Happy Thanksgiving

Work and Fun

For those of you who know us, you know that we work hard and try to have tons of fun while doing so. We also love to give back to the community.

In this spirit, we invite everyone to join us on March 20th for a 2-on-2 skee ball tournament to help raise funds for Mike Hefner. Mike recently underwent brain surgery to remove a tumor, and is on the road to recovery. Let's all help him get there!

Saturday, March 20
noon - 4 p.m.
Blonde Lounge
1600 E. Woodlawn
704-523-1008

Diana Camera

Having fun with the Diana camera!

All New K2HQ - Updated

k2forma is finally in their new offices in historic downtown Mooresville. The new address is 181 North Main Street, Mooresville NC 28115.

Join us for an open house on Friday, November 13 from 6-9 p.m. Take a tour of the studio, check out some art galleries, and maybe stop by one of the neighborhood restaurants for a drink.

Hope to see you there!

Marketing in a Down Economy

Day after day, the news just keeps getting worse. Companies around the world are facing difficult decisions; cutting budgets, laying off thousands of employees, and doing only what is necessary to survive. I see the impact of these cuts across all industries. Many business owners say that they are operating with a bare-bones staff, and no one can seem to figure out what to do to grow their business. They are frozen, like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car, just waiting for the worst to hit them.

This is truly a time unlike any other. It's a time for businesses to actively find opportunities. While marketing in a down economy is a difficult decision, history has proven that companies who stick to their marketing plan through these tough times will fare better in the end. Now is the time to remind your customers that your organization is alive and well.

History has also shown that when times are good, consumers are less likely to change their buying habits. It is during the difficult times when consumers and organizations are willing to look around for a better product or service (or a better deal). Now is the time to seize upon that willingness to change.

One other consideration you must factor in -- your competition is likely cutting back on their marketing budget as well. With fewer competing messages, now you can reach your audience more easily. Many media outlets are also offering deals to those willing to buy ad space or airtime. Let your competitors decrease their marketing budgets while you take advantage of this rare opportunity. You will enjoy the results.



By shifting your strategy from surviving to thriving, you can emerge as a market leader. K2forma can show you how to make every marketing dollar count. Contact us today and get it done right.

Case Study - HAVEN Lifestyle LLC

I’ve had the pleasure of working with Rebecca McAloon of HAVEN Lifestyle LLC for more than a year now. What originated as a request for business cards and a web site has evolved into the ideal agency/client collaborative relationship. When I describe this relationship as ideal, I mean that throughout this past year of working with HAVEN, we have achieved that wondrous and seamless synergy of ideas, strategy, and execution. K2forma now works with HAVEN to hone their brand, marketing, and we’re about to launch a new ad campaign.

Rebecca approached k2forma last year with a very interesting proposition. She was re-launching her business, a business that had originated in another part of the United States a few years earlier. HAVEN came with a name and a logo, an initial brand strategy, some existing materials, and most important – some good lessons learned. Rebecca new what worked for her company and what didn’t.


Almost immediately we hit on how to take her established brand equity and update it for the new company. The new look captured the spirit of the old and ushered it into the new. The design of the website and subsequent materials came easily. What wasn’t so easy--communicating what HAVEN Lifestyle is all about.

Rebecca’s vision for HAVEN Lifestyle embodies more than just interior design. HAVEN is about living the best quality of life you can, and through good design and organization, this is easily attainable. The emphasis here is on living well. This is a concept that is tricky to communicate.

The challenge for us to resolve; how do we genuinely communicate the depth of HAVEN’s vision and philosophy without it seeming like a ‘new-age’ shtick?

The quality of HAVEN’s work is easily comparable to other designer’s whose priorities are high-end fabrics and designer chandeliers. So, it is important that the communications and materials underscore her talent and education. The language on her site and in her materials really relates to the HAVEN client’s life challenges – big or small. The ‘you just gotta roll with it’ sentiment flows through every aspect of execution. For example, as I write this, Rebecca is in the hospital having her 2nd baby.

