Emergent Productions founder Brian Glassford approached us to help with copy for his new website in 2010. We worked closely with Brian to hone in on the concept for what the copy should say about Emergent Productions and their varied work in marketing, digital media and production. In the end we focused heavily on story and Emergent's role as a storyteller.
In 2009 we wrote the copy for the TriLion Studios website. After nearly a decade in the industry the company was rebranding from an individual design studio named Solo Multimedia to a team of creatives. We took the TriLion name and came up with a tagline--A creative pack that has your back--and copy that tapped into the lion imagery.
We helped founder Brian White talk through some of the branding issues and land on a way of talking about his newly named company that worked.
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Monkey Outta Nowhere is again venturing into the world of publishing with our first nonfiction title. Addition by Adoption: Kids, Causes & 140-Characters comes from our head monkey Kevin D. Hendricks. It's a curated selection of tweets (posts to the social media site Twitter) about life with kids, the causes Kevin's family has been drawn to and their adoption journey. The 82-page book will be available for pre-order April 13-20 and will be available on Amazon.com beginning May 11. A portion of the proceeds from the project will go to charity: water to build a well in Ethiopia.
The book features cover design by Brian White of TriLion Studios and interior design by Ronald Cox.
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Last week's earthquake in Haiti has prompted an out-pouring of response, including donations, humanitarian trips and all manner of charity and fund-raising projects. Our own head monkey, Kevin D. Hendricks, has enlisted the help of his 4-year-old daughter Lexi and launched Color4aCause.
Lexi draws pictures to encourage visitors to donate to Haiti relief efforts. Make a donation, get a picture. It's that simple. In the first week $635 has been raised. So far Lexi has drawn 26 pictures.
The money raised is going to the relief efforts of Kevin's church, Messiah Episcopal Church in St. Paul, Minn., which has a 20-year partnership with organizations in Haiti.
In addition to making a donation and getting a picture, the site also invites other children to color for a cause and submit their own pictures.
Kevin admitted it's a crazy idea on his personal blog, noting how quickly the idea came together. He formulated the idea on Friday, recruited designer and coder Ben Jordan to design and build the site and it went live Sunday night.
The site also has a Twitter feed and Facebook group to keep fans updated. Color4aCause has been featured by We Life Simply and Halogen TV.
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This past year Monkey Outta Nowhere celebrated five years in business. That's quite an accomplishment, especially with the current economy. In celebration we printed up Monkey Outta Nowhere yo-yo's and sent them off to our long-standing clients. It's something we've wanted to do since the very beginning and we're thrilled to finally have the excuse to do it.
Along with the yo-yo's we included this explanation:
A shiny black yo-yo danced on a Chicago street corner in the summer of 1999. On the other end of the string was a skinny college kid working weekends as a street performer. The passing crowds would pause, kids staring in wide-eyed wonder as the yo-yo flew and spun in utter defiance of gravity. They left pocket change for the yo-yo man, enabling him to pay the bills his unpaid internship couldn't.That summer the yo-yo earned the money, but the internship launched a career. It gave that skinny college kid the experience, the contacts and the confidence to succeed and one day launch his own company.
That one day came in 2004 when Monkey Outta Nowhere began. That yo-yo man was our founder and head monkey, Kevin D. Hendricks. It only seems appropriate to celebrate Monkey Outta Nowhere's five-year anniversary with the enclosed party favors. We hope you'll join us in celebration.
Happy Holidays and Many Thanks.
-Monkey Outta Nowhere
You can see more pictures of the entire packaging and mailing process.
Thanks to everyone who made five years possible. I'm truly humbled to be able to serve you all by doing what I love. Thank you.
Update And it doesn't get much cooler than seeing clients sharing and enjoying your present. OK, multiple clients sharing and enjoying your present. And adding it to a collection of desk toys. And taking a well deserved yo-yo break.
And now for a little bit of our own yo-yo fun:
You can also watch our head monkey doing some more advanced tricks.
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We just ordered some slick new business cards. Check 'em out. Designed by Michael Buckingham of Holy Cow Creative, the back of the cards feature some of the major projects we work on. It's a great solution and should keep head monkey Kevin D. Hendricks from having to juggle multiple cards. He talks more about the new cards on his personal blog.]]>
OK, UnSummit is a free anti-conference so we didn't exactly splurge to attend that one. But it still takes time and effort to get there. The day-long Saturday event sparked lots of thinking and ideas, primarily about social media and marketing, and offered a great chance to meet local people. Specific lessons from UnSummit can be found on my personal blog.
Cultivate and Story were two church communications conferences in Chicago (OK, Story was really 40 miles outside Chicago in Aurora). And OK, I didn't really splurge for those either--Cultivate is cheap and I scored a free ticket to Story. But Monkey Outta Nowhere did have to shell out for daycare, travel and lodging, so this wasn't a cheap trip. I've been working in the church communications field since 2004 when I started editing the church communications blog Church Marketing Sucks. In that time I haven't attended any church communications events, so this was a great chance to dive in and meet people I've followed online for years. Both events, though very different, had incredible content. I also share lessons from Cultivate and Story on my personal blog.
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In 2009 Monkey Outta Nowhere began creating content for WebDesign.com, a web services company that helps small businesses and organizations maximize their potential on the web. We helped write a foundational white paper and contributed to WebDesign.com's blog.
Some of our blog entries include:
All small, quick changes that hopefully bring our site in line with some of the web advice we've been sharing lately. And more importantly, they should make our site a little more effective.
]]>And that's just a quick overview. Visit WebDesign.com for more.
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