With Grafik’s help, DC Prep’s mission of bridging the educational divide in Washington, DC was put to the forefront with the launch of their new website, www.dcprep.org. Since its inception, Grafik’s work with DC Prep has been comprehensive, spanning all aspects of the school’s communication channels from strategic positioning to brand identity development to two versions of the DC Prep website. In the website’s most recent evolution, our goal was to better serve current parents, support teacher recruiting efforts, and provide potential parents with the information they need to enroll their children. To properly motivate their targets, we felt it important to highlight their awards and academic achievements, provide a rational, streamlined information architecture, surface prominent calls-to-action, showcase vibrant photography that visually demonstrate life at DC Prep, and fully integrate social media to personally connect with the audience.

Founded in 2003, DC Prep was established as a public charter school in order to bring exemplary academics and character development education to more than 3,000 preschool, elementary, and middle school students. DC Prep has a firm commitment to not only improve performance of low-income, minority students, but to also equip them with the skills needed for the rigors of higher education.

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Are you whip smart, passionate, and frankly, a little kooky? You may just be a Grafite in the making. Our superstar team is looking to beef up our artillery of talent in various departments. Take a look at our current openings. Who knows? You may be a prefect fit!

• Senior Account Executive
• Interactive Project Manager
• Biz Dev and Marketing Manager

Check out the full job descriptions HERE.

Also, we are always on the lookout for budding design talent. So, if you’re on the hunt for that awesome internship, send your resume and work samples to careers@grafik.com.

Last night, I attended the 2012 AIGA 50 Exhibit & Reception where I had the pleasure of conversing with some of DC’s top designers while honoring the best work to come out of the local design community from the past two years. Fifty winners out of the 480 entries were on display while attendees enjoyed the beautiful back drop of the Corcoran Gallery of Art.

During the last AIGA 50 two years ago, Grafik had the opportunity to design it’s first online showcase as well as supporting collateral.

“We have fond memories of working with the AIGA. Holding a competition such as this is important for DC design as it encourages us to continuously  churn out top-notch work,” said Gregg Glaviano, Principal and Creative Director at Grafik. “Congratulations to nclud and Polygraph for this year’s AIGA 50 campaign, and to all of the winners.”

If you weren’t able to attend last night, don’t worry. You can catch up on the past updates and follow the future updates through AIGA DC’s Facebook page and Twitter feed, #AIGA50.

The Scene: 2012 AIGA 50 Exhibit & Reception

March 20, 2012—Grafik is pleased to announce that its branding work for client JK Moving Services has placed it among one of the world’s most effective rebrands in the eighth annual REBRAND 100 ^® Global Awards. This recognition is the highest recognition for excellence in brand repositioning, and is the first and most respected global program of its kind. Grafik’s rebrand of JK Moving Services encompasses an effort that touches every facet of the brand from corporate mantra, to logo and visual identity, and every execution where the brand lives (e.g., moving trucks to uniforms to corporate website and brochures).

“Many projects had big ideas expressed elegantly through all methods of engagement—language, visuals, sound, etc.” said Shashi Caan, Founding Principal, The Collective US and UK and 2012 juror. Each year, an international and multidisciplinary mix of industry experts convenes to jury this annual competition. They consider “before” and “after” representations of brand transformations with written summaries and supporting elements that showcase integration of social media and mobile engagement.

“It is gratifying to be among the nation’s most recognized branding establishments,” said Judy Kirpich, founder and CEO of Grafik, and the strategic lead of the JK Moving Services account. “We’ve spent a decade focusing on strategic branding. It informs everything we do.”

According to the team at REBRAND^TM, a small consulting firm or brand had as much opportunity to be selected as did global organizations with exponentially greater budgets since the name and size of the brand strategists are hidden from jurors during their review process. Emphasis was on executed strategy that made an emotional connection and met the stated objectives and needs of the identified target audience and prospects.

“Grafik Marketing Communications armed themselves with solid research and customer testimonials before embarking on a one-year rebranding program for JK Moving,” said Charles Kuhn, Founder, President and CEO, JK Moving Services. “They completely reorganized our brand architecture and rolled out a powerful new corporate mantra that resonated with every division and facet of the company.”

