Taste of Florida, summertime in a bottle

There’s nothing quite like a day at the beach, from the warm coastal breezes to the appearance of sun-kissed skin, it has a way of relaxing the mind and reviving the senses. However, recreating the experience is not an easy feat, if done incorrectly it could be as uncomfortable as sand in your swim trunks. Luckily for us, our most recent client, Taste of Florida, discovered a way to successfully bottle the sweet taste of summertime.

Taste of Florida, owned by Coastal Beverages, offers a variety of premium real fruit drink mixers. Doug McWhorter, the mastermind behind the brand, has spent the better part of the last 12 years focusing his efforts on developing a high-quality product worth pairing with top-of-the-line alcohol. As he puts it, “you wouldn’t pair a filet mignon with powdered mash potatoes, so why would you mix imitation lime juice with your premium tequila to make a margarita?” We’d say he’s got a pretty good point, wouldn’t you?

When Doug came to us more than a year ago, he was looking to impart his fun, Florida style on the masses. His old site, although helpful in providing the necessary product information, lacked the vibrant personality that both he and his brand share. Through initial conversations, it was obvious that two things mattered the most; impressing upon visitors that “Real is better than fake” and creating a space where you can almost feel the sand between your toes. With those two ideas in mind, we channeled the beach in every way, utilizing a bright color palette, imagery straight from where the surf meets the sand and recipes fit for vacation. Beyond the site, we worked with Doug to create marketing and business materials that mirror the Island aesthetic, ensuring that life with Taste of Florida really is a beach.

Now that we have wet your taste buds, check out the real Taste of Florida site to create your own recipe du jour, or stop by your local watering hole for a real taste of the sunshine state.

The Final Countdown…Alpha Sigma Alpha Brand Launch T-minus 7 days

Slightly more than a year ago, we won the opportunity to partner with Alpha Sigma Alpha Sorority in their rebranding campaign. In one week from today, August 15, 2011 to be exact, those efforts will culminate with the unveiling of the new brand aesthetic. Since we’ve been sworn to secrecy (as in secret handshakes and all), we won’t be able to show or tell you about the look and feel of the brand for another seven days. However, we can share a few tidbits to satiate your interest.

First, with a rebranding there tends to be a bit of confusion as to what, if anything, remains the same and what gets tossed out the window (metaphorically speaking of course). For some organizations, they want to completely purge themselves of their past, while others (the majority) want to bring the heritage up-to-date in a modern way. Alpha Sigma Alpha is of the latter persuasion. In fact, upholding their history and proudly displaying their symbols was of great importance to the entire sisterhood. Therefore, come launch day, the many familiar images of Alpha Sigma Alpha will be shining through, including their mascot, Dot the Ladybug.

Next, rebranding can be as simple as creating a new logo or as complex as developing designs for every piece of organizational collateral. With Alpha Sigma Alpha’s rebranding, the goal was a full package, starting with a logo and wrapping with a new website. By developing a full suite of designs, Alpha Sigma Alpha is able to present themselves across the board as a unified and cohesive organization. Which means, everything from their business cards to their Facebook fan page, communicates the same message, shares the same color palette and displays the same graphic elements.

Lastly, the maintenance of an organization’s heritage and the design (no matter how stellar it is) are extremely important factors in launching a brand. But perhaps the most important aspect of a successful brand is the support it receives from its target market. That’s right, the fans, the followers, the subscribers, the viewers, the readers and of course every single sister can make or break the launch of a new brand for.  Which means August 15 is a big day, but every day after is even bigger. So show your love of sisterhood by sharing, posting, tweeting and reading about Alpha Sigma Alpha now and always.

Have we made you excited with anticipation yet?! I’m going to go ahead and assume that there was a resounding “yes!” to that question. Well since you are as pumped as we are to take part in this historic event, might I suggest a few ways to join the action? The hashtag #ASABrandFan is going to be heating up the Twitterverse on the 15^th and what better way to show your support and keep the trending going then posting and tweeting about how you’re a #ASABrandFan. Another way to show your ASA pride is attend the virtual launch, which starts at 9am on the 15^th.  Sign up here, to have a front row view of the unveiling and of course spend the day chatting with 2,327 of your closest sisters and Greek community.

Take a tour of a (Sorority’s) National HeadQuarters – your business will thank you

Alpha Sigma Alpha National HeadQuarters

In a recent blog, I discussed Alpha Delta Pi’s Foundation and even went into some of the history of a Greek organization’s Foundation. Since publishing that blog, it’s been brought to my attention that so many of our Greek and non-Greek members don’t know what goes on behind the scenes of the Greek community. Well, today, I’m going to give you a little peek behind the curtain.

