Farming on the moon: defining identity at a multifaceted tech company
The origin story
I met Kale Kaposhilin when we were both Bard students with recording studios — and decided to start a record label together. Evolving Media Network was born from that partnership. Founded in 2003, Evolving Media Network spanned media, exploring commercial work in audio, video, event production, animation, filmmaking, design, and web development. We didn’t want to work for “the man.” Our work was for artists, by artists. We wanted to create work with our friends that we were proud of.
As the Internet grew up, so did we, and web design and development became the forefront of what we were doing at EMN. We prided ourselves (and still do) on creating innovative, custom digital solutions to our client’s problems.
Growing (with) the community
But we’re not just designing and developing in a vacuum. EMN was part of a burgeoning community — the Hudson Valley — and as our business grew, we started to take our role in the Hudson Valley community more seriously. We began to use our tech skills to support important local events and organizations, like the O+ Festival.
We also recognized that we weren’t the only people working in tech, but it felt like each company in our region was working independently and fending for themselves. We wanted to break down those barriers and help foster a supportive tech ecosystem right here in the Hudson Valley. Along with Digital Empire, located across the Hudson River in Poughkeepsie, we decided to start our own tech organization, the Hudson Valley Tech Meetup.
The idea: to bring together technologists from the far-reaching corners of the Hudson Valley for talks, presentations, tech demos, networking, and really just to build the connections that could help foster personal and professional growth for everyone in the region.
HV Tech grew quickly — from a once-a-month to several meetings per month focusing on different topics; from two locations (Kingston and Poughkeepsie) to four and growing; from 40 members to 1900. Our work there expanded into Catskills Conf, an annual conference and retreat in the Catskill Mountains that goes beyond tech to connect people to nature, hands-on methods of creation, and each other.
At the same time, EMN was continuing to create high-quality digital media for clients, focusing on websites and apps.
All of this led to a little brand confusion.
“What does Evolving Media Network, like, do?”
As our work expanded, we started to hear this question a lot. We realized people didn’t really understand the core of EMN — they associated us with community events and organizations, but they didn’t always know that the core of our business was web design and development.
We also weren’t doing a great job expressing our values as a company. We’re experts in our field. We’re community members, parents, and friends, who are proud to call the Hudson Valley our home. We want to do work that makes the world better.
So we started to think about separating and defining the web and creative studio that we’d been building for 15 years.
What’s in a name?
We had already identified our core business. The next step was to distill the essence of our company and define our values.
Here’s what we landed on: we craft websites and apps with a loving and bespoke mindset, to meet the unique needs of our clients. We work like artisans, but in a digital world. We’re focused on the human side of our company, team, community, and clients. We take an old-school approach to a new-school technology.
We Are We Are NotA studio An agency
Custom Off-the-shelf
Makers Coaches
A dedicated crew A factoryWe’re about But also about:Old school Modern
Community roots Exploring new frontiers
Craftsmanship Disrupting the status quo
Love Intelligence
Handmade Systems
We tried our hand at a few taglines that we hoped would illustrate these values:
- Code is art.
- Pushing change, one bit at a time.
- Data for Dada!
- Next-level internet technology delivered. By hand.
- Elegant internet solutions created by really nice people.
- Where design & digital dance.
- Passion for creative code and co-creation.
- Creative by Design.
- Open source by Principle.
- Changing the world, one <div> at a time.
- Will code for good.
- After the apocalypse, some of us will still have internet.
- Magical Computer Friends
- Slow code
(At one point, Kale even bought the URL for “Slow Code” — before realizing that nobody wants slow code.) - Hand-crafted digital solutions.
- Cultivating the digital ground.
- Coding the earth.
- Coding the world in layers of tasty bacon.
- Cultivating digital fields.
No — we didn’t end up using any of these brilliant ideas. But the last one, more than anything, led us to the final choice.
Moonfarmer.
This name highlights the way we work — like farmers, cultivating the ground, in an old-school way — but also our field: modern, digital tech, exploring new and exciting places. It’s visceral, memorable, and unique.
when people buy a website/digital media services, they think of it like a product, done with the launch — but really it’s just the beginning. ongoing relationships, growth for business or organization
Bringing Moonfarmer to life
We had a name — but we needed help with the rest. First, we went to artist Matthew Pleva to draw up some creative concepts for the art.
We took this creative direction and ran with it, developing several different versions of logos and other visual identity elements. Almost every member of our team was involved in this effort.
We tweaked and refined the art, until we had something simple, beautiful, and evocative.
But art alone but does a brand make. We knew what our values were, but we needed help figuring out exactly how to talk about ourselves, and how to really get those values across to our audience.
That’s where Jenna Matecki came in. Through research and staff interviews, Jenna helped us settle on messaging that reflected what we’re really all about.
MOONFARMER
Does: Creative Digital Studio
With principles: Unique process
Through: Handmade Websites, Applications, Art
The website
And of course — we’re a web design company. We knew we wanted our website to really demonstrate our skills, to show off what we can do in a brand-specific way.
We wanted to showcase some of the best of our technology, so we started with our in-house universal React framework. This allows us to deliver Javascript websites that render fully either on the client or the server. We sprinkled in a bit of art and animation to create a storybook experience. Rather than tell, let’s show—we invite you to check out some stills from the production below:
See the Moonfarmer website in action: moonfarmer.com.
