Built to build, Ruca is a design cooperative focused on developing products, establishing brands, and scaling businesses in new ways to deliver better results.

Ruca Design Cooperative | Partners in Product & Marketing

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Case studies overview

Nina Gould

Ruca is the official design partner of Forbes and works on everything across the product organization.
Ruca and Forbes have a long-running partnership that is constantly changing and adapting over the years. A relationship that stretches back now almost a decade across three different studios and countless models pre-Ruca.
We are touching all aspects of Forbes from the product team outward, getting our hands dirty pitching in here and there across design systems, writing contributor review content, brand projects, community programs, U30 products, and deep-rooted design systems.
We have an integrated product design team that works with the C-Suite on the most critical projects for Forbes each year.

<ul><li dir="ltr"><a href="https://www.forbes.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">forbes.com</a></li><li dir="ltr"><a href="https://forbes.com/connect" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">forbes.com/connect</a></li><li dir="ltr"><a href="https://www.forbes.com/top-wealth-advisors/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">forbes.com/top-wealth-advisors</a></li><li dir="ltr"><a href="https://www.forbes.com/aiinvestor/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">forbes.com/aiinvestor/</a></li><li dir="ltr"><a href="https://www.forbes.com/30-under-30/2021/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">forbes.com/30-under-30/2021/</a></li><li dir="ltr"><a href="https://forbes.com/vetted" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">forbes.com/vetted</a></li></ul>

Forbes

I think Ruca's superpower is how they get to know your business and your needs at an almost cellular level. Our collaborations with them have felt like a true collaboration between partners to achieve mutual goals. I consider Ruca to be a kind of SWAT team for Forbes.“ - Nina

As a design partner, Ruca has a superpower, or at least that's what we heard from Nina Gould, Chief Product Officer at Forbes. Read on to get the whole story.

Spotlight: Forbes | Ruca

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Greg Hathaway

Zocdoc's mission is to give power to the patient. Yep. Sign us up doc.
Many of us hail from the New York startup scene and have always respected the go-to-market and grind of the up nature of Zocdoc, especially in the healthcare space where the systems are old, and behaviors are tough to rewire.
Ruca is a Zocdoc partner for lean brand and marketing optimization, helping the Zocdoc team with various campaigns, corporate communications and digital properties over the years.
We are currently in an ongoing agile content marketing role, which has now spanned four years.

<a href="https://www.zocdoc.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">zocdoc.com</a>

Zocdoc

We can rely on them not only for really efficient work and frequent communication, but also to push the brand forward, share ideas and evolve our aesthetic, all the while being extremely collaborative, positive and a joy to work with.“ - Greg

"We can rely on them not only for really efficient work and frequent communication, but also to push the brand forward, share ideas and evolve our aesthetic, all the while being extremely collaborative, positive and a joy to work with.“

Spotlight: Zocdoc | Ruca

Morningstar Financial’s Research Marketing Amplification program is designed to breathe life into Morningstar’s independent thematic research, targeting professional audiences.
Ruca was tasked with expanding the Morningstar visual brand expression through the creation of new design guidelines and a toolkit specific to the Research Marketing program.
The new guidelines ensure a cohesive, recognizable, and visually appealing brand identity across campaigns, while the toolkit enables the swift creation of marketing assets, helping to drive significant growth and scale of the program.
Results achieved: - Optimized marketing efforts for maximum impact - Continuous adaptation of strategies per performance metrics - Clearer alignment of M*’s brand vision and values - A defined, repeatable research sharing and lead gen model

<a href="https://www.morningstar.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">morningstar.com</a>

Morningstar

Over the past year, working with Ruca, we have been building creative and content playbooks designed to scale the promotion of Morningstar's independent research across owned, shared, and paid media channels. The results have been impressive, empowering us to effectively and efficiently scale our research campaigns across channels.“ - Jaime

"Over the past year, working with Ruca, we have been building creative and content playbooks designed to scale the promotion of Morningstar's independent research across owned, shared, and paid media channels. The results have been impressive, empowering us to effectively and efficiently scale our research campaigns across channels.“

Spotlight: Morningstar | Ruca

Ruca supported Zola's Co-Founder and Chief Design Officer for over a year, helping to scale the platform and optimize key conversion points. They quickly took on projects to enhance speed and build upon existing systems. Ruca collaborated with Zola's product team, including strategists, designers, and technologists, to develop components and full-page layouts for user experience research and adjustments based on testing.
During a critical phase of Zola's platform evolution in the market, Ruca served as an extension of the product team. They worked closely with leadership to shape the future vision of Zola, translating evolving ideas into tangible concepts and solutions.

