SullivanPerkins

A Good Idea Gone Bad

Our client University of North Texas is very, very green. It's the school color. It's part of the school's ethic of sustainable practices as well. And it is central to the new branding platform SullivanPerkins has worked on for UNT, which uses "A green light to greatness" as its theme. So, naturally, when Mark's gas-guzzling vehicle broke down the same day an afternoon meeting was scheduled on the UNT campus 41 miles from our Uptown office, he and designer Kelly Allen made the trip in a rented Nissan Leaf, the all-electric vehicle.

Unfortunately, the vehicle does not come with an 82 mile extension cord, and our guys ran out of whatever you run out of (juice?) on the way back. Ever resourceful, they found a Nissan dealership in Corinth, a few miles south of Denton and were back on the road in practically no time, or, truth be told, two hours later. Time required for a full charge on the Leaf? 21 hours at 110 volts.

Creating Visual Branding in the Non-Profit Sector

The best brands reflect best practice

Our principal, Mark Perkins, spoke under the auspices of long-time client The Catholic Foundation to a group of non-profits on the subject of branding best practices in the non-profit world. There are more than 1.5 million non-profits in the U.S., and each of these non-profits was started with a noble idea. Each also functions in a crowded and increasingly competitive market, speaking to audiences deluged with countless messages. Here are some excerpts from Mark's speech:

You don't want the brand to create your values. It's the other way around. Your values create your brand.

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Ask yourself two questions about your non-profit brand:

How well is the brand known by your current audiences and by your target audience, if they aren't the same?

How different is your brand from others?  More

 

From Her Mental Health to Her Metal Wealth: 10 Great Mother’s Day Gift Ideas

Brought to You by Our Clients

We like to give our clients creative ideas year-round. But with Mother’s Day closing in like a mama bear on a hiker, we’ll take some inspiration from them:

1. Give Some Drama to Your Mama.
Buy her a subscription to the 2012 Season at Kitchen Dog Theater.

2. Put the “Ma” in Massage
Give her a day away at Lake Austin Spa Resort.

3. Share Mom’s Love
Support young mothers in need by making a donation in Mom’s name to the YW Dallas.

4. Give Her Something Classy
How about a stimulating Lifelong Learning course at UNT?

5. Show Momma a Llama
Or an elephant or a giraffe or hundreds of other animals at the Caldwell Zoo.

6. Mind Your Mother’s Mind
Send her for a day of personalized holistic wellness at A Day at the Mind Spa.

7. Tell Her to Take a Hike
With you, at the Bob Jones Nature Center.

8. Unlock Her Creativity
OMG, you should like totally let your mom help you design your high school locker with LockerLookz. Then she can give you great advice about your hair.

9. Give Her Tons of Love
If you need to ship Mom 12 tons of chocolate and 4 million roses, contact our friends at BNSF Railway.

10. Melt Her Heart
If mom has some scrap metal lying around (your old bike or evil robot), take it to a CMC Recycling Center and give her the proceeds.

Is There Class in America?

SullivanPerkins has been doing some design work for Class In America, a project that is investigating what people in our country think about the concept of class.
 
It started with a logo.

We were also asked to provide a little blurb about our logo for the Class in America website, which we gladly did. That got us thinking about logos and how we come up with them. MORE about Developing First-Class Logos.

The Difficulty of Dealing with Dealing with Difficult People

We get tons of promotional material for business seminars, yet this one – Dealing with Difficult People – seems to have struck a chord. Why, we have no idea. "Mark" thought it would make a good blog post. Who are these Difficult People he’s thinking of? Certainly not any of our clients. We love you! Unconditionally!

We looked inside the brochure. Evidently, the seminar will help us deal with 6 Types of Difficult People. One of these types is the Passive (could it be “Erica” who placed this on “Mark’s” desk with a meaningful look, but no comment)? Another type is the Dictator and another the Know-It-All (we can’t think of anybody in our office that matches those types. Can you, “Brian”?). We asked “Brett” and “Rob” if they had any ideas, but they just said no (Type 4) and griped (Type 5). So, we guess we’ll have to settle for this lame post. “Michael” said he’d do it about a month ago, after all. (Type 6: “Yes” People.) We wonder if there’s a group discount.

Icahn't, But We Could and We Did.

Commercial Metals Company is a global manufacturer, recycler, and marketer of steel and related metals products, and a client for more than 20 years – one of many cherished long-term relationships. In December of 2011, financier Carl Icahn initiated a tender offer for all outstanding shares of CMC stock, seeking control of the company. Above is a handmade poster done as a gift in support of our friends at CMC, after Carl Icahn withdrew his bid to buy the company – an unwanted overture that was successfully resisted by CMC. Like Mr Icahn's effort, the poster was unsolicited. Unlike Mr Icahn, it may have been appreciated – we've had requests for more than one copy.

For a Young Athlete in Kneed

A friend of ours came to SullivanPerkins with a special request. His 16-year-old daughter Kriss, a dedicated soccer player, had experienced a severe injury to her knee during play, tearing her ACL.
 
She was told her knee required surgery, and she turned to the internet for more information. But the information and support she wanted was not to be found. So Kriss decided to take on the ambitious personal project of creating an online forum/community/blog for others in her situation. And she came up with Friends in Kneed.
 
Under Kriss’ direction, SullivanPerkins built a website for Friends in Kneed that tells the story of what had happened to Kriss, allows other students to submit stories of their own knee injuries, provides important information and direction, and one day hopes to even provide financial support for injured athletes.
 
Friends in Kneed launched Tuesday, March 27. It was a fun project – and one that we hope brings much-kneeded support to other brave young athletes.

The Future of Encyclopedias

After 244 years of printing, it's over. According to an article last week on money.cnn.com (http://money.cnn.com/2012/03/13/technology/encyclopedia-britannica-books/index.htm), Encyclopedia Britannica, which used to print a new 32-volume set every two years, is now out of the business of printing books. 2010's set was the last; from now on Britannica will be digital only.
 
Is Britannica sad? Not really, according to the article; the printed set only made up 1% of sales.
 
One comment we read suggested that if books are now antiques, one might expect that rare book and first-edition dealers will be increasingly profitable.
 
Here at SullivanPerkins, we are currently producing a website for staffer Holly Schleier's mother, who is in the business of making and repairing books, from her home business in West Virginia – in effect, making a bet on craft, with the book as beautiful object.

Denton hands us a mobile assignment

More and more, your customers are not only seeing websites on a computer screen, but in the palm of their hand, on a mobile phone. Denton Economic Development Partnership has launched the SullivanPerkins-designed mobile version of its website, offering iPhone, Blackberry and Android users access to news, demographic information, property searches, and more. 

Using navigation icons and drop-down menus, our simplified format makes it easy to access any of the information from Denton Economic Development Partnership’s full site, which we also designed. And each page has a link to the full site so users can “Like” Denton EDP on Facebook or read blog posts, then navigate easily back to the mobile version.

It’s a great way to keep Denton close at hand!

Want to know more? Read Denton EDP’s press release here.

Launching into the Kosmos

Our client Kosmos Energy, a pathfinding oil and gas exploration and production company, launched its new website today, February 29, 2012. Check it out, here.