The brand for parents who refuse to pretend everything’s perfect
Hackerlily is behind the award-winning Hip Surfer – a strap-free hip seat baby carrier designed to make carrying kids more comfortable and practical. Founder Laura Campbell, a Gold Coast mum of two living with rheumatoid arthritis, designed it after realising nothing on the market worked for her body, lifestyle, or style.
She wasn’t just building a product. She was challenging the “perfect parenting” illusion.
Brand Strategy and Visual identity.
When Laura first reached out, she wasn’t sure exactly where she needed help – just that the brand didn’t feel right. After following us for a while, she slid into our DMs, and we started with a brand audit and analysis.
We found all the classic signs of brand invisibility:
- No clear differentiation
- Conflicted messaging
- A vibrant founder personality completely hidden
- A visual identity that blended in with the beige sea of “premium” mum brands
Laura felt stuck between two ends of the spectrum: if she wanted to be taken seriously, she thought she had to subscribe to a sterile version of “premium” – static photos, mums looking perfect.
The irony? Parents buying ‘perfect’ products often desperately want permission to be imperfect themselves.
Instead of hiding Laura’s rebellious personality, we made it a hero in the strategy. The brand would be a celebration of messy middle motherhood – vibrant, loud, and proudly non-conformist.
Positioning: Hackerlily is the rebellion against beige and perfectionism.
Purpose: Give parents permission to drop the perfection act.
How we rolled it out:
1. Strategy First: Using our D3 Framework, we built the brand DNA around Laura’s lived experience and her mission to change the conversation about motherhood.
2. Visual Identity Collaboration: Given Laura’s husband, James Barnard (@barnardco), is a globally recognised logo designer, there was zero hesitation to collaborate. As a creative team, we know it isn’t always to design everything ourselves – it’s to assemble the best possible team for the vision. James nailed the logo, perfectly aligned with our strategy.
3. Distinctive Visual Language: While James crafted the logo, we built the rest of the visual system:
- Energetic and vibrant colour palette (visibility + energy)
- Deliberately sketchy hand-drawn elements for authenticity
- Strategic typography for balance between premium and playful
- Distinctive patterns to trigger instant recognition
- Imagery guidelines that showed motherhood in its real, messy, human form
Every touchpoint reinforced the same core message: authentic imperfection beats curated perfection.
Laura left with a brand system built to scale – from a single hero product to a future multi-product line. The strategy gave her confidence to pursue bigger opportunities: retail partnerships, international distribution, and airport retail locations.
And the best part? At trade shows, people didn’t just want to buy a carrier. They wanted to join the movement:
“They came up and said, ‘I want to be part of that. I love your mission.’”
Most importantly? When your brand matches who you really are, everything else gets easier.
The takeaway: Your difference is your advantage. In most markets, being authentically different beats being generically perfect.