Having never been Greek myself, I had no idea what a Foundation was or even that the houses on my campus were chapters of a much larger organization. Well let me tell you, there is much to discover behind each Greek letter.  Our relationship with this community has opened our eyes to the amazing business infrastructure that has been built to manage and sustain the individual houses. Take for example, our year-long partnership with Alpha Sigma Alpha Sorority, the National Headquarters is responsible for overseeing the day-to-day business of running a nationwide organization, as well as each of the 150 collegiate and alumnae chapters. The staff of eight has their hands in a variety of activities at once from financial planning to educational development. Each staff member has a distinct position, however it is not unusual for plans to formulate through teamwork and combined efforts.

The national headquarters is not only running a business, they are aiding in the development of future leaders and are the guiding force behind chapter-wide rules, regulations and protocol. Beyond the seriousness of a regulatory body, the team also encourages the fun-side of membership through regional and national events. In fact, if you were a fan of ASA on Facebook, you would have seen the preparation that went into the biannual leadership development institute. These men and women were hard at work creating activities to demonstrate effective leadership and communication skills and believe me, with the cool ideas they came up with, I was tempted to ask if I could tag along to learn a thing or two.

To be honest, a Greek organization’s national headquarters could certainly rival many of the large corporations of the world. Built from the ground up by dedicated and passionate leaders, each Greek house has a strong foundation that has proven to withstand the test of time. Not only that, but even through leadership changes, the mission and vision of each organization remains intact. Plus, those leading the way do so in a manner that positively leads them forward, while still heralding the past. With all this said, it might not be a bad idea to learn a little bit more about Greek organizations and their national headquarters as a means to better the business world as a whole.

Remix To Ignition

This week, I’ve decided to camp out with the McKenzies (aka Karen and Ben) in Atlanta. A visit to their abode is always a good time for friends, food and an R&R pow wow. As a virtual office, we often set up shop in coffee houses, conduct meetings via Skype and make great use of Dropbox’s file sharing capabilities. However, there is certainly something to be said about working side-by-side in an office environment.  Well we can check both those items of the list for the next few days.

No, we don’t have our own office space (yet) and I’ve not reclaimed my southern digs (yet), but we’ve parked our laptops in a legit office environment. The location is known as Ignition Alley and it is a collaborative workspace that Karen has been clocking in at for the last few months. The space offers outlets galore, a wide-open workspace, ergonomic chairs and a plethora of creative minds to pick.

As a newbie at the “office” it’s obvious why Karen has decided to give up her coffee shop habit. The businesses that run from the confines of the alley are legit and the conversation overheard runs the gamut from programming code to client dilemmas. In fact, in the last few hours, I heard about several social apps perched to invade the digital marketplace and my guess is that we’ve been privy to all the nitty gritty details of a soon-to-be web phenom.

The collaborative workspace idea isn’t new, but with a prime location near the Virginia Highlands, a $65/month membership plan and a friendly-environment I’d say this Ignition is going to be better than the remix.

Okay time to get back to work, Karen and I have some brainstorming to do.

Cartoon Sketches, Nerds and a Checklist

You’ve probably heard us talk about the Big Nerd Ranch once or twice, but we can’t help it, they’re our favorite nerds! Plus, they give us an opportunity to stretch our creative muscles in all sorts of different directions. Our latest project involved a pen and paper and some tongue-in-cheek copy.

So here’s the background, Big Nerd Ranch actually holds classes at a ranch, go figure, right? And at this ranch, they host weeklong programming camps, where nerds of all levels can come together and learn about Ruby on Rails, Python Mastery, Cocoa and several other languages that go way above my knowledge level. When the students aren’t in class, they have the opportunity to enjoy the great outdoors, mingle with fellow students, indulge in some pretty delicious meals and even roast a marshmallow or two.

The ranch is an awesome idea and has been hugely successful for the Big Nerd Ranch team. However, the Nerds have found that communicating all the details to the incoming students included too many un-read emails and repetitive phone calls. Therefore, in order to keep the Big Nerd Ranch staffers from losing their voices and ensure that the campers actually receive and read the camp information, we created a camp checklist. We brought in one of our favorite illustrators and long-time friend, Greg Kletsel to work his magic and bring the fun, funky checklist to life.

Check out how some colorful copy, a fabulous illustrator and our favorite nerds turned a regular checklist, into something worth reading.

