CS Creative Employee Blog

We’re all about going the extra mile to help our clients, especially if it means being invited to some pretty cool after-parties!

Kevin, our creative director, had the opportunity to be right at a client’s side when he assisted CARBO with their trade show booth at the ATCE 2012 conference in San Antonio last week. The venerable, 88-year-old annual oil and gas conference attracts thousands of attendees from around the world.

We worked on CARBO’s booth as well as their marketing materials leading up to the event. Check out these photos, straight from the trade show floor, including a few from the swanky Club CARBO party.

In an earlier post, Kevin discussed the design of CARBO’s recent event marketing campaign and its successful market response. The client was delighted, and so were our peers. We were honored as a finalist for the AMA Crystal Awards!

CARBO and CS Creative were selected as finalists in four categories:

• Marketing Campaign – Business-to-Business
• Marketing Campaign – Medium Budget
• Online Marketing Campaign
• Mobile Marketing Program

As we took home the Crystal Award for the best B2B marketing campaign! Cindy attended the event with Steve, Lara and Cynthia, the marketing team from CARBO. You can see by the photos that they had way too much fun!

Cindy and Steve pose with their Crystal Award

Lara, Cynthia and Cindy (plus a little extra flair)

Congratulations to everyone on a successful (and now award-winning) campaign!

As a member of the Women’s Business Council – Southwest (WBCS), I have the honor of serving on the committee that coordinates and hosts our CEO Roundtable series. These luncheons cover topics like communications, cash-flow management, social media and negotiations in an intimate setting, with discussions led by subject matter experts (SMEs) at each table. What better way to learn and network than at a table for five!

Last week’s luncheon topic was mobilization. In our increasingly mobile society, every company has to adjust – and adjust quickly. This movement affects everything from websites to e-commerce to customer communications. In the last year, mobile searches have quadrupled. And according to eMarketer Online, 66% of Americans ages 25 to 34 own a smartphone.

We were joined by an impressive panel of SMEs. Our experts included Kirk Ballou of Flash Widgets; Will Bralick of Paladin Logic; Bear Cahill of Brainwash, Inc.; Michael Christopher of Elemental Methods; Bryan Schneider of AT&T; and Craig Thompson of Global Web HQ. These guys weren’t shy about sharing knowledge and best practices. (I’m sure that sitting at a table full of women helped.)

Most importantly for the food-lovers in the group, lunch was held at Ocean Prime, a fabulous restaurant here in Dallas. Roundtable attendees had the choice between a ginger crusted salmon or filet mignon. I chose the filet, or course. Yum!

I was surprised by how much I learned in such a short time. Did you know that when browsing on their phones, 40% of smartphone users will immediately leave a site if it’s not mobile optimized? They’ll bounce over to the first competitor that has a user-friendly site on their device. With one-in-seven searches coming from smartphones, it is a sound and strategic move to be optimized for mobile.

If you’d like to learn more about the WBCS and our CEO Roundtable series, feel free to contact me. Who knows? You might be a SME at our next event!

A commercial roofing company approached us with a common request: to redesign their website. After scoping the project, we very quickly realized that there was a larger problem at hand. It was more than a web redesign; it was an identity crisis.

Although DFW Urethane has been in business since 1986, the company was referred to inconsistently. Sometimes it was Dallas-Fort Worth Urethane, other times DFW Urethane or even Dallas Urethane or Fort Worth Urethane. Additionally, urethane isn’t exactly an everyday word. What is urethane? And what does it have to do with roofing?

To address the inconsistency with the company name and unfamiliarity with urethane, we began to develop a brand identity. First, the name. We agreed on DFW Urethane to be inclusive of both cities (and frankly, it’s easier to say than Dallas-Fort Worth). Because urethane roofing is applied through spraying, I wanted to include an element related to that. I also wanted to incorporate that the product is environmentally friendly and energy efficient.

After some doodling in the margins, pensive thought, and collaboration, we arrived here:

The spray pattern of the logo mark alludes to the application process. Bold, substantial type is used for the company name to reflect strength and reliability. An earth-tone palette was chosen to reflect the product’s environmental benefits. A new tagline, “Leaders in Insulated Roofing,” was also included in the logo lockup to quickly explain both urethane and the company’s product offering.

Not only did the client love the design, but others did as well. We were awarded a bronze ADDY for the design.

Koree, Kevin and Cindy with our bronze ADDY award for developing the DFW Urethane logo.

A designer’s work is never done. After we received the thumbs up from the client on the logo, we moved forward with web development and successfully launched DFW Urethane’s new website.

“After more than 25 years in business, I’m excited to have a cohesive brand identity,” said John Ewell, president of DFW Urethane. “I look forward to more creative thinking from CS Creative.”

Because some members of the CS Creative team work onsite for our clients, we make sure to get together occasionally so we can stay connected. We always end up laughing and having a great time.

Jonathan (left) and Chase (right) are our newest employees, working as User Interface Designers onsite at TI. Dan and Cindy (middle) are happy to be catching up with all the employees.

Because the happy hour was held right before Easter, we had two holiday-themed activities. One was an egg decorating contest; our waitress chose the winner (so that judging wouldn’t be biased). The other was a guessing contest, where entrants had to guess the number of Reese’s peanut butter eggs in a huge Easter egg; the person closest to the actual number won the candy-filled egg!

Our egg-cellent assortment of entries for the decorating contest. Which two eggs do you think were chosen as the winners?

Tanya presents Jorge the intern with one of this prizes. He tied with Cindy for best design in the egg decorating contest, and he also guessed closest on the number of Reese’s. Winning!

 Ted and Koree, smiling for the camera.

As usual, a great time was had by all. To see all of the pictures from our happy hour, visit our Facebook page.

For CS Creative’s work in creating a new branding and marketing communications package for Dream Angels, Cindy and I were invited to their Partner Appreciation Dinner.

Alma Garcia, president of Dream Angels, joins Cindy and Tanya for a group picture during the 2012 Partner Appreciation Dinner.

What a great event! The evening, hosted at the home of two long-time supporters of Dream Angels, was absolutely wonderful. All of the partners were presented with a crystal, star-shaped award, which we have prominently displayed at the office. We were also treated to a trailer of their upcoming documentary about the Dream Angels girls.

Our partnership with Dream Angels is truly a rewarding experience for all of us at CS Creative. We are honored to be able to support their mission.

I hate to brag…but I’m going to do it anyway! We’re so proud to have received three Quill Awards from the Dallas chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC Dallas).

Koree and Cindy proudly display all three Quill Awards.

CS Creative was honored in three categories:

• Organizational Identity – CARBO Rebrand
• Internet Sites – CARBO Website
• Ongoing Program – Legacy ER Online Marketing Campaign

We love being acknowledged for great design, but the Quill Awards are especially meaningful because they recognize excellence in the field of business communication for creativity and strategic thinking. That translated to business benefits for our clients, and that’s a really big deal to us.

What a great time Cindy treated us to at the Four Seasons! Food, drinks, games, magic, prizes and presents! I’m ready for next year already!!! Enjoy all the fun pictures and silliness!

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Check out the studio Halloween mascots! SuperDog (a.k.a Beau), Bella the Beautiful Bumblebee, and Parker the Little Lion!