Rabe & Co. was born shortly after a night of too many drinks. Or too many ad agencies. Either way, it’s all kind of a blur. Conference rooms with clever names, foosball, ping pong and Wii stations meant to keep us “inspired,” 30-second TV spots that took way too many people and over a year to make, while countless other days, nights, weeks and weekends of work never saw the light of day at all. Accordingly, neither did we.

We paid the tab and made the jump. First, to a small apartment in Queens. Then further north, out of the city altogether. Now you’ll find us in a bright, airy, small-town Main Street office in the beautiful Hudson Valley. The windows are usually open and we try to keep the music loud. We don’t have a foosball table anymore… but we do have mountain trails and a creek to throw rocks in.

Escaping the layered agency model changed everything for us. We learned a lot from those years, but we like this better: less talking, more doing. Work faster, have fewer meetings, let the work itself uncover solutions. And by work we mean: identity, planning, packaging, websites, wedding invitations, illustration, advertising, iconography, animation… this list goes on. Because if for some reason we can’t do it, we know someone who can.

A small group of core people, working together in a focused way to make smart, good-looking work. That’s always how the best stuff got done anyway. Now we just have a lot more light.

Rabe & Co.
Beacon, NY