This is the perfect HAVEN Lifestyle scenario – ‘what do you do when the company you own is about to kick off a major advertising and promotion campaign, you've got meetings and deadlines, and your baby decides to be born early?' Just roll with it! (Push, Rebecca, PUUUUSH!)



By developing the web site and materials with one eye fixed on design and the other fixed on the humanity, we have found the balance. In this case, both hands are on the steering wheel. The bright color bars used on the site and printed pieces accent the stark black-and-white contrast of the logo, creating a mid-century modern feel that conveys the freshness of HAVEN’s approach. Imagery conveys the unexpected curve balls that life can throw at us, and coupled with the relatable scenarios, it’s easy for the overstressed homeowners to recognize themselves. It’s like an exercise in balancing contrasts, we are charged with creating a brand that conveys high style yet doesn’t alienate those whose focus isn’t on chintz and pillows, but on kids, and games, and work, and soccer, and ballet, and on and on and on.

I was looking through some of the early designs for the HAVEN brand. While some days it seems as though you’re just inching along, it’s exciting to see how sophisticated we have become with this brand…a testament to the ideal synergistic relationship between an agency and client.

The exceptional creative talents of Rebecca and HAVEN Lifestyle are on display at havenlifestyle.com.

P.S., Welcome Cal!

Case Study - Annual Report

24 PAGE ANNUAL REPORT

20 pages + cover, finished size 11 x 8.5", saddle stitch, perf, and insert envelope.

Project beginning - 11/18/07

Project complete - 1/18/08

The Barium Springs Home for Children provides a nurturing place for abused and neglected children to live, early childhood development for low income families, and counseling services and foster family programs.

When k2forma was hired to design the annual report for the Barium Springs Home for Children, I began with a meeting to discuss their needs and existing materials. I learned that the organization was looking to shift the focus away from the sadness of the circumstances of their children and students.

As I began to consider how to approach this project, I was thinking about the seriousness of the circumstances in which these children live. But, no matter what, they are still children - this is their childhood. I remember my favorite thing about being a kid was the delight of imagination -- pretending that those pots and pans really were drums, and I was a really good drummer!

I am a fan of the work of Michel Gondry, and I especially loved his film The Science of Sleep. He successfully explores complex characters with uninhibited imagination. The end result is pure delight. This sense of delight and imagination was my goal for this piece.

As I continued thinking about the joys of being a kid and imagining that your stack of couch cushions is really an impenetrable fort, I began to question what ingredients are necessary to allow for such daydreams. Some of the essentials, are safety, security, and love. Without these things, we're just struggling to survive. When children, have safety, security, and love in their lives, they have the opportunity to daydream. This is exactly what Barium Springs offers - safety, security, love, and most important...hope.

We were all kids at one time, and probably said that we wanted to be astronauts or firefighters when we grew up. These fantastic aspirations were the foundation for this annual report. We utilized the real stories of the children and set them against the backdrop of these fantastic aspirations like 'I want to discover dinosaurs' or 'I want to be a doctor'.

The result of this extreme juxtaposition was to help these children and their stories become more relatable. While we may not have been through the trials that some of these children have been through, we have all daydreamed about becoming the same things.

The result was a lighthearted and hopeful annual report that was also very connected to the seriousness of the work that Barium Springs Home for Children does.

To learn more about Barium Springs Home for Children, visit http://www.bariumsprings.org.

Case Study - Art Book Process

52 PAGE ART BOOK
48 pages plus cover, perfect bound, 8x10" finished size
Project beginning – 2/17/07
Project complete – 11/20/07

(Rough images for blog only.  Final images will appear in Work section of k2forma main site soon.)

‘This [approach] allowed me to organize the images by sensibility rather than date of completion. Ultimately, this was what I wanted to deliver, a challenge to the reader to explore Corey’s work in ways they previously had not.’ 

I met my former professor, Corey Postiglione, in snowy NYC last February (’07) to walk the galleries in Chelsea and enjoy some Indian food. We began discussing his upcoming 30-year retrospective show at the Evanston Arts Center in January 2008. He asked me to design the catalog to accompany the show. Additionally, I was to select the images from his entire body of work that were to be included. It was to be a comprehensive review of his work, but not a monograph. A daunting task, considering that I knew Corey, but was not as familiar with the various status positions of his work, i.e., the important pieces.

