Studioblog (n): a blog by Studiobanks about design, marketing, internet, business, Charlotte and more. 

AAF D3 Leadership Conference: Social Media Mystery Game

Banks 2 Comments

Each summer, District 3 (D3) of the American Advertising Federation (AAF), comprised of AAF clubs in Asheville, NC, Charlotte, NC, Greensboro, NC, Raleigh, NC, Charleston, SC, Greenville, SC, Midlands, SC, Hampton Roads, VA and Roanoke, VA, holds a leadership conference to engage and prepare incoming board members for the new club year. These annual leadership conferences typically draw between 75 to 100 attendees, and AAF Charlotte had the pleasure of hosting this year’s conference in early August.

The first night of each conference features a large-scale, icebreaker game that allows attendees to mingle with other clubs. The responsibility of planning and executing this game falls on the conference’s hosting club, which in turn was my responsibility as an AAF Charlotte board member. I quickly recruited talented copywriter Katie Fisher of Balfour Beatty and Studiobanks' newest designer Joe Bauldoff to help out.

D3 asked us to create a game that incorporated the conference theme, “Social Uprising” in which attendees learned to integrate social media tools into all aspects of club management. During initial planning, we were a little stumped by incorporating social media tools, which are primarily used on an individual basis, into a game that needed to be interactive for a live, in-person group of people. Ultimately we decided on a concept that was a mix between the style of the scripted “dinner and a murder” mystery game and the classic board game, Clue. The twist was that our game would utilize Twitter to support the social media theme of the conference.

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Studiobanks goes to Carowinds!

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Studiobanks took a well-deserved day off this past Friday and headed down to Carowinds amusement park. We intended to take a day trip to the park last summer but became too busy with projects so we never actually got the chance. While we are equally busy with client work this summer, we decided if we didn’t just pick a date and put it on our studio calendar we would end up missing the trip again. Truth be told, there is never really a good day for the entire studio to take off, making the idea of waiting for such an opportunity kind of pointless. So we circled June 18th, took a break from our designing, developing and other tasks and enjoyed a day in the sun.

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The Nightlife Network gets a Face Lift as well.

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You might remember the redesign of our party-promoting client's website last summer. Carolina Nightlife serves the Carolinas as the premier online resource guide to the local nightlife scene.

As a follow up to that launch, we also redesigned and developed The Nightlife Network’s website.

The Nightlife Network offers a unique opportunity to self-motivated and energetic entrepreneurs interested in owning and operating their own online business, just like Carolina Nightlife, by licensing its Cocktail software.

The Nightlife Network website has a fresh new look that complements the redeveloped Cocktail software, and provides detailed information about the software's features and how licensees can run their own highly profitable, regional nightlife website.

1st Annual AIGA Charlotte Design Week

Banks 0 Comments

Will and I both serve on the AIGA Charlotte board of directors. One of the biggest initiatives we've been a part of since joining the board is quickly approaching. From April 12-16, AIGA Charlotte is hosting a Design Week! This is the first event of its kind in Charlotte and the week will be jam-packed with 7 events in 5 short days. The idea is to help spread awareness and the value of design to the rest of the Charlotte business community while also inspiring our own members.

If you can only make it out to one event, be sure to check out our Design Unplugged event on April 13th. It is a panel discussion about defining the design community in Charlotte. I will be on the panel along with four other distinguished Charlotte design leaders including Jennifer Appleby of Wray Ward, Jim Mountjoy of Loeffler Ketchum Mountjoy, Maggie Bean of Karro Bean Design House and Jamey Boiter of BOLTgroup.

Below is a description of the event from the AIGA Charlotte website:

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SpaceKnuckle Illustrations hung at Studiobanks

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I met Josh Vanover, a local Charlotte artist about six months ago after falling in love with three of his digital illustrations that were on display at the North Davidson Niche Market. He came into the studio and we talked about the possibility of him creating some original works to be hung in our conference area. We both got busy and the commission never got completed.

This past month the North Davidson Niche Market closed. Afterwards Josh contacted me to see if I was interested in purchasing the three digital illustrations that had hung there. I was thrilled with the offer and excited to see how they would look in the studio. Well, we just hung them up and they really seem to add some energy to a very blank wall.

Josh goes by the moniker SpaceKnuckle and was just interviewed in the February Issue of Computer Arts. The magazine says it expects big things from Josh, and we couldn't agree more. Check out a scan of the article on our Flickr account.

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ARTM 3103 @ UNCC

Banks 4 Comments

I will be teaching a class called Animation and Interactivity this Fall at my alma mater, UNC Charlotte. Here is how the school's directory describes the course:

ARTM 3103. Animation and Interactivity. Emphasis on the tools, techniques, and software used in the creation of interactive multimedia and animation, especially media creation for video, the Internet, and CD-ROM.

This is the first time I have had the opportunity to teach at the collegiate level and need some help. I'm currently working on a syllabus that will focus on Flash and AS3. I'm planning on having the students do 3 or 4 projects during the course of the semester. Does anyone have any good ideas for projects? I want to have projects that are both challenging and that could be included in a professional portfolio after graduation.

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Jumping in as the new AIGA Communications Director

Banks 0 Comments

Not long after I gave a lecture at our studio to the local Charlotte chapter of AIGA, I was asked by the chapter's president, Chris Bradle, to join the group's board of directors. AIGA is the oldest and largest membership association for professionals engaged in the discipline, practice, and culture of designing. Nationally, the AIGA represents 22,000 designers through 59 national affiliates and 240 student groups.

The role he had in mind for me was Communications Director. I would be responsible for keeping our membership and local media informed about the happenings of the chapter and work with the event coordinators to properly promote upcoming chapter events. I accepted the position late last year. The first thing I wanted to focus on was revamping the chapter's website. Luckily, the board's Internet Director, Taylor Nall, agreed it needed some attention.

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Senior Seminar

Banks 2 Comments

Recently, I was asked by an old professor of mine, Jamie Franki, to come speak to a class of seniors about the transition from the college world to the professional world. The class is entitled Senior Seminar and is intended to help graduating art students with that transition. I remember taking the class myself during my final semester at UNC Charlotte. The course covered topics from interviewing skills, to creating resumes, to the presentation of your portfolio, among others. Over the span of a semester the professor will invite five or so UNCC graduates that have had some success in their field, to come back and offer advice to the students. I was honored and excited about the opportunity.

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Help Us Name This Thing

Banks 13 Comments

For the last few months, we have been waving our hands in the air trying to explain to clients and visitors that we were having something built to go in between our conference area and our front door. Well, it was installed this past weekend and we couldn't be happier! Reaching Quiet, one of our clients, designed and built the piece. As usual, their work speaks for itself—they did an incredible job. It is made of concrete, steel and wood and weighs over 2,400 pounds. What is really great is that it allows us to utilize a large LCD monitor for client meetings. We could really use some help with what to call this thing, though. Any ideas?

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(Pardon the Buzz Word) Branding

Banks 4 Comments

In a recent post entitled "Pardon the Buzz Word," I explained our usage of the term "webcentric". I've decided to turn that into a series of posts where I focus on certain marketing terms, dispel some common myths around the term and then describe our usage.

I just finished reading two great books on branding, The Brand Gap and Zag. The book's author Marty Neumeier is president of San Francisco based Neutron, a brand consulting firm. I highly recommend these two books to anyone involved in marketing or running a company. I have already been able to apply some of their teachings into my work with our client's marketing strategies.

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