Zola

Ruca played a pivotal role in expanding our design team, seamlessly integrating as dedicated Product Designers. Their approach was both strategic and collaborative, providing an impressive level of design execution while upholding the highest standards of accountability." - Nobu

Ruca supported Zola's Co-Founder and Chief Design Officer for over a year, helping to scale the platform and optimize key conversion points.

Spotlight: Zola | Ruca

Richard Flood

When lady liberty came calling, Ruca was there to help.
In 2020 The Statue of Liberty Ellis Island Foundation came to us seeking to redesign, develop, and implement a more modern and compelling public-facing website with a new positioning that can drive higher affinity and donation awareness.
The objective was to create a dynamic, engaging website that provides easy navigation for visitors while streamlining access to these culturally significant monuments. We led the repositioning of their messaging to stand out in the market with the vital role they play to preserve, restore, and maintain the global icons of The Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.
The website has weathered the pandemic storm in year two, helping drive increased revenue while the islands were closed.

<a href="https://www.statueofliberty.org/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">statueofliberty.org</a>

The Statue of Liberty — Ellis Island Foundation

Almost immediately after launching the website, we saw a significant uptick in donor engagement as well as increases in product sales. The new website really was successful in accomplishing so many of our goals and priorities.“ - Rich

"Almost immediately after launching the website, we saw a significant uptick in donor engagement as well as increases in product sales."

Spotlight: Statue of Liberty | Ruca

Kim Callender

SoloTrvlr is a tech start up that partners with local women around the world to curate the best tips, recommendations, and places for exploring on their own. In early 2021, they partnered with Ruca to define their brand, create a new brand identity, build a new website, and design key flows for the new app UI.
We began by collectively creating the company’s mission, vision and values. We then crafted a beautiful, accessible brand identity, built a new website, and designed many of the primary app screens and flows to entice and welcome both the seasoned and newbie traveler.
SoloTrvlr beta launched in Fall 2021.

<a href="https://www.solotrvlr.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">solotrvlr.com</a>

SoloTrvlr

I was really impressed with Ruca's ability to adapt their process and approach to businesses at all stages. They helped me clarify our brand values which fed back into our product and all of our marketing messaging.“ - Kim

Find out what impressed Kim Callender, Founder & CEO of SoloTrvlr, about working with Ruca and our approach to design.

Spotlight: SoloTrvlr | Ruca

Solo Trvlr

Andy Rooks

Nitra stands by their motto: “Smarter spending tailored for healthcare”. They specialize in offering financial tools tailored for healthcare-centric businesses. Their suite includes the Nitra Card, an expense management platform, and a medical supplies marketplace that offers price matching. Their aim? To ensure healthcare practices operate seamlessly on the financial front.
Recognizing the need for a dynamic design team rather than static in-house designers, Nitra sought Ruca's expertise. Partnering with Ruca allowed Nitra the flexibility of collaborating with familiar designers regularly, yet adjusting capacity in response to varying design demands. These demands ranged from white papers and web designs to animations and advertisements.
Ruca has transformed into an indispensable ally for Nitra in their market journey. From communication materials and social media visuals to website graphics, insightful whitepapers, and even the design of their new credit cards, Ruca's imprint is evident. We proudly serve as Nitra’s comprehensive design partner.

<a href="https://www.nitra.com/">nitra.com</a>

Nitra

The model that they have here is really something special. They have an exceptionally high standard for project execution, and communicating with their team is pretty much seamless." - Andy

Nitra first enlisted Ruca’s support when they saw a need for an embeddable design team, as opposed to full-time, in-house designers.

