This week, while at the San Francisco Convention & Visitors Bureau 99th annual luncheon, we found out that our Art SF 08 campaign won the CTTC’s Tourism Marketing Excellence Award.
The campaign, which showcased the city’s incredible summer of art, featured national print ads, online banner ads, a micro site (above), rack cards and posters throughout SFO. We’re always thrilled when industry insiders recognize and reward great work. A huge thanks to Lynn Bruni and the rest of the marketing team at the SFCVB for bringing us on and making this happen!
This week we found out that one of our logo designs is to be featured in the first edition of the brand new LogoLounge Master series book, titled Initials & Crests. The release date for the new volume is February 2010.
The featured logo is for the Feld Institute, a seminar-driven organization training attendees to improve individual aspects of their lives by understanding how those aspects fit into the larger whole. The logo itself embodies the ideas of integration and balance, and recalls the origins of those ideas, in eastern philosophy. We’re looking forward to seeing the new book when it comes out next spring!
When you live in San Francisco, it’s easy to get complacent about the incredible outdoor opportunities that surround this fabulous city. With the Headlands to the North, Tilden Park in the East, the Santa Cruz mountains to the South, and Ocean Beach to the West, option paralysis can set in. Not to mention, we’re often easily seduced by our world class restaurants and entertainment offerings.
The problem is, we are just not getting out into nature as much as we should. In fact, there’s clear new evidence that says that children who play and explore outdoors feel less stressed and may develop more confidence and greater social skills. It’s just that problem The Trust for Public Land and The North Face wanted to address. How do we get people out into nature again?
The two organizations came together and decided it’s high time someone promoted the incredible diversity of local parks and outdoor spaces, right here in the city. And so Iron was commissioned to write and design the “San Francisco Urban Nature Guide: 2009.” This handy pocket map features nine of the city’s lesser-known, but fun-filled parks, with suggestions on how to make the most of our time in the great outdoors. The guides are free and being distributed through The North Face stores this summer. It’s time to put on a pack and hit the park!
This week the Boys & Girls Clubs of San Francisco launched their new web site which we designed and helped to develop over the past 6 months. The site is intended to provide a more interactive, informative and user-friendly experience and is filled with great information about the Clubs and programs, their important partners and some history of the Clubs in San Francisco. Check out some of the following NEW features we designed into the site:
Sophisticated back-end development allows the site to act as a key fundraising and marketing tool
Integrated CMS gives the client complete control over the content of the site
Revised look and feel ensures consistent brand implementation
Improved and easy-to-use online giving feature, complete with corporate match information and options for recurring gifts
The option to sign up to learn more and receive an e-newsletter
Extensive new photo galleries
It was a privilege to work with such an important organization. Our goal was to redevelop the site as an engaging and dynamic communication channel, ensuring the look and feel meshed perfectly with the organization’s re-brand. Take a look and let us know what you think!
Yes, we’ve said radio is not the obsolete medium you think it is. But actions speak louder than words. We just finished work on a new campaign for On The Fly – a San Francisco Men’s store (listen to our favorite spot below). And the spots make one point we’ve overlooked in our previous posting: 30 seconds is as good as 60. A few years back, radio made a marked shift away from the 60 second spot, and toward the 30 second spot. Agencies went into an uproar, claiming they wouldn’t have time to tell a story and engage the audience, which would result in diminished results.
But this was a symptom of an age-old advertising problem: good radio is hard to do and it doesn’t have the portfolio cache that TV does. So the hardest thing to do well always falls to new, less experienced writers. In other words, most agencies aren’t very good at radio in the first place – and the need to do it in half the time has simply shined a light on that fact. On the other hand, agencies that specialize in the “theater of the mind” are more in demand than ever.
The format of the event is simple. You present 20 slides and talk about each for 20 seconds. Our theme was cause/affect, the graphic design competition we developed on behalf of the local chapter of the AIGA: the professional association for design. It was an incredible experience and gave us a great chance to get together with a bunch of do-gooders all doing incredible work.
