DEPARTMENT OF PROJECTS: Emerald Petals

Department of Projects has been busy, busy this month with a new project. Introducing the lovely Hilary Holmes and her big, shiny new, awesome baby, Emerald Petals. Emerald Petals is a new flower shop set to open very soon on Mississippi Ave in Portland. Bike delivery service, vase re-use discounts, recycled materials interior and locally or sustainably grown flowers abound. It's going to be great!

And so Ben and I have been trying to make Hilary some equally great marketing materials.

We went the hand-drawn route again for this one. Hilary had some great inspiration items that were very art deco meets Portland crafty -- an odd direction, but we felt up for the challenge.

Some of our early work we've created includes Emerald Petals's basic branding look and feel.


Business Cards /
After weeks of toying with font faces and awkward flower-meets-bike-wheel dorky logos, we decided on something sweet and simple.

I hand drew the letters, Ben turned them into computer friendly bits and then I sketched out some flowers per an image Hilary had found (that she might get as a tattoo!). The final product is crisp and crafty feeling. We had custom rubber stamps made of the images and now Hilary can stamp out her cards on whatever paper pieces she prefers -- all recycled or reclaimed to keep with the EP mission. Hope to get some nice shots of the crads in action soon. Until then, our comps:

Decal Sign /
One of the most exciting projects DOP has completed to date. Seeing our design in big, beautiful colors cut from vinyl...swoon. We had some geek out moments.

Promo Cards /
Informational little coupons to hand out to flower and non-flower lovers alike. Big idea: make something that was cute enough to keep on your desk for at least 3 months (longer if we are lucky). Comp shown on kraft paper:

More to come on Emerald Petals / Department of Project partnerships. We will let you know when the doors open and flowers start pouring out.

COLABORATORY + MUFFINS!

Little Debbie launched a fantastic marketing campaign this summer to promote their new muffins. The Intern Hero campaign is Little Debbie's attempt to feed the under-paid interns of America. Send them a clever shot of you holding a pleading sign for muffins at your internship office and if selected, they'll send you a big ol' box of muffin goodness. Luckily, a bunch of us COLABORATORY interns have an infinity for muffins and photoshop alike. Jimmy Zimmerman and I have been featured on the site thus far. Curious to see how many more COLAB kiddos are going to strike pastry gold.

COLAB Agencies

Upon receiving my COLABORATORY Survival Guide--a 15 page PDF detailing everything I need to know about my summer internship--I found out which three agencies I will be interning at.

Three very different agencies in three very different chunks of the Portland-metro area -

WEEKS 1 & 2

Ascentium is an interactive marketing and technology consultancy firm.




WEEKS 3 & 4

Grady Britton is an advertising, marketing, media and communications agency.

WEEKS 5 & 6

Anvil is a search engine marketing company.

They all make me very excited and very eager to get the Colab ball rolling. With my project management skills spanning simply my limited knowledge from my three years at a graphic design agency, I'm sure all three of these locations will prove to be extremely educational.

Orientation is this Friday where I will meet all my fellow interns and then I start this Monday, the 13th at Ascentium.

good ideas

There are few ideas that cross my path that give me such ample fuel to explain and generally geek out about marketing quite like these two.

I often find myself fumbling when I try to explain my business marketing degree to others. I run in a mostly artistic, creative and liberal circle which translates to a generally hostile mentality when it comes to anything business related. After assuring them that not all marketers adore Super Bowl ads, nor do we all focus on profit oriented advertising schemes, I then launch into a spiel about how I really just love people with good ideas. I love the idea of making one person's BIG, good idea happen with other good ideas. Idealistic and hokey, I know, but really, its what got me through all those corporate finance classes in business school.

Best ideas I have heard this week; things I'm willing to word-of-mouth market and would love to get behind in a bigger way -

Contrail

It's bikes, it's art, it's community, it's clever. The Contrail, a chalk tool for bikes, had me at "pretty colors."

Contrail is a chalking device attached to bicyclists' wheels in order to create "trails" or bright ribbons of color in heavily trafficked biking areas. The idea being, bikers proactively create awareness of shared road spaces.

More bikers = more color = heads up for motor vehicles.

Contrail was a concept design submission for a 2008 contest and is not in production yet, but hopefully with enough support something will materialize soon.

Obviously, I think Portland would be an amazing place to kick off a product launch of the Contrail. Can you imagine the colors on Clinton Street or Hawthorne... or, really anywhere in this bike-loving town? It would be great. I suppose the frequent rain could be a problem, but that's a minor detail in the grand scheme of this art+bike+community love obsession.


Carrotmob
It's the opposite of boycotting.

