05 April 2019
Although our business cards might read “art director,” “developer,” “copywriter” or “account executive,” our secret is that everyone at Paradowski is really a designer.
But we don’t just design award-winning websites, gorgeous print pieces or brand identities; we design experiences.
And there is nothing we love more than designing exceptional brand experiences for clients who share our passion for St. Louis — clients like T-REX, Geosaurus, Laumeier Sculpture Park, the Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis Community College, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Spatial Networks, The Sheldon, and hopefully, Arch Grants.
See, we have a lot of experience building brands that are bettering St. Louis. It’s one reason we think you should select us to bring the new Arch Grants brand to life.
Playing around isn’t a form of procrastination at Paradowski; it’s education. Our in-house team of developers and technologists spend 10 percent of their time experimenting with new technologies, software languages, printing techniques and augmented reality so we can bring our clients truly innovative ideas.
And we don’t tell our clients to be, either. For communications to be focused and effective, a sound brand strategy is critical. We help our clients pinpoint exactly who they’re talking to, what really matters to them and how the brand’s purpose aligns with the audience’s values.
It’s easy for brands to talk about themselves. What’s hard is providing value by producing original content that delights, educates, engages and inspires. Luckily, our team of storytellers, filmmakers and illustrators have had a lot of practice doing just that.
We know that visual identity is more than a logo. It’s an entire ethos that helps communicate who you are and what you stand for before you’ve said (or your audience has read) a word. From traditional branding and print collateral to interactive digital design, we’ve stayed true to our roots as a design-devoted shop.
From bite-sized social content to multi-episode series, rousing anthem videos to complex animation and effects, our video team knows how to tell compelling stories of any scale, with any size budget.
We may have some global companies on our client roster, but St. Louis is our home. We’re passionate about our community, as demonstrated by the work we’ve done for dozens of iconic local cultural and educational institutions. As individuals and as a company, we’re committed to contributing to the city’s stability and growth. And we know that by investing our own talents at work and outside the office, we gain as much as we give.
The bottom line: Paradowski has been a “St. Louis” agency for more than 40 years. We’ve accomplished this with an energized entrepreneurial spirit, and we intend to keep building our legacy alongside our clients right here in St. Louis for at least another 40.
If this were a first date, this is where we’d point out how much we have in common. You’re passionate about creating a dynamic nesting environment to attract and advance St. Louis’s next generation of employers, civic leaders and philanthropists; we’re inspired to build brands that are bettering St. Louis.
The brand framework elements you shared excited us immediately, not least because we recognize ourselves in them. We’re thrilled by the possibility of taking these elements to the next level with a fully realized visual identity and a new web experience.
We don’t know what that might look like quite yet, and uncovering it will take close collaboration with your team. But we do know that we’ll agree on one thing: the best idea is boss.
It’s one of our core values, and it’s fundamental to entrepreneurship. It’s the belief that any idea, if it’s the right one, can upend the status quo and change the trajectory of an entire company, an entire industry or an entire city. And it doesn’t matter whose it is, where they come from or even how much experience they have. If it’s best, it’s boss.
Another part of our belief system? If we want people to be open to our ideas, we should take pains to make sure those ideas are graceful, respectful, beautiful and smart.
Your brand is your purpose. It’s the reason you get up in the morning and embodies what you promise your audience. Your brand experience is proof of your promise. It’s how you act as an organization, how you present yourself and, ultimately, how your audience interacts with you.
A noble, emotionally appealing purpose is an advantage, but it’s only as compelling as the way your audience experiences it. Arch Grants applicants are likely to encounter the brand at a pivotal point in their personal and professional lives. They’re seeking support, mentorship and funding to actualize their closely held ideas and ideals, so they’re emotionally primed to forge a meaningful and lasting relationship. The same is true of prospective mentors, donors and other community stakeholders who are enthusiastic about and invested in St. Louis’s economic future.
As you transition into a new phase and a whole new category, it’s more important than ever to present a cohesive brand experience. For that experience to resonate, your vision of lifting St. Louis by propelling enlightened entrepreneurs needs to shine through every touchpoint, from business cards and brochures to social media, event collateral and every page of the new archgrants.org.
