Motto® XX: 20 Years of Ideas Worth Rallying Around®

A Company Built on Ideas

From Sunny Bonnell and Ashleigh Hansberger

Every big idea starts small.

Ours began 20 years ago when Motto® was just a dream, spurred by the belief that ideas change the world. From our scrappy beginning, we’ve grown into a tight-knit global team of Idea People® who turn daring visions into Ideas Worth Rallying Around® for future-ready brands.

Not the safe kind, but the sort of ideas that rewire industries, reshape culture, and rally people together.

Ideas that began in the minds of restless individuals who asked: What if this were different? What if this were better? Ideas that seemed improbable, even impossible, until they weren’t.

And yet, an idea is never enough on its own. It must be nurtured, tested, defended, and carried forward. It must survive rejection, endure skepticism, and prove its worth in a world that rarely makes space. What begins as a spark inside one person becomes a culture when others believe in it, rally to it, and help make it real.

This is the story of Motto®.

The Origin Story

In 2005, with $250 between us, we took a leap. We rented a tiny warehouse office, pushed two desks together, and said yes to work we weren’t sure we could deliver, trusting we would figure it out along the way. It was scrappy, improvised, and fueled entirely by belief in something larger than ourselves.

Every founder knows that building something from nothing demands no days off. We worked nights, weekends, and holidays. We poured over books, taught ourselves new skills, and stitched together a practice one project at a time.

But the reality of building an agency from nothing was relentless. We faced rejection, skepticism, and the gnawing question: Who are you to try this? Our answer was stubbornly simple: Because we must.

Our Vision

As entrepreneurs and founders, we have devoted our careers to inspiring people to demand more of themselves, their companies, and their culture. We have partnered with the world’s most ambitious leaders and future-shaping brands including Google, Microsoft, Virgin, Twentieth Century Fox, and the NFL to challenge convention and build ideas that change the way we live, work, and lead.

What kept us moving was not just the ambition to design brands but the conviction that companies deserved more than surface-level branding. They needed clarity of vision. They needed a central rallying cry that could align leaders, inspire employees, and attract customers. Brand was not polish. Brand was direction. Over time, this conviction became our DNA. Clients came to us not just for design but for strategy, story, and vision.

The Manifesto

Words that give shape to conviction. To mark this anniversary, we wrote a manifesto.

Motto was built for Idea People, by Idea People. Because the world’s greatest companies are more than names and products. They are ideas. Ideas born in the head of a visionary, carried forward by teams, and transformed into cultures. For twenty years, we’ve helped build Ideas Worth Rallying Around® — ideas that scaled startups, renewed legacy brands, and created movements. And we are only just beginning.

The manifesto reminds us, and our clients, that what people follow, what they rally to, is not the product, not the campaign, not the trend. The idea.

→ Read the manifesto

The Film

We set out to create a film that feels human, cinematic, and emotionally resonant—one that honors Motto’s legacy of championing visionaries. What sets this project apart is not just that it was produced entirely with AI, but that it feels authored, cinematic, and purposeful. We treated AI as an extension of the director’s vision, not as an end in itself. The discipline to say “no” to certain outputs and refine toward a unified aesthetic is what made the film stand out.

AI wasn’t used as a gimmick but as a filmmaking tool, expanding what’s possible in storytelling. By blending generative imagery, video synthesis, and traditional editing, we built a hybrid production pipeline that allowed for precision, scale, and creative speed without sacrificing craft.

We focused on two characters, Maya and Brandon, to bring intimacy and clarity to the narrative, curating every frame for cohesion and mood. The film proves that when guided by taste and vision, AI can enhance, not replace, the art of storytelling

→ Watch the film

XX® History

Over the past two decades, Motto® has built a record of bold moves, defining moments, and industry recognition. From being named to Inc. 30 Under 30 ‘America’s Coolest Young Entrepreneurs’ in our early days, to being recently recognized as Thinkers50 Radar honorees, our story is marked by achievements that reflect both vision and impact.