This month we received an ecstatic call from one of our favorite clients, NCPHS – a not-for-profit corporation which provides for the needs of older people and promotes their quality of life through housing and other programs of social care.
It was one of those fantastic moments when a client took time out of their busy schedule to call and thank us. Why? Well, their phones had been ringing off the hook as the ad campaign we had been working on started to click into high gear. This was the pinnacle of a six month effort which saw us radically improve their Bay Area media buy, revise their marketing strategy, and redesign their print campaign.
We are excited to see how the campaign helps the organization strengthen its position as the premiere destination for seniors, and we look forward to developing their marketing materials further.
Read more about our advertising work Read more about our non profit work Read more about our media buying experience
This month we learned that our 2008 campaign for the San Francisco Convention & Visitors Bureau has been chosen as a finalist in the CTTC’s Tourism Marketing Excellence Awards.
The campaign, which showcased the city’s incredible summer of art, featured national print ads, online banner ads, a micro site, rack cards and posters throughout SFO. Our fingers are crossed!
We recently designed the Gala Invite and event program for the Boys and Girls Clubs of San Francisco, and we’re pleased to report the event was a huge success.
I was lucky enough to attend the event and was thrilled to learn it raised a phenomenal $550,000! Click here to see pictures from the event. With this money, the Clubs will continue to run vital programs that help kids succeed in school, build strong character, develop healthy lifestyles and graduate from high school with a clear post-secondary plan.
We’re also putting the finishing touches to the orgnization’s web site, which is due to launch in the middle of the month.
This morning I was delighted to be part of a panel discussion, along with my colleague Alice Bybee, about designing for social responsibility at the PINC 2009 Conference in San Francisco.
The seminar was well attended and I was suprised by the commitment and diversity of the group. If there’s one thing I took away it was that more and more people are passionate about incorporating some degree of social responsibility into their daily practice.
Read more about our work with non-profit organizations.
At Iron, we create marketing messages that get to the point: simply, quickly, effectively. Then we package those messages in a way that builds a personal, emotional connection, that cannot be ignored or forgotten.
This week, while at the San Francisco Convention & Visitors Bureau 99th annual luncheon, we found out that our Art SF 08 campaign won the CTTC’s Tourism Marketing Excellence Award.
The campaign, which showcased the city’s incredible summer of art, featured national print ads, online banner ads, a micro site (above), rack cards and posters throughout SFO. We’re always thrilled when industry insiders recognize and reward great work. A huge thanks to Lynn Bruni and the rest of the marketing team at the SFCVB for bringing us on and making this happen!
This week we found out that one of our logo designs is to be featured in the first edition of the brand new LogoLounge Master series book, titled Initials & Crests. The release date for the new volume is February 2010.
When you live in San Francisco, it’s easy to get complacent about the incredible outdoor opportunities that surround this fabulous city. With the Headlands to the North, Tilden Park in the East, the Santa Cruz mountains to the South, and Ocean Beach to the West, option paralysis can set in. Not to mention, we’re often easily seduced by our world class restaurants and entertainment offerings.
Yes, we’ve said radio is not the obsolete medium you think it is. But actions speak louder than words. We just finished work on a new campaign for On The Fly – a San Francisco Men’s store (listen to our favorite spot below). And the spots make one point we’ve overlooked in our previous posting: 30 seconds is as good as 60. A few years back, radio made a marked shift away from the 60 second spot, and toward the 30 second spot. Agencies went into an uproar, claiming they wouldn’t have time to tell a story and engage the audience, which would result in diminished results.
This month we received an ecstatic call from one of our favorite clients, NCPHS – a not-for-profit corporation which provides for the needs of older people and promotes their quality of life through housing and other programs of social care.
This morning I was delighted to be part of a panel discussion, along with my colleague Alice Bybee, about designing for social responsibility at the 