Gardner Company, developer of the new Eighth & Main office tower downtown, selected SMG to brand and launch its first planned residential community in Idaho. The new campaign highlights the high-end community’s unique location as the last major undeveloped parcel on the river in downtown Eagle. Our work includes newspaper advertising, public relations, airport advertising and printed sales materials. A new website will launch soon. So far response to the campaign has been strong. Earlier this year, SMG created a logo for Library Square, another mixed-use Gardner project in Nampa.

A few months ago, United Way of Treasure Valley CEO, Derick O’Neill, asked us to create a video that could explain the organization’s strategic evolution. They didn't want just any video, but one that people would actually want to share. Given the complexity and scope of United Way’s work, it was a tall order.

Fortunately, Ryan Gerber took the script and ran with it, creating a stop-motion animation of the valley with a team of volunteers that included local artists Jared Wynn, Olive Wicherski, and Ella Weltner from United Way’s Junior Service Club. North By Northwest handled the sound as Jake Alger and Neva Geisler from United Way were available to help keep us from losing our nerve.

The finished piece is an amalgamation of more than 6,500 individual photographs, motion graphics and other techniques. Each model and set was built by hand, and filmed over the course of six weeks.

At the rate of 24 photographs for each second of video, it was a painstaking process. (Here’s a time lapse video of the team slowly losing their minds) In the end, the dedication of Ryan and our volunteers inspired the whole office. (One of the volunteers, Jared, came in to work a full day on this project every day after working a full shift at UPS that started at 4 a.m.). We’re grateful to everyone who helped make this possible.

Most importantly, response to the piece has been strong so far with several hundred thousand views after just two days on YouTube. Help United Way continue its important work by donating or volunteering today at www.unitedwaytv.org.

We are moderately proud to announce that we’ve finally completed the new Stoltz Group logo and identity package. Begun in 2010 (or was it 2009?), the creation of our new look took a backseat to client work, pregnancy, RFPs, pitches, internal strife and endless meetings. However our recent move finally gave us the impetus to finish it off, once and for all. See the whole identity package designed by Doug Gneiting on the website in the coming weeks.