Spotlight: Nitra | Ruca

Victor Ortiz

Ruca is working with Barnes &amp; Noble Education on bartleby, aiming to help college students have more access to tools and education.
Bartleby approached Ruca to help optimize and push forward a new and scaling platform. Bartleby is a learning ecosystem, developed by Barnes &amp; Noble Education as part of its ongoing mission to augment traditional learning and enhance educational outcomes for students.
Bartleby’s products and services are designed to enhance outcomes, offering learning pathways that fit today’s students’ schedules and demands. Current offerings on the bartleby platform include “Learn,” “Write”, Math Solver, Live Chat, and a mobile app.
Ruca is currently incorporated directly into the product team to push forward specific features to improve user adoption and develop the broader design system at large.

<a href="https://www.bartleby.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">bartleby.com</a>

Barnes & Noble Education — bartleby

Ruca has achieved what so many agencies often set out to accomplish but failed to execute as intended. Working with Ruca does not feel like you're working with an agency. They truly are a part of our team and we love working with them every day.“ - Victor

Learn what Victor Ortiz, VP, Product at Bartleby has to say about working with Ruca.

Spotlight: Barnes & Noble — Bartleby | Ruca

bartleby

Peg Sandeen

Death with Dignity is an advocacy and nonprofit organization in the United States that supports the right of people with terminal illness to have the fundamental freedom of choice in life and death. They partnered with Ruca to create a new brand identity and build a new website.
We crafted an impactful, modern visual identity that embodies their mission which is grounded in advocacy— a daring wordmark, bold color palette, and strong typeface.
We also expressed this new intrepid design system through a redesigned and enhanced website. This site now serves as the principal destination to share the organization’s story, encourage action, and provide resources to advocates, families and patients, donors, and supporters.

<a href="https://deathwithdignity.org/">deathwithdignity.org</a>

Death with Dignity

We wanted to boldly change our visual presence in the world and the Ruca team expertly captured our vision for the future of our organization. The process of working with them was smooth, expectations and timelines were transparent.“ - Peg

Get the whole story of what it's like to work with Ruca from Colleen Rubart, Vice President, Communications and Marketing at Death with Dignity.

Spotlight: Death with Dignity | Ruca

Jennifer Schutzman

I mean, it's Vogue, and they want us to help with their premier event every year? Yep, also sign us up for that.
Vogue engaged Ruca to develop the website experience for their Forces of Fashion event over the last two years.
Vogue's annual Forces of Fashion event is the primary event, emphasizing thought-provoking conversations—on getting up close and personal with some of the most compelling and exciting talents in fashion and beyond. It is the place to celebrate fashion's welcome return and clearly understand how fashion is transforming to reflect our new and very different world.
We are happy to play our part every year, making this event successful.

Vogue

With the demand to switch to a virtual platform for both 2020 and 2021, Ruca was critical in our delivery of an elevated experience expected for the Vogue brand in a digital space.“ - Jen

"Ruca was critical in our delivery of an elevated experience expected for the Vogue brand in a digital space.“

Spotlight: Vogue | Ruca

Dan Sampson

Rubicon's mission is to end waste in all of its forms, something we can get behind and have for three years now.
What began as a social media-focused relationship has evolved into a creative partnership spanning everything from investor engagement to advertising to whimsical one-off projects like holiday cards.

In 2020, Rubicon consolidated all design work under Ruca as its agency of record. In 2021, the partnership yielded a completely reimagined, rewritten, and redesigned company website, along with Rubicon's first Corporate Citizenship Report, a multitude of CEO-led initiatives and communications, and a whole lot more.

<ul><li dir="ltr"><a href="https://www.rubicon.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">rubicon.com</a></li><li dir="ltr"><a href="https://www.rubicon.com/esg-report/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">rubicon.com/esg-report</a></li><li dir="ltr"><a href="https://www.clearconstellation.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">clearconstellation.com</a></li><li dir="ltr"><a href="https://www.rubicon.com/trick-or-trash/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">trickortrash.com</a></li><li dir="ltr"><a href="https://www.rubicon.com/corporate-citizenship" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">rubicon.com/corporate-citizenship</a></li></ul>

Rubicon

They really take time to understand your company's mission, your goals, your culture, your brand, and all of that gets synthesized and interpreted into what ends up as beautiful work deliverables and work product.“ - Dan

Hear from Rubicon, Ruca's long-time client and source of inspiration, as they describe the beautiful and impactful work we've done together over the years.