I began thinking through the various approaches that I could take with this special project. Initially I thought of organizing the work in a traditional, chronological order. But, I really wanted to deliver something special, something unique for my friend’s investment. As we continued our conversation over the months there were two significantly influential experiences that shaped this process. One was a weeklong workshop at the School of Visual Arts with Milton Glaser that I attended. During that week, I was looking at a book that Milton had put together of his drawings, and talking with him about the process for selecting images and composing the book. He said that in his book, he wanted it to read like music flows. From that discussion, I realized that there was no way I could organize the work in Corey’s book chronologically. I wanted to tell a story with his work.

The second influence in this process was my reading John Berger’s The Shape of a Pocket. In the book is an exchange between Berger and Leon Kossof, discussing the model for his drawings and the relationship that has grown as this model came to his studio day in and day out. This exchange resonated with me because in an earlier conversation, Corey had indicated that his body of work had cycled from abstract to figurative and then back to abstract. I noted that throughout Corey’s body of work, the city of Chicago was a constant and central feature, whether the work was abstract or figurative. Initially, these seem like distant connections. But through this excerpt, I began to see the city in Corey’s work as his model. The entity that inspires, frustrates, and intrigues…just like a model.

A few weeks later, I met with Corey in Chicago to finalize the selected images. It was at this meeting that the concept for his catalog really took shape. We agreed to treat the City like a human model and associated human emotions with his relationship to the City and his body of work. Hence, the Discovery, Intimacy, and Anxiety structure. This allowed me to organize the images by sensibility rather than date of completion. Ultimately, this was what I wanted to deliver, a challenge to the reader to explore Corey’s work in ways they previously had not. I wanted the reader to look past the initial beauty and narrative of the work, and search for an understanding of why certain pieces were grouped together.

The Discovery section of the catalog includes all of the paradigm pieces – sketches or works that launched an entire series, or epiphany pieces – the moment of really seeing something that you’ve been looking at for years. The Intimacy section includes the pieces within a series in which the artist is trying to understand his subject from every possible vantage point. The Anxiety section includes works that are somewhat ominous in narrative and sensibility. There’s a desire with these pieces to recapture that moment of discovery, and a sense of insecurity.

I kept the design minimal, maximized the images and anchored them to the outside edge of the page so that nothing would be lost in the gutter. We used McCoy Silk for the paper to mimic the bright white walls of a gallery. 

I like this book because it is like a portable exhibition of Corey’s work, and I am eternally grateful for his faith in this approach.  

Corey Postiglione - Works on Paper 1972 - 2007 opens on January 13 from 1 - 4 p.m. at the Evanston Art Center.  There will be an Artist Talk at 1:30 p.m.   The exhibit runs through February 17, 2008.

LINKS

Corey Postiglione

Evanston Art Center

Greening Your Business Starts With The Paper You Print On

An abbreviated version of this article also appears in the April 2008 issue of Today's Charlotte Woman


If you hug a tree in the woods, and no one is there to see it, does the tree hug back? Figuratively speaking, yes. While the term ‘tree hugger’ is a bit pejorative, it’s generally accepted that being responsible business people and citizens means doing what we can to preserve and restore our environment. One way your business can do this is by making environmentally sensitive choices when purchasing printed collateral materials. How does the tree hug back? With lower costs. Often, using recycled papers will cost less than the alternative.

In today’s market, there are myriad options for environmental papers. The main considerations for environmental papers are:
- Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) Certification
- Pre/Post-Consumer product
- Chlorine Free
- Tree Free
all of which can be independent of one another or can be combined in a paper.

The FSC is an international organization that sets standards for responsible forest management and it accredits independent third party organizations that can certify forest managers and forest product producers to FSC standards. This means that when you purchase FSC certified paper, you can be assured that it is coming from a forest that is not being harvested in a way that would damage the natural habitat. Furthermore, you know that the rights of the workers and indigenous communities are respected. However, this is a fairly new certification and there are a limited number of papers that carry the FSC certification. Tim Etcheson, Vice President of Business Development with Wentworth Printers in Columbia, South Carolina also notes that it’s important to know that “if you want to carry the FSC certification on your finished piece, it must be printed with an FSC certified printer. There are several printers that carry this certification and more printers and paper manufacturers are earning certification every day, making it an easier and competitive option for businesses.”