The 2012 winners represented over 28 countries and 34 industries. They ranged from One Foundation (Global Ethics Ltd), Pfizer, National Music Centre (Canada), Merck Millipore, and Cisco. In addition to in-house teams, small agencies, and representatives of multinational corporations and nonprofits, competing firms included Interbrand, SNK, Lippincott, Siegel+Gale, and Brandient.

EDITOR’S NOTE:

About Grafik: Founded in 1978, Grafik is an award-winning strategic marketing communications firm located in Alexandria, VA, specializing in brand and creative development across traditional and digital media. Current clients include: U.S. Census, Honda North America, EYA, Convergent Wealth Advisors, Global Automakers, Prostate Cancer Foundation, and DC Prep.

About JK Moving Services: For over 30 years, JK Moving Services (JKmoving.com) has provided local, long distance, and international relocation services to a variety of commercial, residential, and government clients. Headquartered in Sterling, Virginia, the company maintains a full-time, professionally trained staff of relocation and move management experts committed to providing the highest level of customer care.

About REBRAND™ and the REBRAND 100® Global Awards: REBRAND is the world’s leading resource for effective brand transformations. The REBRAND 100 Global Awards is the first and most respected recognition for repositioned brands. Featured in such media as The Wall Street Journal, CNNMoney, Bloomberg Businessweek, various magazines and books, the annual competition has entry deadlines in late September. The full 2012 winners showcase is at www.rebrand.com.

The Pepsi SXSW display at the local Austin Walmart

Day one of SXSW was certainly an interesting one for the Grafik team. And while nature and other circumstances prevented the team from picking up our registration badges and attending the handful of panels for the day, we had a busy day nonetheless. Here’s a little summary of how our day went:

8:00 am – Rise and shine! The team is up and ready for the day. The plan is to head out at 11:45 thinking we will get our registration badges, have lunch and make the 2:00 pm panels. Boy, were we ambitious.

9:00 am – Will go grocery shopping in the afternoon. Rely on host’s espresso machine (which took us a while to figure out) to hold us over till we can grab breakfast downtown.

10:00 am – Launch our SXSW landing page which includes our first tweets, blog posts and photos of the day.

10:45 am – Mila calls a cab. And even though we rented a house five minutes from downtown (driving), freak thunderstorms prevented us from walking there, so alternative transportation is required.

11:30 am – No sign of the cab.

12:00 pm – Still no sign of cab. Mila follows up and the cab company reports that it will be another hour. We busy ourselves by attending to our normal Grafik obligations.

12:30 pm – Hunger sets in. We start snacking on leftover M&M’s that were purchased from the airport the night before. 2:00 pm panel is more than likely not going to happen.

1:30 pm – Still no sign of our cab and the ladies’ toilet backs up.

1:35 pm – No plunger in the house. According to landlord, “this has never happened before”.

1:45 pm – I walk over to borrow plunger from neighbor. Awesome, right?

2:30 pm – Break open a box of Wheat Thins discovered in pantry and make executive decision that a rental car is required if we are to actually participate in SXSW.

4:00 pm – After instructing cab company we would need transportation back to airport and rental cars, the cab arrives within 10 minutes (think double fare).

4:15 – 4:45pm – Sit in traffic from rain-caused accident.

5:00 pm – Rent our wheels for the duration of our stay.

5:10pm – Grab breakfast/lunch/dinner and proceed to Walmart for groceries. We had learned lesson. Supplies were warranted.

5:45 pm – Visit Starbucks for first time for much-needed coffee.

6:00 pm – Drive through downtown to get our bearings.

6:30 pm – Arrive back at the house. To our chagrin, rain is still pouring and we start discussing if we attend any events at night.

6:30 – 9:00pm – Snack, check work email, nap, and veg.

9:00 pm – We eventually decide to stay in for the evening and have a few SXSW friends over to our house.

10:00pm-12:30am – Entertain friends.

1:15am – Call it a day (night).

We can’t wait for Saturday and will summarize our adventures on the blog tomorrow! Until then, please follow our adventures at www.grafik.com/sxsw!

