CS Creative Employee Blog

Over the December holiday break, I journeyed to the Far East to visit Tokyo and Thailand. We started in Tokyo where we hit Ginza (shopping mecca), Mt Fuji, Harajuku, and the world’s largest fish market! My impression of the city was that is was very orderly and clean to have that many people living there, and the people were very fashionable and extremely polite. Next we headed to lovely Thailand, where we visited Bangkok, Chiang Mai, and Phuket. We rode elephants, shopped in the floating markets, saw monkeys, and visited some gorgeous temples. This country could not be more different than Tokyo! Stimulation overload was everywhere – noisy, colorful and chaotic! The things both countries had in common were that the people were extremely friendly and welcoming, and the food was fabulous in both places! Hope you enjoy a few photos from my trip!

Fish market in Tokyo

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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.

It took a mere 23 years, but we’ve finally reached a major milestone here at CS Creative: we opened our 10,000th work order! So please, if you would kindly stand up, raise your coffee mug and send us a virtual toast, we can get down to celebrating. Special thanks to Maryjane for getting us there with her crack project tracking skills!

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!

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.

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.

We’ve been very fortunate to celebrate 23 years in business, so we’re always looking for ways to give back to our community. We recently identified a local nonprofit that helps at-risk girls develop skills for success in school and life. Dream Angels supports these girls through educational, personal and cultural mentoring. We knew right away that their mission was something we would love to support. We pulled together the talent and expertise needed to create a new, dynamic marketing communications package for Dream Angels, including their identity, collateral and website.

Instead of using generic images, we wanted to showcase girls who have actually been impacted by Dream Angels. Everyone had a great time at the photo shoot and was inspired by the girls, their stories and their dreams. It was particularly fun and rewarding to talk to the girls about their lives and whom they look to for inspiration. They wanted to know about me, my job and what I’ve done to be where I am today. Plus they all enjoyed being pampered and primped by hair and makeup professionals for the shoot!

The Dream Angels girls were models for a day, complete with hair, makeup and a professional photo shoot.

“The rebranding has a very positive effect on our organization and our marketing efforts,” said Alma Garcia, president of Dream Angels. “It’s allowing us to more effectively share our message and our mission with donors, supporters and the media. It really tells a great story about us and the girls we support.”

As a lot of you know, we have a wonderful relationship with the Women’s Business Council Southwest. As a council member and the CS Creative account director, I was able to reach out to other council members to create a virtual “Dream Team” of partners. The mission of Dream Angels resonated with this team of mostly women- or minority-owned businesses in a meaningful way. Our volunteer team included 1400 Words, Greg Booth and Associates Photography, Alliance of Diversity Printers, Carl Reeves, The Campbell Agency and The Clutts Agency. Through these partnerships we were able to not only help Dream Angels with their mission, but also help remind us all of the importance of giving back.

If you’d like to learn more about Dream Angels and support their mission, please visit their website.

We are excited to welcome Chase to our team! Chase is a User Interface Designer in the Product Development area for EdTech at TI! Below is a note from him. Please join me in welcoming him on board! : )

“Howdy,

Glad to be on-board here at CS Creative! I’ve most recently come from SMU working as a multimedia developer. However before that I worked building models for Air Force Simulators, as a graphic designer, and building engineering applications for Halliburton. I got my Bachelors of Fine Arts in Painting and Illustration from Miami University (of Ohio). I am also very interested in history, and received my minor in Archeology. During my time at SMU for graduate school I received my masters in Interactive Technology focusing in production art. I’ve done several small contracts for game studios around the DFW area as well.

I enjoy traveling and seeing new places, history, sports and outdoors activities like snowboarding, skiing, and hiking. I’m also a fairly big nerd so feel free discuss the most recent game releases to the Battle of Waterloo, chances are I’m up for a good conversation! I look forward to working with and getting to know you all.”

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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On 12/4, Wade will have officially been a CSC’er for 5 years!!! Congratulations to you Wade, and to us for getting to have you on our team! Celebrate the whole weekend long! : )