Spotlight: Rubicon | Ruca

Suzanne Kirschbaum

TrueBridge Capital Partners approached Ruca to create a microsite for its annual publication, “State of the Venture Capital Industry.” 
Before working with Ruca, the critical corporate publication only existed in print form. Expanding TrueBridge’s existing brand system, Ruca designed and built the site and developed a content strategy to bring the digital publication to life.
Now in its second year online, TrueBridge’s annual perspective is more accessible, engaging, and shareable among its target audience.

<a href="https://stateofvc.truebridgecapital.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">stateofvc.truebridgecapital.com</a>

TrueBridge Capital Partners

Ruca just very quickly grasped our brand, our feel, our vibe, and we're able to really integrate that into our project immediately without a lot of the back and forth. They excelled at each stage—staying on deadlines, staying within budget, delivering beautiful design and just being really additive." - Suzanne

TrueBridge Capital Partners approached Ruca to create a microsite for its annual publication, “State of the Venture Capital Industry.”

Spotlight: TrueBridge | Ruca

Chris Connor

Ruca started working with Spinnaker Support, the leading provider of third-party support for enterprise software, on campaign creative and swiftly evolved into a full-service brand, marketing, and digital partnership.
Ruca is now responsible for developing and executing all Spinnaker demand generation campaigns, including media management. In addition, Ruca provides brand and creative support for all field marketing, website and social, and sales enablement efforts for the organization.
Since our engagement began in summer 2022, Spinnaker has seen YoY growth in traffic to site, marketing-generated leads, and qualified pipeline.

<a href="https://www.spinnakersupport.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">spinnakersupport.com</a>

Spinnaker Support

They bring a level of experience and strategic thinking that I haven't seen from other agencies. They understand our business as well as our own subject matter experts and they are able to translate our complex service offering into an easy to understand story." - Chris

Ruca started working with Spinnaker Support, the leading provider of third-party support for enterprise software, on campaign creative and swiftly evolved into a full-service brand, marketing, and digital partnership.

Spotlight: Spinnaker Support | Ruca

Keith Weckstein

CoinDesk, the largest news source about the crypto economy and related information, hosts one of the largest annual crypto conferences in the United States, Consensus.
CoinDesk asked Ruca to redesign the Consensus 2023 conference website and companion conference agency mobile app with a new overall site experience that reflects the emerging markets, technologies, and financial systems they report on every day.
Ruca delivered a clean design, infused with subtle micro-interactions and textures that visually unified the entire experience across platforms while still delighting, surprising, and enticing site visitors.
The site launched in November 2022.

<a href="https://consensus.coindesk.com/">consensus.coindesk.com</a>

CoinDesk

The team at Ruca delivered a clean design, infused with subtle micro-interactions and textures that visually unified the entire experience across platforms." - Keith

CoinDesk asked Ruca to redesign the Consensus 2023 conference website and companion conference agency mobile app.

Spotlight: CoinDesk | Ruca

Keith Landis

Our long-time friend took over as CMO and called us to overhaul their website brand experience.
Ruca aimed to create a beautiful and striking design system across many modular elements to guide users through a human story of digital transformation, differentiating Persistent from their technology competitors. We developed the digital language of the Persistent brand experience, looking towards the future through the design, content, and development of a massive website platform to publish content and drive the market discussion.

<a href="https://persistent.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">persistent.com</a>

Persistent

They put forward a flexible, agile, more nimble project approach than the other agencies that we were looking at, that would really allow us to get to market faster with an MVP, and at the same time set us up for longer term success and scalability.“ - Keith

Find out what the leaders at international tech company Persistent have to say about working with Ruca as a design and branding partner.

Spotlight: Persistent | Ruca

Since 2020, ECI, a provider of cloud-based ERP industry specific software, has partnered with Ruca as their brand and marketing partner. With an aggressive A&amp;M strategy, Ruca conducts in depth market research to define and brand new products in the ECI portfolio. In addition, Ruca delivers ongoing design and content development in support of ECI’s marketing team including portfolio, social, and demand gen marketing efforts. 


Ruca also provides ongoing technology and UI/UX design services to support ECI’s ongoing website evolution and optimization.

<a href="http://www.ecisolutions.com" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">ecisolutions.com</a>

Ruca conducts in depth market research to define and brand new products in the ECI portfolio, and delivers ongoing design and content development in support of ECI’s marketing team.

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