projects to work on are the ones that are the most challenging. She said when things are very “cookie cutter’” it’s easy to complete, but the challenging ones are more fun because it gives her the freedom to put the pieces together and create something great.
“Every year we do an annual report for the 9/11 Memorial, and that one’s always been a fun one because they have tons of stories to tell, and there’s so many of them. It’s trying to find a good way to tell it and take all the information, because there’s tons of it,” said Amy.
Even though there are many different forms of design, Meyer said design is much more than just graphic and interior design. He said there are different ideas of design, and he wants everyone to have a consistent Lemonly experience.
“A lot of our employees are South Dakota born and raised, went to state schools, and work here and work for some of the biggest companies across the globe. It’s kind of a humble brag, but it’s awesome,” said Colgan.
Follow Lemonly on Twitter and Instagram and like their Facebook page to see what the Lemonheads are coming up with next. For more information, visit lemonly.com.
6 THINGS LEMONLY CAN DO FOR CLIENTS
- Infographics
- Microcontent
- Microsites
- Annual Reports
- Videos
- Presentations
6 LEMONLY FUN FACTS
- Our brains process images 60,000 times faster than text.
- Humans have an attention span of 3.5 seconds compared to goldfish who have an attention span of 8 seconds.
- Humans are wired to be visual creatures.
- Smaller projects take 2-3 weeks to complete, and bigger projects can take 3 months.
- Visuals allow people to communicate across different cultural and language barriers.
- Dribble.com is used for inspiration, to post new ideas, or to connect with top designers.
