EOS wins Green Day Corporate Challenge award

Last week Friday, I attended the 8th annual Leadership Breakfast for EarthShare of Georgia with our good friends from Tomorrow Pictures. At the breakfast, our team was awarded the small group Green Day Corporate Challenge winner for the work we did a Riverside Park! This was our first year participating in the event, and the judges from EarthShare were very impressed with the large amount of work our small group accomplished in such a limited timeframe.

Preparing the community garden at Riverside Park was truly an enriching experience. It’s was a great feeling knowing that we were taking part in an activity that will have a positive impact on an entire neighborhood. Our team is excited about seeing the “fruits” of their labor once the garden is complete. I’m looking forward to inspiring more change at Earthshare’s next Green Day Corporate Challenge.

Think you got what it takes to be EOS’ next graphic design intern?

We are looking for a graphic design intern for the EOS summer internship program. Our ideal candidate will be a graphic design student or recent grad with experience in Adobe CS4 - Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign. S/he will have the opportunity to participate in brainstorming sessions, help to produce print and web marketing materials and assist with day-to-day office duties. 

This paid internship is a great way to gain real world experience and work with some of the best creative minds in the business. If you’re interested, please click here to download the job description and learn how to apply for the position. Thanks and good luck!

Happy Earth Day from the EOS Goddess!

Last Saturday morning, we met our friends from Tomorrow Pictures at Riverside Community Garden for the Corporate Green Day Challenge. Every year, EarthShare of Georgia hosts a work-day to give Atlanta businesses an opportunity to celebrate Earth Day by volunteering in local community activities. Hundreds of volunteers have participated over the years, and the event was expected to be even bigger this year. 

Our group worked with the neighbors in Riverside to prep the Riverside Community Garden for planting. The project , which started last year, provides low income residents in the area with access to fresh vegetables, herbs and fruits. We spent the morning mowing, tilling, weeding and building raised beds so the garden would be ready for the neighbors to start planting in the coming weeks. While landscaping the garden entrance, we discovered a beautiful oak tree tucked away behind ivy, an old chain link fence and trash. It was an amazing transformation, and I am planning to go back later in the season to see what is growing (and hopefully get a taste of some fresh produce)!

I love opportunities to give back to the community and what better to do it with co-workers and the extended EOS family at Tomorrow Pictures. Check out pictures from our adventure to really see how much fun we had!

The Client Factor

Last week Lauren and I went to SCAD Atlanta to speak with students about life after art school. Well, I spoke with them about life after art school. Lauren had much more professional and beneficial insights to share.

Since I’ve been working here at eos, my life has been a whirlwind of designing websites, concepting, creating print collateral, logo redesigns, anything creative you can imagine, I’ve had the great fortune to do it all here. And I love it. So on the way to speak to these design students, I took a moment to reflect on how different life is when you leave art school and enter the corporate world.

The biggest and most important difference is what I like to call “The Client Factor.” Simply put (but not so easily executed), you are no longer creating for yourself, you are creating for the client.

And creating for the client takes modesty and professionalism (something that a lot of artists have trouble with). It also requires you to establish a level of trust with your client. After all, this is THEIR money you’re spending. Their hard work has earned that money. It’s imperative that you are empathetic to this.

That said, The Client Factor requires thorough planning before you even consider the execution. A lot of times people think creative work is just making something pretty. Not true at all. You must have a concept. A strategy. A support system that assures your client you are handling their hard-earned money with the utmost amount of sensitivity and smarts.

Look at good design out there today, I promise you it was made possible because of a domino-effect series of events between the client and the creative.

1. A plan was established
2. Trust developed between the client and the creative team because of this plan
3. This trust allows the creative to have more leeway when developing the work, leaving both companies with work that they all can be proud of.

So, in looking back after art school, I’ve learned that it is no longer about me. It’s about the client. It’s no longer about me. It’s about the client. If you’re a creative, say this over and over and over. And then over again. Because it can be tough at times. But if you can get that burned into your brain, I assure you, everyone involved will come out on top.

Million dollar comma

Last week Friday, Lauren and I attended the the Fred Pryor mistake-free grammar & proofreading seminar. The class was a great refresher on grammar basics. It’s always nice to take time to stretch the old grammar muscle every now and then.

If you know me, then you know that I love when presenters have entertaining anecdotes that tie into the their lessons, and Dr. Faye Fulton was full of them. The story that stuck with me the most was a multi-million dollar lawsuit that was decided by a comma.

An extremely wealthy man passed away and left his estate to be divided evenly among his two nephews and one niece. In his will, it clearly stated that “Bob, Andrew and Leslie” would all receive an equal share of his estate. Bob contested the will stating that because there was no comma between Andrew’s and Leslie’s names, they were legally one entity. This means he would inherit 50 percent of the estate and the other two siblings would split the remaining 50 percent. The court ruled in favor of Bob.

Now obviously this judge was not aware of the Associate Press Stylebook, and I have no way of verifying the validity of this story - I wasted a full 30 minutes searching for it on Google - but, it still goes to show how important it is for our written work to be grammatically correct. A simple punctuation error could completely change the meaning of a sentence. And if a comma is the difference between $15 million and $30 million, you darn well better have it in the right place.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMBER!

Today, another EOS goddess donned the  pink crown and boa in celebration of her birthday. The team surprised Amber , whose birthday was Saturday, April 3, with cupcakes from A Piece of Cake and a spirited rendition of the  ”Happy Birthday” song. What could be better than being serenaded by your colleagues while munching on cupcakes?

Hold the onions on my left-handed Whopper, please.

For years, major corporations have used April Fool’s Day as an opportunity to launch large-scale pranks on unsuspecting consumers. While it’s all fun and games, many are unaware that these “jokes” are merely viral marketing campaigns packaged an April Fool’s shenanigan.

It’s a brilliant concept. Whether it’s Google changing its website name to “Topeka” or Starbucks adding a 128 oz cup of coffee its menu, these “pranks” result in loads of consumer interest and free publicity. Consider the following “gotchas” pulled by a few very well-know corporations:

·          Taco Bell sparked an uproar when the company announced it had purchased the Liberty Bell and renamed it the “Taco Liberty Bell.”  When asked about the sale at a White House press briefing, then-secretary Mike McCurry reportedly announced that the Lincoln Memorial had also been sold and renamed the “Ford Lincoln Memorial.”

·         Burger King announced the new left-handed Whopper. The company took out a full page ad in “USA Today” highlighting the first ever burger designed for 32-million left-handed Americans. The company issued a release detailing the hoax after thousands of customers either ordered a left-handed burger or made it a point to mention they wanted to stick with the classic, right-handed version.

·         Kodak has launched Aromatography, “a breakthrough in digital imaging processing” that uses Neuro-optic nasal sense imaging technology, known as NonSense, to bring pictures to life with scratch-and-sniff aromas.

These gags are great examples of how companies have managed to turn tomfoolery into an opportunity to expand their brand presence. Click here to check out a list April Fool’s Day 2010 pranks by some of our favourite brands.