Office redesign!
After a few weeks of waiting, we finally had our new furniture delivered yesterday. Here’s a sneak peek at our new office setup, and the reason why we are so excited about our new desks!!!
National Recognition for Publication Design
Meet Gabe!
We’d like to introduce you to the newest member of studioSavvy: Gabe Kelley! In case you’ve ever wondered what it takes to be hired here, we’ve decided to post our grueling interview questions along with Gabe’s answers. Obviously, he aced it.
INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
Q: What’s your record for eating hotdogs in one sitting? (Either quantity or speed.)
A: I eat hot dogs at about 1,337 bites per minute. Sadly, I get full after about four loaded with cheese and chili.
Q: What is your favorite font?
A: I take a strong liking to anything Wingding related. But other than that I dig heavily on Knockout.
Q: C, M, Y, or K. Which is better and why?
A: Y. Cause Y not!? I’m hilarious.
Q: Springsteen or Bjork?
A: Bjo…Just kidding, I’m not a dummy. Springsteen.*
Q: What’s going on in your head at this moment? Be specific.
A: I’ve had this thought in my mind all day. Check this out. Slytherin = slither in. I cracked Rowling.
Q: If a train leaves boston going 60 mph and another train leaves new york city going 37.453 mph how long until they meet?
A: Well if 2+2=4, the obvious answer is 117 minutes.
Q: What is the air speed velocity of an unladen swallow?
A: 117 minutes.
(Editor’s note: *Incorrect, but 6 for 7 is still pretty good.)
In addition to his outstanding wit and love of unhealthy foods, Gabe is also an excellent designer who will be returning to MICA in August (unless we can convince him otherwise). He is currently working on his BFA in Graphic Design with a concentration in Photography. In his spare time he has created the photography blog poor-places.com that currently has 5,000 followers and a monthly page viewing of about 10,000. Not too shabby!
To learn more about Gabe and to see his portfolio, go to www.gabekelley.com.
We’re really excited to have him here this summer. Please say hello and keep up with what he thinks of life at studioSavvy on twitter @jg_kelley.
Making good GRADEs.
Last night the Richmond Chapter of the AIGA held their biannual awards ceremony, GRADE (Greater Richmond Awards for Design Excellence). Knowing that this competition has historically high standards, I was trying my best to remain optimistic as I entered the room. Much to my surprise, every single piece we entered was on display!
Throughout the evening I met and mingled with other fellow designers, and was introduced to many people who had recognized my name from our work. Tremendously flattering.
At the end of the night we walked away with the following:
- Award of Merit in Advertising Design for the StyleCraft Quality Campaign
- Award of Merit in Logos and Icons for The White Thread Logo
- Award of Merit in Posters for The Richmond Type Map
- Award of Merit in Stationery for Sensei Development’s Identity System
- Award of Merit in Stationery for studioSavvy’s Business Cards
All in all, it was an extremely successful evening for studioSavvy! We’re excited to share these awards with our clients, copywriter Kathleen Toler, and printing extraordinare, Foley Company.
}Carrie
Victory is theirs!
This past Saturday, an epic Laser Tag battle took place at SkateNation Plus. Teams from studioSavvy, Feedback and Hired Guns met on the 5,000 square foot LaserTron field to settle once and for all who Top Dog is when it comes to running around in the dark dressed like storm troopers.
After 30 minutes or so of intense game play, scores were tabulated and a clear winner emerged.
Our congratulations goes out to the team from Feedback, who’s combined three game score of 109,050 was the clear winner. If there was such a thing, the highly sought after but rarely attained Golden Laser Trophy would go to them. Unfortunately, team captain Dean Browell was too busy re-energizing by eating chips and salsa at Plaza Azteca afterward to comment. However, we assume he would have given credit to his teammates and to discovering Rapid Fire mode at the right time.
studioSavvy placed a close second with a total score of 92,860, but we have our heads held high. From Hunter Knierim: For a team made up of four people who didn’t realize we lost points for ‘friendly fire’, I think we did pretty well. And there will be a next time.
The team from Hired Guns came in a distant fourth. 18,365 points. Really? (Way too far behind to be considered third.) They only sent one warrior to fight on their behalf, but with a name like Hired Guns, frankly we considered them a dark horse favorite going in.