When it comes to eco-friendly, paper matters

One of our fabulous clients, Peggy Grever of Benitects, LLC, an employee benefits company in St. Louis, MO has a wonderful value platform for her business. She believes in designing and building better benefits for her clients, while simultaneously promoting environmental sustainability.  Her vision is not only demonstrated through her continued client efforts but, also through her internal and external branding initiatives. Peggy goes to great lengths to insure that all of the paper materials from pocket folders to envelopes are made from recycled paper stock, an effort that is actually harder than one would think. Given the fact that the “going green” has been a tag line of almost every big corporation for the last few years, you’d think finding recycled paper products would be a cinch. Well unfortunately, saving the planet comes complete with a steep price tag and quite a few stipulations. We found this out after designing new business cards for Peggy and her partner Nancy.

The business cards combined the look and feel of draft paper with the triangle logo we recently created to create a card that visually depicts Beneticts’ tagline of designing and building better benefits. Although the entire back of the card is covered in a blue graphical pattern, it was important that the actual cardstock was not only recycled paper but, natural in color as opposed to pure white.  Again with all the green speak out there, you would assume such cardstock requirements would be easy to meet. Unfortunately, finding recycled paper is one thing, but the right color, paper weight and price are a whole other story. Our favorite print production house in Atlanta provided us with stock books to review of which we scoured for just the right stock. Sadly when we thought we found just the right one, we ran into the problem of it A) costing an arm and a leg because it could only be purchased as a Mill product or B) the non mill version was too light weight to make an appropriate business card. Not ones to give up hope on the perfect recycled paper, we opted for adding a full wash of color to the design and printing on 120 pound recycled paper.

Even though we couldn’t find exactly what we were looking for, we still managed to find a solution that saves the planet and continues to promote Benetict’s positive vision. Now we’re on the lookout for the perfect paper for the note pads we designed to complement the business cards.  If you can help, send us a note, because we want to continue the push for more green efforts.

Visit our website design, visit their town, visitgeorgetown.org

Last week I talked at length about designing and writing a brochure for the City of Georgetown, TX. Now there is truly something wonderful about holding a tangible piece of marketing collateral in your hand, but what is often more mesmerizing to me is watching a website come to life. Between the Visitor’s Guide brochure and website, I’m not exactly sure which one I am more infatuated with at the moment. Yes the brochure, once it’s lived out it’s time on the coffee table might be framed (did I mention how proud I am of that guide?), but what about the site? It might as well be a work of art living on the web for the whole world to enjoy. Ok maybe not the whole world (although they could), but at least several thousand visitors a year.

Before you visit the site, let me fill you on the design and development side of things.

When we signed, sealed and delivered the RFP, we included a mock-up of a possible website home page. Little did we know that Georgetown would love that design so much that they would request not see any further directions. When I first spoke with Cari, Georgetown’s Tourism Manager, she informed me that the design we included in our proposal was so perfect that the city insisted on having that design and that design only. I was a bit shocked to say the least, not because I didn’t agree with the decision, in fact Karen created a truly incredible direction that I hoped would see the glow of the Internet one day, but more because usually a round or two of revisions precede final decisions. Not this time. Cari loved it, the city officials loved it and we loved it and that was that. Now keep in mind that we only designed the home page, so we weren’t off the hook that easily, there were still several other unique sub page styles to create. However, with the home page design complete and the brochure look and feel established, Karen was able to seamlessly integrate all the elements to create sub pages that complement the entire package.

Typically programming and development follows the design process, but this time it was occurring simultaneously to the design phase. How is that possible you ask? Completely possible and extremely easy to do when you are partnering with a programmer such as, the City of Georgetown’s internal programming whiz Erin McDonald. Erin started laying the back-end code the minute Karen finished packaging up the home page files and didn’t stop until every image was perfectly placed and the weather widget was warmly glowing with sunny icons at the bottom of the home page.

Due to the fact that the site is targeting visitors it must act as a resource for travelers and therefore it includes a few unique bells and whistles. First, there’s that fun little weather widget that I mentioned earlier, followed by functionality that allows you to book a room directly through the site and then of course a regularly updated calendar of events. All three are great tools for the ever more prominent web-savvy traveler.

Alright, before I overwhelm you with details, why don’t you check the site out for yourself. Oh and if you want to book a trip, let me know because I’m coming with you. visit.georgetown.com

Fancy a visit to Georgetown, TX? Check out the brochure…

Traveling is one of our favorite pastimes here at Rhyme & Reason Design, Inc. If you know us personally, or have read through some of the back pages of our blog, you will have realized that we hop a plane in a blink of an eye. So what better client to have the opportunity to work with than a visitors bureau? Right up our alley. Well back in November, we received a call from the Georgetown, Texas Convention and Visitors Bureau informing us that we won the bid to re-design their Visitor’s Guide brochure and website. The only minor detail about winning such a great project was coming up with the perfect design and messaging for a city we’d never stepped foot in.