That’s why we created a History Timeline that maps Motto’s journey from scrappy beginnings to global impact. Our ideas have traveled far, reaching stages like the New York Stock Exchange Closing Bell, airwaves like The Breakfast Club, and pages of the Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, and Forbes. Along the way, we’ve earned honors such as DMN Marketers of the Year, Top 30 Global Brand Gurus, and a WEBBY Award. These twenty milestones celebrate the legacy of daring ideas and form a narrative arc of resilience, reinvention, and relentless pursuit of Ideas Worth Rallying Around®.

→ Read the history

XX® Identity

That same spirit runs through the XX brand identity we created for our 20th year. Bold, graphic, and future-forward, XX isn’t just a mark for “20.” The stacked logotype is designed to be future-forward and live confidently across touchpoints, from our anniversary microsite to limited-edition merch.

XX® Symbol

The Roman numeral for 20 represents the exponential power of ideas when multiplied by the people who rally around them. Two decades of bold thinking, compounding into what comes next. But the XX symbol we designed carries a deeper meaning. It’s a nod to our origins as a proudly female-founded company, echoing the double X chromosome—the source of strength, creation, and resilience. Inspired by the form of DNA, the symbol is both human and structural, timeless and alive. Elegant in its simplicity, XX stands as our visual anchor and rally cry for what’s possible when vision multiplies.

XX® Microsite

We built a digital capsule to honor twenty years of Ideas Worth Rallying Around®. It is a curated collection of 20 big ideas we’ve built with our clients.

Startups that scaled into global players. Heritage companies made relevant again. Ideas that rally people, fuel innovation, and carry vision forward.

Every brand has facts: what they do, who they serve, where they compete. But those details don’t capture the essence of a company—the deeper truth of what the brand stands for and why it matters. That’s where Ideas Worth Rallying Around® come in,  distilling the essence of a company into something bold, memorable, and directional.

→ Explore the website

XX® Merch

To mark our 20-year milestone, we designed the XX 20 Year Merch Collection: a branded series of goods created for Idea People®.

The collection includes flags, hoodies, tees, totes, and other pieces that embody Motto’s spirit. Each item is a wearable expression of the movement we’ve been building since day one.

The XX collection is only available for a limited time. Once we’re sold out, it won’t return.

→ Shop the XX Collection

Color Palette

The XX palette draws from the elements that shaped our journey. Space (Black) for depth, daring, and the unknown. Sky (Gradient) for vision and infinite possibilities. Cloud (White) for clarity, airy, and light. Together, they mark twenty years of looking up, reaching out, and building what lasts.

Social

For the XX anniversary, we designed a social rollout that built intrigue before unveiling the full story. Teaser posts introduced fragments of the brand—motion lockups, blurred visuals, cryptic captions—that hinted at something larger coming on 09.22.25. Each drop pulled the community closer, inviting them into a countdown shaped by mystery and momentum.

The rollout culminated in the reveal of a curated XX collection: limited-edition merch, a film, and a digital capsule showcasing twenty ideas from twenty years of Motto®. Together, the teasers and collection created a layered experience—one part celebration, one part time capsule, and entirely a reflection of how far idea people can go in two decades.

→ See the social

The Next 20

Anniversaries also invite reflection on what comes next. And in our view, the urgency of brand has never been greater.

The world faces seismic shifts: the rise of artificial intelligence, the climate crisis, generational transitions in leadership, the redefinition of work, the blurring lines between culture and commerce. In such turbulence, companies without vision will falter.

This is where Idea People matter most.

In the next twenty years, we see brand not as a department or a campaign but as the operating system of the company itself — guiding decisions, shaping culture, fueling growth. We see leaders who treat brand as central to strategy, not secondary to marketing. We see ideas that don’t just win market share but inspire movements.

And Motto® will continue to stand with them.