Archive for the Branding + Design Category

February 2012

This Saturday: Toasting Paul Ha at the CAM Gala

Though we were sad to see longtime Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis Director Paul Ha make the move from St. Louis to Cambridge, we’re looking forward to helping celebrate his legacy this Saturday at the CAM Gala at the Four Seasons.

TOKY is proud to be a Gold Sponsor of the CAM Gala, and we’re eager for the design work we’ve done for it to get in the hands of so many supporters of the institution.

Next week, we’ll post a few photos from the evening (though the dance floor’s off limits) and provide a more detailed look at the full collateral we designed.

Cheers, Paul! Consider this an an early toast for contributing so much to St. Louis’ cultural landscape.

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January 2012

TOKY Nominated for 11 ADDY Awards!

TOKY HQ is running high on high-fives, having just learned that we’re up for 11 ADDY awards in this year’s St. Louis competition. We’re particularly pleased with how well the range of work represents our firm’s concentrations, from arts and culture (Laumeier Sculpture Park, CAM, the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis) to premium products (Panera Bread) to ”world changers,” as we call them (St. Louis Public Library Foundation, Food Outreach). Congrats to the entire TOKY team, and to the clients we worked with on the projects!

Here’s a look at the TOKY work that’s being recognized this year:

1. “Texts in the City” Invitation, St. Louis Public Library Foundation (related blog post)

2. Contemporary Fund Mailer, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis

3. “Share the Season” Packaging, Panera Bread (related blog post)

4. stylus box/catalogue, The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts

5. Grab grassy this moment your I’s catalogue, Laumeier Sculpture Park (related blog post)

6. 2011 Season Poster, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis

7. Dreamscapes website, The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts

8. “Design Legends of St. Louis“ Video Series, AIGA St. Louis (one of five videos is shown above)

9. “Return to Summer” In-Store, Panera Bread (related gallery at Facebook)

10. “Share the Season” In-Store, Panera Bread (related blog post)

11. “A Tasteful Affair” Invitation, Food Outreach

Our thanks to the ADDY judges who have recognized this work! We’re looking forward to celebrating St. Louis creativity with our colleagues at the February ceremony.

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January 2012

Talking InDesign with the SMPS

Last week, I had the opportunity to give a presentation — “InDesign CS5 Tips & Techniques” — for the Society for Marketing Professional Services St. Louis (SMPS ). My talk featured examples of ways to be more efficient in the leading desktop publishing application, and how to do better work faster. I spoke about creating documents, using images, handling text effectively, using color, and saving, exporting and printing files.

There were about 30 people in attendance, ranging in age and, from what I could tell, experience with InDesign. (Also, geography: one gentleman drove all the way in from Columbia, Mo.!) My thanks to those who attended and the SMPS team, who provided a large pre-talk breakfast buffet for all and gifted a nifty little bamboo thumb drive to me.

You’re welcome to view a video of the seminar above or on Vimeo’s website.

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January 2012

Art of the Menu Spotlights Baileys’ Range

Under Consideration’s Art of the Menu design blog, which catalogues “the underrated creativity of menus from around the world,” has turned its spotlight on TOKY’s identity and design work for Baileys’ Range. We first announced this project in this November blog post, if you’d like some background on how it came together. But be sure to click through to the Art of the Menu piece, published yesterday. We love the site — whether it’s our work being featured or work from our international peers. Thanks to the site’s editors for the nod!

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January 2012

TOKY Honored Twice in Prestigious “Typography 32″ Annual

The Type Directors Club, the world’s leading organization supporting excellence in typography, is out this month with its brand new anthology of “the most innovate, contemporary achievements in typography” created during 2010 (Amazon). TOKY is proud and excited to have two projects honored with inclusion.

First up is our end-of-year card for the St. Louis Public Library Foundation (above left), chosen for the competition’s “Greeting Card” category.

