Portland-OR-08/24/09- When digital firm the Overland Agency first toured their new headquarters on the fringes of the Pearl District, they sensed they had found a new home: even before they noticed that high up on the west-facing brick wall their name, “Overland,” appeared in a cursive logo, having been painted there some 100 years before.

“It was kind of eerie but cool,” said Arve Overland, CEO and Executive Creative Director of the Overland Agency, referring to the top-floor office space his company moved into this week in the historic, LEED-Gold Certified DeSoto Building (720 N.W. Davis Street). “This office was by far the best location for our expansion. But finding our name painted on top of the building from the early 1900s was the cherry on top.”

The Overland Automotive Division of the Standard Wheel Company was a going concern at the turn of the 20th century. John Willys, later famous for the military Willys jeep, bought Overland in 1908. In 1912, he renamed it the Willys-Overland car company. With an annual production of more than 25,000 vehicles it was second only to Ford Motor Company in sales. Overland cars continued to be produced until 1926, then were re-launched, briefly, in the late 1930s.
The red-brick Portland office structure now called the DeSoto Building also sold the now-defunct cars known as DeSotos, as well as the Overland brand. But today, the only “Overlands” in residence in the historic building, are the Overland Agency’s branding, web development and online marketing experts. The building’s once “high speed ramps” used for running cars through the servicing, washing, painting and polishing departments, now features high-speed Internet access.



The ghostly Overland welcoming sign that awaited the Portland digital agency in their new headquarters



Salesmen of the Overland car company, circa 1925, posed before their corporate logo.


About the Overland Agency
The Overland Agency is an award-winning Portland, Oregon-based digital firm with deep capabilities in branding, user experience design (UXD), creative content generation, online and social media marketing and campaigning, web design and animation, mobile and web applications, web development and engineering. Clients include adidas, ARM, IHS Dolphin Software, the Design Automation Conference, Fila, Lightspeed Technologies, and Mutual of Omaha. The agency also does pro bono work for such groups as the Oregon Council of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.