This summer, 89.1 FM, The Lakeshore, tasked us with creating a campaign for both outdoor and print advertising to promote the station’s main focal points: news, sports, traffic and weather. Lakeshore made it very clear from the beginning that the creative was to focus on 3 things: frequency, content and brand. Read the rest of this entry »
B as in Blog. Taking over the alphabet one letter at a time.
Discoveries Unlimited
V as in Victor is proud to announce that Discoveries Unlimited has been awarded our Project G as in Giving recipient for the fall of 2011. Discoveries Unlimited is currently working with the talented and left brained Matt Hanson to put together a marketing plan for 2012. Incorporated in the fall of 2008, Discoveries Unlimited’s mission is “Through the power of mentoring, Discoveries Unlimited will ignite and foster the passion for study of and employment in Science, Technology, Engineering, or Mathematics (STEM) in our youth. By creating partnerships between K-12 students, institutions of higher education and STEM professionals, we will sustain student interest and stimulate economic development.” Read the rest of this entry »
Lakeshore Television approached us and asked if we would help with an evolutionary redesign of the logo for their residential and construction program called Built To Last. The show, featuring the Chicago Regional Council of Carpenters tracks the progress of a home being built as well as information such as how to choose a contractor, millwrights of the past and green construction.
The current season focuses on just that, a green home built right here in the region and was to be incorporated into the logo. The new logo takes its inspiration from the original, using the roof line, colors and fonts. Lakeshore wanted a new logo option that kept the equity the original had built upon (no pun intended). The new logo was designed for use in full color as well as a ghosted image in the lower corner of the screen while airing. The “Green Home” tagline at the bottom has been added to highlight the current season.
With any logo, the recognition the audience has with it and your brand is one of your most important marketing tools. Creating an evolution while maintaining the brand can be tricky. Hopefully this one is built to last. (Yup, really bad pun definitely intended that time.)
This past Monday, NIPSCO kicked a new mentoring progrnewam called IN-POWER. Through the program 10-15 freshmen from Lew Wallace STEM Academy and Merrillville High School will be selected to shadow NIPSCO employees one day a week for 10 weeks. They will able to observe engineering, communications and operations in action. Those students will continue to participate in the program throughout their high school enrollment and have the opportunity to take college courses at Calumet College during the summer to help meet high school graduation requirements while earning college credits, even being eligible for internships at NIPSCO after the enroll in college.
V as in Victor was tasked with creating a new logo for IN-POWER as well as the supporting materials. While discussing the logo, Eddie Melton, NIPSCO’s communications specialist and program creator, wanted a look that didn’t stray too far from the existing NIPSCO brand. IN-POWER is a pilot program and therefore keepign with the recognition of the NISPCO brand was at the forefront of the design process. The poster for the kickoff event was also designed to fit within the brand guidelines put forth by the client. We are very proud to be a part of the new program and the mentoring efforts.
IN-POWER Logo
V as in Victor is pleased and proud to announce the recipient of our 2011 Project G: as in Giving :: Hammond’s Academy of Performing Arts. The APA is just that, a performing arts high school located in the Morton High School building (if you’re thinking Fame right now, you’re spot on). We will be working with the Academy to develop a new logo and marketing materials to start. Keep your eyes peeled as we plan to launch the new look by early summer.
Yeah, that thing. You’ve probably seen them on ads or billboards even on Jimmy Kimmel when Stephen Colbert sang “Friday“. It’s called a QR Code (short for Quick Response) and it was invented by a Japanese company called DENSO Corp., a subsidy of Toyota, in 1994. The codes have been used in Japan for years and are quite common there. But only now are they becoming mainstream in the United States. And you’re going to be seeing a lot more of them in the future.
How they work
First, you have to have a QR scanning application for your smartphone (you can download them from your favorite app store, don’t worry, it’s free. RedLaser, Barcode Scanner, ScanLife and NeoReader are popular ones.). When you see a QR code on a poster or billboard, open the scanning app and use the phone’s camera to focus the code on your screen. The application will recognize the code and automatically open up the link, video or image in your phone’s browser through your phone’s internet. Read the rest of this entry »
The March of Dimes, Northwest Division elected V as in Victor’s Matt Valuckis as the new Chair of its Board of Directors. The two-year term appointment was announced December 21, 2010, by the Victor Garcia, Division Director.
Both Matts Valuckis and Hanson have been involved with the March of Dimes since October of 2009 and have both served on the board in 2010.
