Formerly, Austin’s African American Cultural Heritage District, Six Square - Austin’s Black Cultural District, was formed in 2014 to save Austin’s black history and to empower others to tell the story of black’s contributions to the social, economic, and political fabric of Austin. Being one of the largest cultural districts in the country, Six Square takes its name from the literal boundary (of approximately six square miles) designated for the district and creates a positive and welcoming environment while allowing to actively stake claim and craft the district’s important future.
For more than 10 years, the Museum presented a logo meant to emulate a book cover and emphasize its tagline, “The Story of Texas.” While the logo helped establish and anchor the Museum’s brand and identity, the emphasis of the tagline began to confuse the organization’s messaging, overshadow the purpose of the institution and even cause some confusion about the Museum’s name.
Message Workshops helped the Museum better define its audiences, align its messaging internally and externally and identify the Museum’s “known for”. From there, we developed a Message Platform for the Museum that brought a new internal vision and mission for strategic marketing – “The Place to Discover Texan.” As well as a more applicable logomark.
Our objective was to develop a brand for the Texas State University System (TSUS) that would elevate the System’s status as a higher education leader in Texas and provide brand standards to guide System employees and component institutions on use of the system brand.
Despite TSUS’s status as the state’s oldest, third largest and arguably most efficiently operated university system, it has consistently been overshadowed by Texas’ two largest systems. As a result, key state budget writers, policy makers and thought and opinion leaders often overlooked TSUS when making critical budget and policy decisions, basing their decisions largely on the wants and needs of the two larger systems.
To step out of the shadow cast by the State’s largest systems, TSUS looked to create a clear, recognizable and distinct brand. One committed to affordability, efficiency and responsibility to a student-centric philosophy.
The objective was to deploy a new brand as an expression of the city’s character, vision and goals and to reposition Brownsville in the marketplace.
To position Brownsville’s reputation as a successful, business-friendly city and an ideal location for employment creation, relocation and expansion, as well as a city of growth (families, education, healthcare).
Sam Lee and Dale Malone came looking for some help with their major push for franchise opportunities across Texas and beyond, beginning with a tagline, web site assistance and store signage.
The first thing they did was rename themselves from EconoBox to EcoBox. Smart move. But they missed something huge. The green element to define and drive their business for the next few years. Something they can stake their claim on. Econo means budget and Eco means green. And the word Eco sounds more expensive, so they needed to have a brand that would live up to the new name. During this whole process, another element was missing. Humanizing the business. Boxes come in all shapes and sizes. And the best way to show scale with box sizes was to add a human element. Meet Kiko Knox. She now tells the EcoBox story and sells the boxes. And the newest marketing mantra is to “reduce your cardboard footprint.”
Austin San Antonio Intermunicipal Commuter Rail District. What a mouthful that is to say. After months of extensive research and consumer insight, the task at hand was to name the highly-anticipated regional train service from Georgetown to San Antonio that the district would be held accountable to. Add a positioning line, original photography and a Brand Styleguide with all the necessary support materials to launch a brand new service and you have LSTAR, a service of the new Lone Star Rail District.
Hahn Public, Dandy Idea and Sanders\Wingo collaborated to produce all of the immense elements they needed to succeed.
The bummer? The project was dropped after years of hard work and negotiating with state and local entities to make it happen. Another time, maybe?
Solar Power International (SPI), a business-to-business consortium designed to serve and advance the solar industry, targeted Texas as its next big market push due to the state’s plentiful business opportunities and potential for huge economic growth in solar power.
With just three months to develop and implement an integrated marketing plan, we quickly identified target audiences, crafted key messages, and produced a creative campaign starting with a Texas-focused brand followed by paid, earned and social media materials.
In a matter of weeks, the team produced a new logo, website design, print and online ad templates and radio spots. We wanted to put a real face to the issue, so the campaign creative showcased actual business leaders who worked in the solar industry or had chosen to adopt solar in their offices as a business decision.
Following an intense three-month period, SPI experienced noticeable direct and referred website traffic as well as an increase in visitors to their additional websites from Texas users.
This is where the rubber meets the road. For my logo designs I always strive for simplicity, but with a story.
The objective here was to create a memorable and unique public education campaign for the City of Ann Arbor focused on stormwater infrastructure education. The concept and execution should be simple, smart and catchy with a bit of humor. The underlying purpose was to show the citizens of Ann Arbor that the Water District is complicated and quite vast in its offerings, but wanted to share some highlights to justify the tax dollars being spent.