The Richmond Show 2010
Friday night I had the privilege to attend the 2010 Richmond Show hosted by the Richmond Ad Club. Hunter and I were both a little nervous going into this year’s awards given the fact we had so much fun enjoying our success last year (exhibit a). It would be a teeny bit embarassing to go home empty handed after that much fanfare.
Luckily, this year studioSavvy had the honor of going home with a Silver for our New Business Cards, and, even more exciting, a Gold Award for The Richmond Type Map!!! Once again we’re honored to be recognized for our work, especially considering the level of competition that this show always brings.
Some notable moments for me were:
- Listening to the hilarious Gene Cox call advertising people “boogers”
- Enjoying the full length version of the “Swagger Wagon” as Black Iris took home Best in Show under the Production Awards. Seriously, that spot gets me every time. (Play it. You know you want to.)
- A Cotton Candy machine!!
- Not tripping on my way up to the stage. Twice! Quite a feat.
More articulate people have posted recaps here and here, and the full list of winners is available here.
Once again, we are honored and proud to show off our cannonballs. Whether or not the gold babies will make it through TSA remains to be seen… stay tuned.
}Carrie
PS. Thank you to my muse, Jeff Kelley, for all of your support and for giving me the idea and motivation to complete the type map. We owe you a big chunk of medal.
New business cards.
After one incredibly botched printing catastrophe, we finally managed to have our new business cards produced the way we had envisioned!
We stuck with a classic black and white setup, but wanted to add a twist that would make these cards stand out from the pack. The cards were printed on a privately-owned letterpress by a friend of a friend. We used 92# Reich Savoy for the top and bottom layers, and had him sandwich in a 100# cover sheet of French Paper’s pop-tone in black licorice. Overall there are 8 cards involving 4 complimentary sets of icons.
We think they’re pretty awesome, and so have some of our peers:
FIVE YEARS!!!
This week (Feb 1, to be exact) marks our fifth anniversary of being in business! To celebrate we will be posting five of our favorite projects, and five projects we’re particularly proud of, but for one reason or another never saw the light of day. We’ll be adding five projects over the next month or so…you know, for our five-year anniversary and all. (Clever, right?)
Here’s to many, many more great years at studioSavvy!
Creative take on the 12 Days of Christmas
StyleCraft Homes is one of the few builders in the Richmond area that still builds new homes on spec. And although they weathered a very difficult economy better than most in 2010, they were left with several beautiful move-in ready homes sitting empty as the end of the year approached.
In early December, StyleCraft came to us with the challenge of driving as many eyes and as much traffic to twelve specific priority spec homes as possible by the end of the year.
Our Strategy: Create StyleCraft Homes’ very own version of the classic Christmas carol, The Twelve Days of Christmas. I mean, who really wants 11 Pipers Piping for the holidays anyway, right?
Campaign Elements: The campaign consisted of the following:
- a series of print and online banner ads
- a custom daily eNewsletter
- content developed for StyleCraft’s two websites: StyleCraftHomes.com and their blog, StyleCraftSays.com
- Facebook ads targeting specific consumer profiles in the Richmond area
Samples of the creative elements are below.
The campaign launched with teaser print and banner ads followed by a new set of ads for each of the 12 days leading up to December 25. Each morning, an eNewsletter was sent out to REALTORs and prospects who have opted in to their email list. Web content across StyleCraft’s sites was also updated daily to highlight a specific spec home that was available for sale.
Results:
- Visits to StyleCraftSays.com during the 12-day campaign increased nearly 1300% over the 12-day period leading up to the launch of the campaign, with a 778% increase in pageviews and a 25% increase in the percentage of new visitors.
- Visits to StyleCraftHomes.com increased nearly 54% over the 12 days prior to the campaign with a 55% increase in pageviews.
- Over 62,000 emails were sent with an open rate of 10% and a click through rate of over 11%.
- Our Facebook ads garnered over 2.1 million impressions with a strong click-through rate of 0.021%, and in December, 2010, activity among StyleCraft’s Facebook fans increased 48% over the previous month.
Sample Creative:
Campaign teaser ads
Campaign eNewsletter treatments, interactive and web promotions
A new year, a new leaf.
We’re excited to announce that we have produced a limited quantity of calendars for sale this year! For more information about the calendars, and to order, go here. Additional photos can also be found on our facebook page.
featured