A discovery session allows us to more fully understand the brand work you have done to date and what remains to be accomplished.
This will entail one stakeholder intake meeting and brand workshop, the key learnings from which will inform a parent brand matrix.
Our brand matrix exercise helps capture the key truths and belief system behind the parent brand and provides a framework to explore the brand’s internal and external positioning.
We understand that some preliminary brand work has already been accomplished; the matrix will allow us to go deeper and aid in further brand work.
After collecting input from key stakeholders, we will develop the matrix and present it for your review. Once we gather your feedback, we will make any adjustments necessary to achieve a final parent brand matrix to guide all other work.
Brand Voice
Brand voice is the tone and style a brand uses to talk about itself. While the elements of
brand voice are for internal use, a consistent brand voice allows your audiences to immediately recognize your
content — even without other branded elements — and helps establish your brand as trustworthy and authoritative in
your area of expertise. The brand voice document will serve as a definitive language guide when a variety of
writers work on your brand’s behalf.
The crucial elements of your brand voice include: Brand story, brand pillars and key messages
Naming
Naming may or may not be “on the table.” With the parent brand matrix and brand voice established, we will explore potential naming variations and options.
Tagline
Along with naming recommendations, we will provide tagline options.
You have identified a number of product or “daughter” brands that need to live within and ladder up to the parent brand.
For each of these, we propose the following:
Stakeholder intake meeting and
daughter brands workshop to establish the value proposition for each product as
well as how each relates to and aligns with the parent brand core.
Brand Voice
Naming
With the brand voice established, we will explore naming options or updates to the daughter brands, if
applicable.
There are many ways to express a parent brand and everything that lives within its world. We will present options for a logo system that supports and expresses your brand family.
Your brands will need a visual world in which to thrive. Beyond naming, taglines and logo options, we will recommend a visual territory for your brand family. This will include a color palette, photographic style, photographic treatment, typography, data visualization, styling and more. The combination of this territory — and all the elements described above — will give your parent and daughter brands an impactful, ownable space in the marketplace.
With the completion of the first three phases, we will be ready to integrate the parent and daughter brands into your internal and external communications. The following are the key elements we recommend for integration.
Website
Beyond your personal interactions, your website is your single-most important communications tool.
It represents your organization to the world and is the vehicle drives interaction and engages audiences.
Each user’s experience with your site further defines your brand, so your site must embody not only your
brand’s visual identity, but also its value system and personality.
Report to the Community
We envision a digital report that provides you the functionality to make annual
updates with ease. An extension of your overarching website, it will embody the visual territory we
establish for your brand but will have its own unique messaging and content. We recommend that a PDF
version of the report be downloadable from the site for those who wish to print and save the report.
YouTube is the second-largest search engine in the world, processing 3 billion searches a month. A brand video — an anthem, if you will — can express the core of your brand(s) and engage audiences emotionally in a single moment. Internally, it can help you communicate the renewed brand direction to your teams; externally, it can be used to open and close meetings and presentations; it can be featured on your website; and, it can be used in social media channels.
To support the refined branding, we will create a brand guidelines document and apply new standards and visual territory to branded folders, a one-sheeter template, letterhead, business cards, thank-you notes, a Powerpoint template, social media imagery and banners, email and newsletter templates and any other needs.
Great. We built a website—we mean, an experience—where you can find out more about the agency, our work and all the people who make it.
At paradowski.com, you’ll inevitably find yourself reading about how many chicken wings Gus, our President, can eat during lunch. Or marveling at Brad’s hairstyles in the 90s. It happens.
But don’t miss the case studies. These efforts, in particular, are relevant examples of the kind of work we’d love to have the opportunity to create for Arch Grants.
President/Executive Director at the Technology Entrepreneur Center/T-REX, may be reached at patricia@downtowntrex.org
Executive Director, Marketing and Communications at St. Louis Community College, may be reached at ktolson@stlcc.edu
Director of Marketing and Publicity at Sheldon Concert Hall and Art Galleries, may be reached at cpeimann@thesheldon.org
Curator at Laumeier Sculpture Park, may be reached at dturkovic@laumeier.org