The Grafik team heading towards downtown Austin in the rain

We are very proud of our new work for retail training giant, MOHR Retail, the company that has trained the staff of household brands including T.J. Maxx, New Balance, and Verizon Wireless, in its 30 years in business. Through a discovery process that included a brand audit, interviews, and a competitive review, we were able to define four brand pillars that helped  establish a clear strategy for the web redesign. The site focuses on the importance of MOHR Retail’s trainings by using the main messaging area to promote the core attributes that set them apart from other training programs. Our brand study also made it evident that a name change would reinforce their expertise in the retail space and MOHR Access—became MOHR Retail.  Brand strategy always guides design at Grafik—and that is why clients like Michael Patrick of MOHR Retail have this to say about working with Grafik.

“We are all so proud of what you have created. Thank you for listening, bringing your expertise, and translating our vision into reality. The site shows us in the best possible light. It communicates that we are a leader in retail training, offer fresh and important insights, and are a substantial organization that is ready to handle the full range of needs retailers may have. If this doesn’t grow our brand and drive business, I’m not sure what would. We made the right decision when we chose Grafik!” —Michael Patrick, Founder & President, MOHR Retail.

I first heard about Pinterest from my sister, a fourth grade teacher in Michigan who is not known as an early adopter. I was reading one of my favorite blogs, clicked on a Pinterest button on the site, and all of a sudden found myself in a different world that I knew nothing about. Just at that moment, my sister called me. I told her that I had just found this interesting site, Pinterest, and she told me it is one of the best places online for teachers to share ideas and curriculum—she has been using it for months. Three hours later, I was hooked.

These are a few of Grafik CEO, Judy Kirpich

I have been trying to figure out the many ways to use this new social media tool. Growing from 1.2 million users in August to over 4 million in January 2012, it is a site that allows users to share images they like about objects that they like. Each time you choose an image—whether it is from a website or within the Pinterest boards, it is called “pinning.”

A user can group infinite numbers of images into a board that can be organized and categorized according to the users preferences. The site is being used predominantly by women, and there are myriad boards on kitchens, fashion trends, bridal dresses. There are also boards featuring textures, art, places to travel, black and white photography and architecture. If you find someone who is constantly pinning up images that are interesting, you can choose to follow that person, and can select which of her boards you want to follow. If you see an image you like, you can repin it on your own board, like it, or even make a comment.

A shot of Judy

By installing a Pin It button on your desktop, if you see a beautiful image of an elephant on a nature site, you can click on the button and it will be added to your collection (board of images).Well, lots of sites allow you to post images, Grabbit for one, but what is interesting is that the Pin It photo arrives at your board with the credits and original site attached. And here is where I think it gets interesting…since Pinterest allows a “pinner” to see where the original content is from, if you repeatedly see that images you like are from the same website or blog, you are encouraged to visit that url. In this way Pinterest can subtly act as another method to get people to your own blog or website.

I decided to try an experiment. I posted eight images from my own blog. On a good day I normally get about 50-70 page views. The day before I started pinning on Pinterest I had 62 page views. For the next few days after I had started pinning, my page views went up to 379 and the views have remained higher.

After adding images from her own blog, Unmultitasking, Judy's blog traffic experienced a bump.

More research has to be done on Pinterest, however right now it is currently the seventh highest trafficked social media site. The demographic is predominantly female which should be interesting to advertisers. And in talking with some of our social media team and our creative directors we are already thinking of ways we could use this both for our clients and internally. One cautionary note—it’s addictive and can really suck up a lot of time, so be prepared to spend hours investigating it. Enjoy, and happy pinning!

While waiting for my flight at Reagan National Airport, I happened to look up and experience one of the most striking technology campaigns I’ve seen in a while. The Smarter Planet campaign, designed by Ogilvy Paris for IBM, employs a collection of simple yet sophisticated illustrations by Noma Bar titled Outcomes. His work precisely uses shapes, form, and negative space showcasing his skills as an artist, illustrator, and designer. The resulting images are deceivingly simple and often require an extra moment to see the meaning within. I only wished I had taken a photo of the actual display at the airport, however the images below should give you a good idea.

