Small: Design Firms in Small Towns Across America

All across the white space of America, are small towns dotting the horizon with their watertower or grain elevator. Tucked into the mountains, beyond the next prairie are thriving hamlets unseen or unspoken. Of course, I know this, because, I find myself in one.

As a solo designer in my own small town of Edwardsville, IL, I wonder what other small-town designers out past the rivers and deserts are creating away in their small office. Questions roll through my mind: What clients are they working on? Are they AIGA members? Do they volunteer in their community? What does their office look like? Is it a barn, a house, a garage, an old church?

Are they the “Design” member of their Rotary, too? What impact do they offer their small town? And, most importantly, how are they percieved by the “non-designer” neigbors?

So many questions about this has lit the fire under my curiousity hot enough to go find them, and report back. Its now my mission to locate, interview and share who is “small” amongst us.

With your help, we’ll locate these folks. There are two group pages dedicated to finding and corralling these loose steeds:

On LinkedIn

On Facebook

Today my criteria is simple: If your firm is located over 30 miles from a major market; and your town has a population of less than 30,000; and your company is less than 5 people; I’m looking for you.

Filed under: Small: Design Firms in Small Towns, Creativille, Edwardsville, Edwardsville Design Firm, Edwardsville Rotary Club, Rotary, Small Design Firm, Small Town

Celebrating Lincoln as a Designer

The evening was a sublime anchor to a eventful and lengthy process of design for the 2009 Bicentennial Celebration of Abraham Lincoln’s Birthday at the Abraham Lincoln Association Banquet.

Over 800 people packed the room to hear President Barack Obama, Governor Jim Edgar, Senator Dick Durbin and Author Michael Burlingame.

The President spoke of Lincoln determination and hard work; he drew comparisons to inheriting a troubled nation; and he left us with the theme, “we are the last best hope on Earth.”

Humbled, I realized my part was insignificant to the task before us. The need to enrich the world we live, the need to keep mindful of the larger fight and not our daily peeves. What can I do to push the world around me to become a better place? I’m not sure the program I designed for the event was it, nor was the commemorative book Creativille designed for the event attendees.

Inspired, I believe I certainly shouldn’t diss the work that I do. The products of a designers labor have the power to evoke change, summon empathy, and inspire action. If I can pass along any wisdom that I absorbed from the speech by President Obama in the light of Lincoln’s legacy, is that its our duty as designers to step up to the challenge of transforming our times to a positive era as influencers of commerce, culture and community.

If you can, please share what you can do to improve the community in which you live and work.

AIGA share’s a few ideas

Filed under: 02 Be Passionate. (Inspirations), Recent Projects, 2009 Lincoln Bicentennial, Abraham Lincoln, Barack Obama, Edwardsville Design Firm, Influencer

Design for Retail Branding: The Market at Busch’s Grove.

The buzz card caps the artisan pastries at the grocery, and travels with the customer as a cute reminder of the yummy source.

Creativille Designs a New Gourmet Grocery Brand. And, it’s mighty tasty.

Each year we wonder what is going to top our last great client. Well, out of the blue, Sarah Vicker’s and Paul Poe called. “We are starting a new grocery store, and we’d like to talk to you about the brand.“

At first it was just billed as a logo job for The Market at Busch’s Grove, but soon grew into a relationship needing a complete brand identity. In a short amount of time we developed the integrated branding campaign including: a launch website with e-marketing support, advertising, interior and exterior signage, menus, stationary, wearables and packaging.

“For a most of our clients, this the accumulation of work over a couple of years. But, this is how we prefer to do it, all at once, all at the beginning,” says Steve Hartman. “A brand identity package isn’t just a logo or an ad, its a complete kit of touch points that inspire the customer, and” Hartman continues, “with The Market at Busch’s Grove, the brand is around every corner… even on top of a cupcake.”

Filed under: Branding, Creativille, Edwardsville Branding, Edwardsville Design Firm, Integrated Branding Campaign, Retail Branding, Steve Hartman, The Market at Busch's Grove