Luckily, Cari Miller, Georgetown’s Tourism Manger did an incredible job as our virtual tour guide throughout the whole process. From start to finish, she unlocked the city and introduced us to some of its incredible residents.

Due to a tight printing deadline, we started with the brochure. Designing for places we haven’t been is no problem; with enough research and immersion you can create a picture in your mind. But what about writing the contents of an entire visitor’s brochure? Well let’s just say, I now know a heck of a lot about the Red Poppy capital of Texas. Seriously, ask me anything. Who’s the city named after? Easy, George Washington Glasscock. Try another. When’s the Red Poppy Festival? April 16^th and 17^th. Ok seriously give me a tough one. Where’s the best place to eat? Ok now that’s just not fair because there are more than 100 restaurants to choose from and as they tell me, every one of them is finger licking good. Although, there are three – Wildfire, Dos Salsas and Monument Café – that received the award for best overall restaurant and after writing about them, I have a strong urge to not just book a ticket but, also a reservation or two.

Although, I have become a bit of a walking Wikipedia post for Georgetown, the brochure still had to go through several rounds of revisions. Don’t worry, we didn’t miss the boat with the design or the copy, it just so happens in our world, revisions happen regularly. Not to mention, Cari and her team know a lot more about their small town Mayberry than we do.  Once our team completed the revisions and the brochure received final approval, we packaged up the files and sent it off to the printer. Now printing is a nerve-wracking experience, no matter how great the printer is or how many times you’ve proofed a file, things can sometimes go wrong. So from the moment we send a file off to the moment we receive it back, we often sit holding our breath. Ok perhaps I exaggerated, there’s no way we could go without oxygen for a week. Well seven days after we clicked send, we were able to breath easily, because one fantastic looking brochure appeared in the mail. Yes I may be biased, but I am so proud of this brochure that it has taken up residence as the focal point of my coffee table.

In order not to create a novel out of one blog post, I’m going to make you wait with baited breath to learn more about the Georgetown website… To be continued…

The Making of a Brochure

You have been a loyal reader of this here blog for nearly three years now and I must thank you many times over for your interest in reading my ramblings. Now here’s my question to you, after all this time of reading about the cool designs we’ve created and the fun clients we’ve worked with have you ever wondered how we come up with the finished products? I know I do sometimes. Well guess what? I’m going to let you in on a little secret, that’s right, I’m going to tell you how we created our newest Big Nerd Ranch masterpiece – the Onsite brochure.

Our partners at Big Nerd Ranch offer some pretty cool services from developing iPhone and iPad applications to hosting weeklong technology classes. Recently, they came to us with the idea of creating a brochure that focuses on their onsite courses. Onsite courses enable small and large corporations to provide up-to-date training to their technology staff without having to send their entire team out of town for training.  The pros, the company gets to save money, educate their team members and pretty much have all their problems solved, well at least the Nerd-friendly technology ones. The cons, there are none. Sounds pretty great, right? Now just how do you tell the decision makers about this idea in a manner that isn’t overwhelming? Well make a fun, self-mailing brochure of course!

So that was the idea, now how did we make it a reality? Well for starters, I gathered up an array of notes, bullet points and anecdotes from the Big Nerd team and compiled the first draft of copy. Not as easy of a task as you would think. In fact, developing intelligent, fun, professional, yet not too professional technology-based copy may be my greatest feat to date. Following a couple rounds of revisions, a crash course in programming languages (in case you were wondering, Cocoa is not just a chocolatey beverage for cold days) and several dictionary visits the copy was ready for a design. That’s right, in design, the copy comes first, just like the horse before the cart.

With copy in hand, it was up to Karen to develop a piece that stayed true to Big Nerd’s brand, but extend it a bit further. Knowing that the BNR team loves their illustrations and drawings, Karen decided to give those whimsical touches some legs and some airplane wings. Wait, did I just say wings? Yes no stuttering here, Karen, our amazing creative director not only is a whiz with InDesign but, unlike my sad excuse for stick figures, she has a knack for hand drawn illustrations. Ok so I could continue to talk about the illustrations, but I am going to let them speak for themselves. Below is the process (in drawings) that Karen went through to design the look of the Onsite brochure.

See aren’t you glad you read through all of that to get to the cool pictures  Stay tuned for more designs to come, who knows the next one could be your project.