You’re literally designing white space—white space to be filled out later.

With more and more of this stuff moving online it was a nice chance to go back and visit this in a print format and good reminder that the fundamentals still apply and even in migrating these concepts to print, you shouldn’t just assume that the conventions we’ve become accustom to online are the best answers.

Anyhow, some detail shots of the work we did are to the right.

With more work to do—and the clock ticking—on the full report we applied the same color scheme, type and iconography to a more conventional letter-sized report and went with a on-demand digital printing.

If the shots above aren’t enough, check out the actual Styers & Kemerait site.

Go outside and play. And / or blow something up.*

*Assuming you’re in a firework friendly state.

But what I need to get into is the thanking. Thanking Laura, Mark and Monarose for stepping up and handling so much stuff in my absence.

I’ve made it no secret that we’re a small shop. In fact, I’ve made the case that it’s a strength in a great number of ways. I still maintain that, but in these situations it can strain even the hardest working group. All three of them took their turns jumping on various grenades, dealing with the stuff that comes up with a shop that’s growing—sometimes wildly and unpredictably.

And that leads me to thanking our clients for their understanding and patience during this time. I think this will invoke some changes. I’m not sure how or what yet, but we’re going to figure out how to handle things a little differently, but not in ways that remove the advantages a small team brings to the table.

More later as we figure things out.

The potential client was a company that had been in business for over 50 years. They had strong name recognition in their field and a reputation of good work and a quality product. Even with all that going for them they were losing market share.

They’d enjoyed fantastic word of mouth for years. Longtime residents and their families would swear by the customer service and quality of work. Facing an influx of people moving into the area, they didn’t have any means of reaching these new customers and were, as a result, losing ground to other companies competing in the same space.

This is the doomed part. Before we were ever contacted—someone put it in the client’s head that they needed a new logo, a rebrand, something new. And shiny.

They didn’t. Maybe a refresh. Something subtle. Maybe.

The facts were: They had more than 50 years of brand equity in their current logo, great name recognition coupled with an establish client base. The logo was a hardworking example of mid-1950′s typography. It was classic and appropriate to their values.

Given how many U.S. companies closed the decade with a run of horrendous logo missteps, I really couldn’t see burning down what was there in order to become the next Pepsi, Tropicana or Gap. At most we are talking about a Miller High Life.

The issue was how the logo was being used. Marketing materials produced in-house were poorly thought out. They carried no overall goal or plan beyond what need had come up that afternoon. Round this out with a lack of consistency among foundation materials like business cards and web presence that was, charitably, bi-polar on its best days. Are you starting to get a good idea of the utter chaos their brand was falling into?

They were the definition of succeeding in spite of their best efforts to fail. Coasting on reputation while the landscape was starting to go uphill.

It’s never comfortable to go into a meeting to tell a group that they’ve started going the wrong direction. It’s hard to do that. Hard because the easy, profit-motivated move is to swim with the current. It’s easier and more profitable. We were suggesting a less lucrative, for us, approach. A mild refresh at best of the logo with a focus on getting their print materials and web presence unified and coherent.

This first meeting—the good one—they seemed on board with the concept. Then the call came, they wanted to pay for a fishing expedition. A small fee to “see what we might come up with.” Hindsight, know-it-all that it is, tells me this was the first hint that they really weren’t on board. For the fee offered, there’s no way we could comprehensively show what was in store. I should have bailed or at least suggest that they’d need a bigger boat.

We set to work. A good chunk of a week spent mocking up business cards, postcards and even vehicle wraps. Got everything together for the presentation, walked in, and passed all the portfolios out. That’s when the BBQ sensation began. This wasn’t what they were expecting. This wasn’t the reaction I was expecting. Not that I thought this “The Answer.” But if you looked at it with a little vision—maybe squinted a touch—it could be there.