“It’s an honor to be asked to help guide the March of Dimes,” Matt explains. “The March of Dimes has done wonderful things in its 70+ years. I really do believe we have an opportunity to make the organization relevant to the next generation. March of Dimes stands for healthy babies, no matter what. How can you not get behind a cause like that? Victor Garcia has done great things for the organization in the short time he has been Division Director and I’m proud to stand by his side as we move forward.”
Victor added, “The March of Dimes has been fortunate to have had the support of V as in Victor and Matt Valuckis. We’re very excited about Matt taking on this leadership position and we’re confident that his networking and communications skills will help us get to the next level in terms of mission deliverables, mission awareness and fundraising.”
Also elected is Elaine Merkel as Vice Chair and Secretary/Treasurer, Mary Brewer.
March of Dimes is an American health charity whose mission is to improve the health of babies by preventing birth defects, premature birth, and infant mortality. It was founded by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1938 as the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis poliomyelitis, commonly known as polio, which Roosevelt had contracted at the age of 39. to defeat the epidemic disease
Matt Valuckis in front of banners created for the Porter County Museum of History
The following article was published in The Times on Sunday, December 12, 2010
New business owners, often strapped for cash, try many ways to promote their new venture.
Matt Valuckis, owner of V as in Victor, has taken a different, win-win approach to gain new clients. Twice a year, he donates time to nonprofit organizations that need help with their fund-raising campaigns.
Through Project G as in Giving, the firm offers a full spectrum of integrated marketing services, including marketing and brand strategies, website and collateral design, advertising and e-marketing.
“This is a way to give back while promoting business,” Valuckis said. “I do the pro bono projects and it helps my business grow through word of mouth. It’s great to work with the nonprofits who do not always take a traditional approach to marketing and are more apt to take chances and try something different since the service is free.”
Valuckis was a victim of the economic downturn before venturing out on his own. After working in graphic design for more than 10 years, he was laid off in August 2008. He found there weren’t many full-time jobs available, yet his freelance business was flourishing. That’s when he decided to convert his freelance jobs into a full-time business. Over time, he gained new clients and has provided services to a variety of business ranging from U.S. Steel and Rollers Tobacco Gallery to the American Cancer Society and the Whiting Pierogi Festival.
“When the economy is down, marketing is often the first thing cut,” he said. “But when sales start to slump, it’s more important than ever to get people in the door. If a company’s sales are down, what they are doing isn’t working, so it’s time to try something new.”
While he does traditional graphic design with marketing logos and letterheads, V as in Victor also does exterior signage and special events. Valuckis writes marketing plans and analyzes them to gauge their effectiveness, looking at conversion rates and goals. V as in Victor’s services also focus on a website design and e-mail campaigns, but go a step farther and maintain mailing lists to ensure better open rates.
“When I started this business, I wasn’t sure what to expect,” he said. “But in the first six months of 2010, business has been great with sales topping what we made in all of last year. My services go way beyond print ads and the business has really grown through word of mouth.”
I was having a conversation with someone the other day who was trying to make a point. In the process of the conversation, this person decided to back that point with a list of smaller points. It went like this: “A) Never get involved in a land war in Asia and 2)…” Well, it didn’t matter what Point 2 was, because it should have been Point B. I got distracted and stopped listening to what they were actually saying because I was thinking, “That should have been Point B. Point B!“.
If you start a list alphabetically, please end alphabetically. Same for the numerical point system. I don’t care which you use, just be consistent. If you’re extending your logic and your thought process enough to make a bullet pointed argument, go one step further and use consistent point headers. If you can’t be consistent enough to stick with letters or numbers, how am I to believe you’ve sufficiently thought out the argument you’re presenting within those headers? Just sayin’.
Meet Rollers Tobacco Gallery, Dyer, Indiana’s first true true “roll your own” cigarette retail outlet. They tasked V as in Victor with a multitude of projects, including their logo, business cards, website, interior graphics, signage, products and billboards even a 1950′s cigarette/pin girl. From the start, Rollers Tobacco Gallery set out to be different than the corner cigarette discount store, leaning toward warmer colors and a lounge feel to their materials and surroundings. The chosen logo playfully uses the cigarette itself as part of the wordmark, with the billowing smoke as an added icon. Everything created for Rollers was designed with a slight quirk to it, from the undersized business cards (1″ x 2.75″, about half the size of standard cards) to the website (see for yourself) to the billboards (we went the digital route with three rotating messages with different designs for daytime and night) with a look that launched them into a classy position in the tobacco arena. The reasons for the differentiation came from the store and product itself. Read the rest of this entry »