Post-Consumer papers contain a percentage of recycled paper material and/or a percentage of post-consumer waste, while Pre-Consumer papers includes the trimmings and scraps from previous paper production. Many paper manufacturers already include pre-consumer content in their papers.

Chlorine was once a preferred method of bleaching paper pulp to produce a bright white finish, until it was discovered that the dioxin byproducts were contaminating our lakes and rivers. Today, there are several alternative methods to getting a bright white paper without contributing to contamination. Some manufacturers use elemental chlorine free process (ECF), process chlorine free (PCF), or totally chlorine free process (TCF). The ECF method uses chlorine derivatives that reduce dioxins by 90%. The PCF process uses no chlorine or chlorine derivatives and produces no additional dioxins. The TCF process is, true to its name, totally chlorine free. However, TCF papers are often made with virgin wood, eliminating the possibility of it containing recycled product. Many responsible organizations find that the most appealing option is PCF, which creates no additional dioxins and can be used with recycled papers.

It may surprise you to know that paper can be made from just about anything – denim, coconut shells, even old paper money! Tree free papers use any variety of organically derived fibers or ‘agrifibers’ such as hemp, cotton or other non-wood fibers. Often, these materials yield more pulp-per-acre than forests and can be brightened using a TCF process.

Several clients have been pleased to learn that the paper presented to them for their project is FSC certified and contains a percentage of post-consumer content. The misconception is that recycled paper is off-white or tan with some fiber or grain in it. To the contrary, one recent project used a beautiful, bright white sheet for a letterhead and business card package that contained 100% post-consumer content, was brightened process chlorine free, and cost less than comparable papers with fewer environmental benefits. When to opportunity arises, this client can now boast that their magnificent new promo kit is environmentally responsible. Quite a nice little hug.

This article is intended to simplify the terms and numerous options available when selecting paper, and empower businesses to make environmentally sensitive choices. For more detailed information about this topic, here are a few resources:

http://www.fsc.org/en/about/about_fsc/benefits
http://www.newdream.org/consumer/paper.php
http://www.wentworthprinting.com

Invitations - The Pretty Little Workhorse

You've chosen your colors, you've chosen the venue, now it's time for you to choose your invitations. Invitations are the pretty little workhorses of your event. They communicate vital information beyond when and where - they set the tone for what's to come. Whether it's a garden reception for fifty, or a gala at The Plaza for five hundred, your friends and family will begin to get a sense of what to expect by the type of invitation you send.

There are myriad options, from paper color to printing styles, and brides today are redefining tradition. Etiquette advisors say that traditional paper shades for formal invitations range from ivory to white. This isn't necessarily true any more. Contemporary brides are taking cues from other aspects of their lives and creating invitations that serve to brand their event. Injecting your personal style into the invitations the new tradition.

So what do you do if you're overwhelmed with decisions about cakes and dresses and flowers? The best place to begin is your own home. Take a look around at the lovely things you've collected over the years, photos from trips you've taken, or even the clothes you already own. Bring the things that are precious to you into your event. I recently attended a wedding in which the bride and groom had small framed photos of themselves placed throughout the mansion where they were hosting the reception. It was a simple and elegant way to personalize the space for themselves, and it allowed them to share some beautiful and candid moments with their guests. This subtle touch was introduced in the invitation, which was framed and nested in a lovely keepsake box. Upon receiving this invitation, guests knew that they were in for a magical day.

No matter what the scale or tone of your wedding, its your wedding. Making your special day personal and memorable begins with custom invitations. Work with a good designer who will listen and collaborate with you, and you'll have beautiful invitations that convey more than just the time and place, they will tease your guests with the glorious delights to come.

Kelly Koeppel is an award-winning designer and owner of k2forma. For more information, visit www.k2forma.com.