Concept Development

Most of the families who stay at the Hilton Hotel in Orlando are there to visit Disney World. The hotel’s marketing director wanted a way to encourage those guests to stay longer and enjoy some of the lively but less well-known destinations in the area. We worked with their designer to produce this placemat for the hotel breakfast café. It was filled with entertaining stories that kept kids occupied and parents informed about local activities, attractions, and quirky bits of Florida history.

When the Portland design firm Plazm was working with Champs Sports to promote the Nike Air Turbulence shoe, they called on us to help with concept development and writing. Together, we created ads and promotional materials—an air-sickness bag and a report on wind-tunnel testing of the shoe's performance at speeds from walking to Warp1—that played with the idea of air turbulence.

Founded in Seattle in 1986 by an Italian immigrant family, Torrefazione Italia had the kind of credibility that most other local coffee places couldn't match. They didn’t need to spend time talking the talk because they had been around the piazza several times. So they wanted their collateral materials to express that authenticity quickly and confidently. Designer Craig Marocco combined classic Italian iconography with photographs of their Deruta coffee cups. Then we crafted simple but evocative copy that was all fact and no braggadocio.

After the sequel to the original Men in Black movie opened in Los Angeles, the producers were looking for a promotional giveaway that would engage fans and reward them for their inside knowledge. We were hired by Plazm Design to write the copy for a fictional job application that wannabe MIB agents could fill out to see if they were qualified to become elite trackers of extraterrestrial malcontents.

Since its founding, this prestigious Chicago law firm has supported equal justice and human rights causes by providing financial support to organizations such as the Black Women’s Lawyers Association. For these ads, they wanted a simple message that was not self aggrandizing. We suggested using inspirational quotes by influential women to create the focal point for these understated but powerful ads.

Whether you’re creating a website, a brochure, an online ad, or a seasonal mailer, the same basic rules apply. If you want your message to be heard over the background noise, figure out who your audience is and create something that appeals to their sweet spot. We used vintage illustrations, poetry and enticing headlines that invoked the spirit of the holiday season to draw the desired demographic segment of shoppers to this upscale outdoor mall.