The company was founded in 1990 by Danny Altman after leaving the pioneering design/ad agency Altman + Manley. Danny’s son, Eli, grew up around the studio and joined full-time in 2009. Rose Linke and Ben Weis joined the team in 2009 and 2011. Liam joined in 2016, followed by Patrick and Nora in 2017.
Rose is a writer and editor who grew up on the freeways of Los Angeles and now walks the hills of San Francisco. She’s been running naming and messaging projects at A Hundred Monkeys for 15 years. Before joining the team, she studied art history and library science, and worked in museums, galleries, libraries, and restaurants. She started keeping a list of favorite words when she was ten.
Eli grew up drawing and writing in Northern California. He ran his first naming project at 16 years old and has been naming ever since. Eli is the author of Don’t Call It That, Run Studio Run, and is the co-creator of Go Name Yourself. He has talked naming and branding with The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NPR, and the Guardian. Before joining A Hundred Monkeys, Eli was a brand strategist leading the naming practice at MetaDesign, San Francisco.
Ben is a Vermonter who’s found Northern California to be quite hospitable. He’s run a couple hundred naming, writing, and brand strategy projects for clients of all shapes and sizes, including a long-term engagement with Samsung. Previously, Ben was an art student, a chocolatier, and a sailmaker. When he’s not at home in the garden or playing music, he might be poking around a regional park or in the High Sierra looking for peace and wildlife.
Liam Humble is a writer and designer with a love for Pablo Neruda and Precisionism. Liam moonlights as an overly-attentive father. He has never met an annotation or tangent he didn’t like. He finds his inner calm while hiking, inner child at the piano, and inner critic at museums.
Patrick has been with A Hundred Monkeys since 2017. He is a father, surfer, writer—in that order.
Originally from Chicago, Nora is mostly San Franciscan—although she’d be a different person without those formative midwestern winters. She came to A Hundred Monkeys in 2017 from the world of performing arts, bringing her creative muscles and ability to see any challenge from all angles.