Noma Bar's Outcomes illustrations for IBM's Smarter Planet campaign

It’s been said many times over, “It’s never too late.” This is especially true when it involves props, singing, and spreading smiles.

Case in point: Grafik’s 2011 Holiday E-card which was sent out to clients, friends, and our social followers early this week. Yes, it may be a bit tardy, but it’s still darn worthy of the mere 30 seconds you need to view it. So if you haven’t given it a look, click on the image below. Immediate smiles guaranteed!

Washington Area is Key Destination for Strategic Communications

WASHINGTON, DC, January 6, 2012 – The DC Ad Club, metropolitan Washington’s chapter of the American Advertising Federation, announced yesterday that Teddi Alyce Segal is chairperson of Advertising Week DC 2012 scheduled for this September. Segal is vice president of marketing and business development at Alexandria, VA-based, Grafik, the creative agency for the event. Advertising Week DC attracts communications professionals to a four-day event engineered to keep practitioners current on all aspects of marketing communications. Although major metropolitan areas such as New York and Los Angeles have more employees in the advertising and marketing sector, the Washington area has the highest per capita among all the major metro areas in the nation.

According to IHS Global Insight and the Greater Washington Initiative studies, the Washington metropolitan area is home to over 300,000 advertising-related jobs and is the highest per capita employer in the advertising sector. Over 21% of the $489 billion economic output in the Washington area is attributable to advertising expenditures.

“The high concentration of communications professionals is indicative of the demand for top-notch, strategic talent in our region for a breadth of communications disciplines, including marketing, advertising, public relations, advocacy, digital media, social media, and more. Our program is developed to serve the needs of all marketing communications professionals,” said Segal.

Every fall since 2004, Advertising Week DC celebrates the best of the advertising, marketing, and media community with a week dedicated to networking, professional development, and education. It is the area’s largest professional and networking event for advertising, marketing, public relations, and media leaders. The Advertising Week DC Steering Committee is comprised of key players from companies in the Greater Washington advertising, marketing, and media industries. The event will feature nationally recognized marketing experts in an extensive program of discussions and presentations focused on best practices in the rapidly evolving field of marketing communications. The conference will be attractive to client- and agency-side junior talent and, of course, the mainstay of seasoned professionals, and those currently in college studying communications.

“Advertising Week DC is the place to listen, learn, contribute, and engage in lively discussion around our profession. Our objective this year is to raise national awareness that the Washington area is the “go-to” market for strategic communications because of the breadth of marketing work being performed in the region,” said Sherri Anne Green, president of the DC Ad Club. “We’re excited to have Teddi spearheading the effort.”

Segal served on the Advertising Week DC Steering Committee in 2010. She joined Grafik in October 2008 and is responsible for business development and marketing efforts, as well as all public relations and social media on behalf of the agency. She previously served on the American Marketing Association-DC Chapter Board of Directors and is currently serving on the DC Ad Club’s 2012 ADDY Award committee.

Prior to coming to DC, Segal was with several agencies in Miami, FL, including Zimmerman and HDC. Advertising Week DC is a mix of professional development and networking. Both events have taken place annually since 2004. Past speakers have included Joe Grimaldi, Chairman & CEO, Mullen; Shelly Lazarus, Chairman of Ogilvy & Mather; Liz Dolan, former Chief Marketing Officer of The Oprah Winfrey Network; Stuart Elliot, Advertising Columnist of The New York Times; and Miles Nadal, Founder, Chairman & CEO, MDC Partners.

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About The DC Ad Club

Since 1918, the DC Ad Club (a.k.a. the Advertising Club of Metropolitan Washington) has served as the premier industry organization for area advertising professionals. As a chapter of the American Advertising Federation (AAF), the DC Ad Club promotes integrity and excellence in advertising through professional development seminars, recognizes industry leaders andoutstanding work, and serves as the leading networking venue for the industry. The DC Ad Club membership represents all segments of the industry—clients, agencies, production companies and the media. Ad 2 DC, a subset of the DC Ad Club membership, represents and provides programming for young professionals (age 32 and under) in the industry.