Frustrated with the not-so productive nature of traditional activism and the act of boycotting, Carrotmob founders conceived the idea of "carrotmobbing." A large network of organized consumers supports on-mass a business that is choosing to make socially and environmentally responsible business practices. By mobbing the business all on one day, the business gets a ton of publicity and a ton of cash to support their worthy endeavors.

I had heard of Carrotmob before, but the full extent of its awesomeness really hit me this week when I learned about Carrotmob's recent invasion of Hot Lips Pizza in Portland. Carrotmob invaded Hot Lips and racked in a over $6,000 for the business on what typically would have been a slow Sunday with as little as $2,000 in sales. The added income will be used for Hot Lips' commitment to make their locations more energy-efficient.

Watch this video for more on Carrotmob and a look at the first ever Carrotmob event that slammed a liquor store with business in San Francisco.



Carrotmob Makes It Rain from carrotmob on Vimeo.


Gosh! Good ideas. I love them. They make me want to MAKE THINGS!

my summer with Colaboratory

After a long and adventurous hunt, I have secured the illusive beast: an creative business internship in Portland, OR.

This weekend I found out that I will be part of Portland Advertising Federation's 2009 summer internship program, Colaboratory, serving as one of two Account Managers.

Colaboratory is 6 week program in Portland that accepts 10 junior or senior college students each year who are interested in writing, design, interactive multimedia, account management, production, strategy or public relations. We will be placed at three different Portland ad/marketing/design agencies for three two-week intensive internships over the course of the six weeks. During the six weeks, we will also be divided into teams of five--our mini agencies--and will compete head-to-head to develop a campaign pitch for a local company. Last year's company was Sameunderneath, a local clothing line. We do not know yet who the client will be this year--all they can tell us it is not Nike. The Internet rumors are true--the 2009 Colab client will be Columbia Sportswear! We will be meeting with the director of international marketing from Columbia on our first day of orientation.

Colaboratory's purpose is multi-functional. The local agencies get aptly funneled, highly qualified, eager interns, while PAF promotes young innovation city-wide and the interns get a broader perspective of the market and much more networking outlets. To say the least, it is an exciting program and for that reason and many others, I was highly invested in my application and was elated when I heard I was accepted.

Another function of the program is for the interns to be very public with their experiences to serve as a resource for other students looking to enter into an internship or the Portland business scene. The Colab interns are encouraged to blog, video-blog and Twitter about their experiences all throughout. That being said, I thought it would be fitting to make my first act as a Colab intern of the class of '09 to be a blog post about the details of my application (particularly seeing as it was the source of my blog-distraction for a few months).

My Colab Application ::

We were asked to provide three samples (shown below). I included 1) A group project Internet Marketing Plan for the Broadway Farmers Market in Seattle. Acted as group coordinator, designer and programmer for updated website, 2) DRY Soda Press Cards. With Turnstyle, acted as Project Manager and 3) Current marketing topic report on QR Code applications in package design.

One of the largest and most complex portions of the application was an open-ended response question where we were told we could use any form of media. The question asked us how we would explain to an automaker the value of marketing, PR and advertising when they are only concerned with price-reduction strategy. For my submission (shown below), I created a small book that reiterated my response using first a full page with charts, then just one paragraph, then one sentence and finally no words--the idea being, as an account manager you must be able to convey your team's idea in any way, whether that be a big long pitch or quick and short email. The book's cover was made with kraft paper and hand-sewn binding. Note the extra rad drawings of my "bull" and "bear" for the final page.

I grouped together all the main pieces into two bundles (shown below): the first included my résumé, business card, letters of recommendation, the application with my essay question responses and my little open-response book. The second bundle was my samples.

The whole thing was shipped out in this custom made envelope (shown below). Machine stitching on large sheets of kraft paper. Thanks to Maddy Eiche for letting me borrow her sewing machine!

And... then it was mailed and my Colab fate was resting in the hands of all the cool Portland professionals working with PAF.

The program is young (only in its second year), so I am sure it will be a growing process for all parties involved--but, I think that is what attracted me to the program. It is an adaptive concept that recognizes that there is no feasible way to learn everything about the creative business industry in the course of just one internship. Think bigger! Do more! Dive in the deep end and trust your skills! And most importantly, surround yourself with creative, excited, helpful individuals and figure it out. I am really excited to devote so much of my time this summer to this program. I am eager to find out who my fellow interns are and who our client will be. This summer has officially been dedicated to creativity and collaboration. Go go go.

I begin my stint with Colab on July 11th at which time all of you, my dear blog readers, will be subjected to a steady dosage of internship stories right here on Breakfast for Dinner. Prepare yourself, it is going to be an intense six weeks. You will soon read, see, hear and watch everything I encounter while venturing into the wild mix of the Portland Creative Class.