Two people?

Helios is Yumiko Morioka and Bill Womack, a two-person design and advertising office.
We serve all kinds of clients… large or small, local or international, commercial, academic, and high-tech, from government institutions to individuals with vision.


Helios can assemble a team of designers, illustrators, photographers and copywriters who are, like us, the same folks that large ad agencies hire.

We're the ones you'd come to when you want an entirely new identity, like Bunkyo University and Interpretive Software, or want to freshen an old logo, like the University of Virginia School of Law recently did.

So, for example, over the course of a few years, Helios helped the UVA School of Law modernize its identity by applying a consistent look-and-feel to its admissions catalogs, graduate school literature, stationery, formal announcements and public relations materials.

Our work was also adapted by the very capable UVA-Law PR staff for designing in-house posters, announcements, and even their world-class website, perhaps the best of any public law university in the nation. It's been phenomenally gratifying to see our work become a well-integrated part of their design DNA.

Working for the Core Knowledge Foundation, we designed their landmark curriculum guide for teachers, the Sequence. Building on that, we designed the partner Preschool curriculum guide, PR materials, books and teacher-training manuals using the same design standards. One teacher thanked us with tears in his eyes (!), grateful for the improvements that made the manuals easier to use.

We also redesigned Core Knowledge books. The old versions were shunned by bookstores, whereas our freshened versions were actually sought out by booksellers who knew they'd sell well, as they continue to do.
The economies are clear: as with the School of Law, a well-considered, appropriate and very cost-effective regimen of good design based on solid branding principles was instituted gradually, project-by-project, across the board. The Core Knowledge Foundation grew by leaps and bounds, perhaps coincidentally, but definitely aided by the new vigor in their publishing and public relations materials! They got their new books and manuals, with a fully-fledged branding package thrown in for virtually no extra cost.

Long-term relationships accrue the most valuable benefits.

We're probably not the best firm to call when you're already behind schedule and your designer just quit. But after the emergency's over and you want to do it right the next time, please DO call!

Whether you need a single, small project done, a series of pieces, or want a holistic branding strategy for a new venture that's got to be exceptional... we're the ones.