Every warbird has a story of hard landings, and ours is no different. We took the long way to founding Warbird Collective, through setbacks, burnout, big lessons and hard-fought victories. What we carried out of it: a relentless drive to make organizations impossible to overlook, and the knowledge that creativity is the art that lives between arrogance and crushing self-doubt. We’ve been to both places, and we found the sweet spot. 
After a brief foray in the exotic insect trade, Cayce found herself picking up the pieces after Rob suffered a near-fatal altercation with a Kazakh Steppe Reaper Tick, which he maintains was unprovoked. He landed in a remote rehab facility in Chilean Patagonia for 14 months. Reeling from the pain of missing her partner, Cayce took action the only way she knew how. She spent weeks taming and training a wild frigate- a warbird- to deliver messages to Rob in the remote fjords skirting Punta Arenas. The messages were mostly banal meanderings of daily life, but contained illustrations- artistic renderings of logos, mockups of product packaging, and website wireframes. When he was strong enough to hold a pencil, Rob - ever the visionary - began responding in kind with detailed scalable brand architecture systems with disruptive aesthetics. The back and forth continued with Rob admiring Cayce’s attention to visual hierarchy. Cayce was deeply moved by Rob’s ability to leverage a holistic visual ecosystem to unlock brand resonance. With core value proposition alignment, the couple found their new north star and went all in. Warbird Collective is not only a testament to Rob’s fight and Cayce’s enduring tolerance for his requisite trauma (night terrors, hair loss), it is a symbol of how creative passion can heal us all.