Meet Partner, Angela Hill!

By Paul Thiel

When Angela Hill engages with a client she follows an unusual path for a creative agency owner: she works through a deliberate and structured branding analysis of the client firm to develop their personality, promise and positioning. One she and the client have agreement on those attributes, she says, she can be highly efficient in producing designs that the client will love. The secret is alignment.

“Most creative agencies use what I call the ‘spaghetti method:’ they throw a bunch of designs up and hope something sticks,” says Hill, owner of San Diego-based Incitrio, who says that as a result of such haphazard processes, final logo design can easily take a dozen back-and-forths between agency and client before a final design is selected. In contrast, Incitrio’s clients usually settle on a design in just two or three rounds. “When you have agreement on your personality, promise and positioning prior to design, the process always goes much more smoothly.”

Such a structured approach to business is one of the things Hill loves about San Diego Social Venture Partners. The group’s thoughtful deliberation and structured processes resonate with Hill. Hill became involved with SDSVP after meeting Alan Sorkin at the American Marketing Association Cause Conference. Her firm designed SDSVP's annual report for the past two years, and she eventually became a Partner. “What I really like about SDSVP is that there are really strong processes that support any action the group takes,” she says.

“You get to work with talented, dedicated and knowledgeable people who are coming together for non-profits,” says Hill. “It’s not just money, and it’s not just expertise, but it’s the collaboration of the two coming together that creates great results.”

Hill started her branding agency Incitrio in 2004, after a series of design and computer positions in San Diego, San Francisco and her native St. Louis. Her trek to design was highly unusual: she used to be a computer nerd! “I did programming in grade school and high school, and programmed my own games,” she says, adding that teaching FORTRAN to engineering students was one of the things that helped pay her way through college at Washington University in St. Louis.

Now that computer gaming is a red-hot industry, does Hill regret abandoning it? Not at all, she says, citing the archetypal working conditions of the gaming industry. “I really like computers, but I don’t like living and working in a cave. I realized I am a social person and that I would never be happy spending all day in the dark.”

After working several post-graduation jobs, Hill decided she needed to escape Missouri: “I am a very open, creative and accepting person, and in St. Louis there tend to be a lot of very conservative close-minded people,” she says. “I did not belong in St. Louis.”

After attending a conference in San Francisco and falling in love with the city, she moved there without a job or a home. Answering an ad, she within a week became a computer services manager at a Kinko’s, where she honed her technology, design and business management skills. In addition to managing technology, Hill was put in charge of a 10-person internal design shop that became the 3rd largest in the chain, generating $100,000 in revenue a month.

Eventually moving on, Hill worked for several firms where she did design work for companies such as Intel, Ford, Sega, Hallmark, Williams Sonoma, Foster Farms, Visa, Sun Microsystems and Merrill Lynch.

Hill met her future husband, real estate developer Daniel Kornbluth, in San Francisco and moved back to his hometown of San Diego to get married and start a family. It was here, that after receiving what she considered an extremely low offer of partnership at a design firm, she decided to strike out on her own.

Hill’s big break came just six months after she started when she acquired the business of another design firm, whose husband-and-wife owners were divorcing and leaving the area. The couple’s primary concern was design consistency, and Hill’s designs fit well with theirs. Incitrio took over the business and grew exponentially.

Business takes a great deal of Hill’s time, but she treasures her time at home with her husband and boys, Max, 7, and Sammy, 5. The family enjoys Disneyland once a month and hiking every other week at Torrey Pines, and on a random trail on the weekends in between. On Saturday mornings, you’ll often find her singing and dancing with the kids playing air instruments for their imaginary fans, while Daniel cooks up a hearty breakfast in the kitchen nearby.

When she’s not busy, singing rock ballads with the kids, she enjoys singing opera at home or in the car. “I am a classically trained coloratura soprano,” says Hill, who has sung Italian Opera. “It’s funny because my kids tell me to stop singing and my husband tells them they don’t know how lucky they are to have a mother who can actually sing on pitch!”