But like that telephone game you might have played as a kid, some how in the week between our conversation and this presentation the plan had changed. They were apparently primed for a barrage of shiny new logos. The portfolio was full of everything else but that. Thankfully, the awkwardness lasted a mere 30 minutes.

I’ve had time to think on this for a good bit. The biggest question that seems to come up is if we’d swim upstream again. The money decision would have been go for easy and lucrative. Client wants a new logo? Yes ma’am. Would you like that in Papyrus or Comic Sans with a chrome bezel? Check please.

That mentality is not going to let us produce work we’re excited about. Work that we want to put in the portfolio. Work that we want to link to. Work we’re dying to share with other clients. Work that when the samples come in your rush to open, while they still smell a bit like ink.

We’ve been lucky / smart / blessed enough to have this mentality not be a luxury. Instead it’s more of a philosophy. A principle of how we work. So yeah, we’d swim upstream again.

Or get a bigger boat.

For the second year, we’re a sponsor for Appetite 4 Art. It’s a great event for a great cause. So go buy a ticket. This year we’re looking to build on the identity we established last year. With the introduction of some icons to highlight the different aspects of the event on both website and event display material.

And yes, I did say website. This year we’re expanding our support by handling the site development. Lots of folks got their hands on this project with Monarose working initial wireframe directions and Mark (as usual) making the site function as it should and rolling it live in short order.

Other collateral going forward includes a banner that’s going to stretch across Glenwood South for a month leading up to the event. Check it out. Better yet, buy a ticket or two.

I paid attention when I re-stumbled upon Joey Roth’s most excellent image in poster form. I’d snapped up a copy of the inaugural issue of 48 Hours—intrigued with the idea of publishing an entire issue of anything on a heretofore impossible deadline. The theme of that issue was, Hustle. Roth’s piece fit right in. I saw Charlatan, Martyr, Hustler in that issue and it made me think.

But, like so many printed pieces today, it’s easy to lose track of. Especially compared to their digital counterparts. Supported by various news readers and the godsend that is Instapaper. With a pending move, that issue—the hard copy—is in box in a POD. Buried in a self-contained avalanche that is the vast majority of my office.

This second sighting, was via Coolhunting. I filed it away. Until I could reflect on it. Process it. Digital flotsam is inherently easier to keep up with these days.

The image brought out, in stark contrast, just how far down the road we’ve traveled wrapped in the garb of martyrs. When in doubt we’d seem to go with the rule of shut up and work. There’s lots to do. Better get to it.

I’m not writing this from a place of regret. I still think, in the very noisy world we all live in today, it’s common courtesy to err on that shut-up-and-work-side of the noise scale. At one point during the Superbowl this year there were more than 4,000 Tweets per second. The day I’m writing this, more than 112 million words were published at WordPress.com. It’s easy to assume that your voice would be hardly missed in that global chorus of noise. And to be fair, it likely will.

But you get to a point where you need to speak up. If nothing else it’s to avoid falling into the age old trap of “do as I say, not as I do” with clients. The longer you lean on the shoemaker’s shoes adage, the harder it is to reverse that inertia. More importantly we do have our opinions, our philosophies. We could actually contribute to the signal side of the signal to noise ratio. At least for our clients and whoever else may wander within earshot.

Martyrdom ism’t going to work. We must become hustlers. There’s a wealth of charlatans out there.

Putting this out there also makes us accountable for following through. For backing this up. So that’s it. I’m calling it. 2011: Year of the Hustler. I won’t shoulder all of this. I’ll be leaning on Mark and Monarose for additional signal. Believe me, they have their opinions. There’s always the possibility of other contributors too. People we can bribe, blackmail, cajole or coerce into sparing a few words.

Break’s over. Back to work.

Things were good enough for us to plan on doing it again next year, with even more designs.

We’ll be pulling the cards—in fact we’re going to shutter the store for a bit until we get some new products together next year. We’ve got a couple of ideas kicking around and just need to get them designed and into production.

Look for more info here in the next few weeks.