Just after sunrise, something landed on the slope where the yard runs down to the lake. Brown, barred, easy to miss — a black crescent at the throat, a slash of red behind the head.
It worked the ground a while, unhurried, and we watched. Then it lifted, and the whole underside of its wings went gold.
The Name
Named for a bird that does it its own way.
Flickers break the woodpecker rules. While the rest of the family hammers away at dead timber, the flicker spends its days on the ground, quietly working the soil where the food actually is. It drums when it needs to be heard — and the rest of the time, it just does the work.
Then it flies, and there's no mistaking it for anything else.
That's the studio we set out to build. Do the unglamorous part properly — the structure, the words, the hundred small decisions nobody ever credits — so that the moment someone finds your business, it lands like a flash of gold.
We took the palette from the bird, too.