Caper

Most startup brand identity design projects start with a mood board, a competitor audit, or a request to “make it feel modern.” I start with the name.

With Caper, the name said everything.

As a noun, a caper is a fun detail, an unexpected element — something that adds surprise to whatever it touches. As a verb, it means to skip, jump, or leap about in a frolicsome, joyful way. To caper. There’s movement in it. There’s lightness. There’s the specific kind of joy that comes from doing something with your whole self and not overthinking it.

That pointed the entire direction.

An edtech company teaching workforce skills doesn’t have to feel like a compliance training module. It can feel like something students actually want to show up for. Caper had a chance to build a brand that stood apart from the sea of serious, corporate skills programs precisely because it was willing to lean into the word at the center of everything.

The logo came directly from that insight. The letterforms are connected and flowing, built to suggest movement. There’s a playfulness in how the letters relate to each other that you feel before you can name it — which is exactly where a logo should live. A program working with 14-year-olds cannot look like it belongs in a boardroom. It has to earn the trust of the adults without boring the students, and the brand has to hold that tension without breaking.
The WordPress site extended the same logic — a clear path for educators and employers to find what they need, with warmth and energy threaded throughout.

I’ve sat across from enough founders to know that the ones who commit to the meaning of their name rather than running from it end up with brands that hold. Rebecca committed. That made everything else easier.

The goal throughout: startup brand identity design that could walk into a school district or a corporate HR office and belong in both rooms.