And second is TOKY’s identity for Mysterios de Mayo, a month-long series of fundraisers for the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis. This piece was honored in the “Logotype” category.

Cheers to everyone involved with these fantastic projects, including the clients who commissioned them! We’re thrilled to be included in some incredible international design company.

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December 2011

Kind Words from design­work­life

When the phrase “stunningly beautiful” is used to describe one of our designs, we’re all smiles here at TOKY HQ. Such was the praise yesterday, when designworklife spotlighted TOKY’s invitation for the St. Louis Public Library Foundation‘s 2011 Gala, a project we posted about back in November. New to our blog’s readers, though, will be this complete look at both sides of the invitation (be sure to click for a larger view!):

Thanks for the kind words, designworklife!

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December 2011

New Work: “Share the Season” at Panera

Following our “Return to Summer” and “Welcome to Our Table” seasonal campaigns for Panera Bread, TOKY developed a whimsical, winter-hugging “Share the Season” campaign that’s being seen (and carried away) at thousands of bakery-cafes throughout the country this December. For this project, TOKY sought to create an identity and packaging that brought warmth and cheer to those picking up bagels and coffee for co-workers cranking on an end-of-year project, warm soups for family members settled in at home, or a surprise gift card for a friend. The design, original illustrations, and good-will copy have been well-received (the campaign was highlighted this week at The Dieline, a widely read blog about packaging), and we hope it’s brought you a smile during these busy December days.

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December 2011

AdSaint on TOKY’s Work for EPIC

AdSaint, which covers the marketing scene in St. Louis, just published a post on TOKY’s work developing the identity for EPIC Pizza & Subs. Have a read — just in time for dinner!

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December 2011

TOKY Honored in Print’s Regional Design Annual

The December issue of Print is out, and TOKY is one of only two St. Louis-based creative firms awarded inclusion in the magazine’s ”Regional Design Annual” cover package, Midwest category. The competition’s judges honored TOKY’s identity for Mysterios de Mayo, a month-long series of fundraisers for the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis. It’s been a good year for this particular design work — it was honored by the AIGA in April and featured in the Type Club Directors Annual in August. Perhaps best of all, the effort helped CAM raise a record amount of money for its operations, exhibitions, and programs.

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November 2011

Miss the Latest TOKY E-Newsletter?

The above shows just one of 10 stories published in last week’s e-newsletter. Read them all here. Want to receive the next one the day it’s published? Join the list today.

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November 2011

New Work: Launching the Baileys’ Range Brand

Prominent St. Louis restaurateur Dave Bailey has opened four restaurants, and TOKY has been proud to craft — and sustain — the identity for each one: Baileys’ Chocolate Bar; Rooster; Bridge; and now Baileys’ Range, a bustling burgers-and-shakes spot at the corner of 10th and Olive in downtown St. Louis.

The restaurant’s name has a few different meanings — the range of options on the menu, yes, but also the open natural landscape, the range out on the farm. (All the beef here is grass-fed, free range, and local.) We knew, though, that we wanted to steer clear of all the cliches that can zap the joy out of those very meanings. No Western type. No longhorns.

What we created matches the place: fun, rich with texture, totally unique. From the identity to the menus and signage, we sought to create an authentic, warm, and cheerful vibe for a place you’d be happy to come with your family, have drinks with your friends (hope you have a lot of friends; there are TONS of interesting grown up drink options), or end the evening with a freshly made shake.

The TOKY team greatly enjoyed partnering with Scott Pondrom of Design Deli to create the illustrations you see below in the print, signage, and website work.

The menus need to be easily interchangeable — there’s a new Burger Battle every week!

Toky baileysrange exterior

Outdoor signage, with a chalkboard that staff can update daily

Toky baileysrange wallsign

Exterior signage

Toky baileysrange long table

Bar on the right, loooooong table at center, companion artwork on the far wall. The great interior work was led by Brynne Rinderknecht.

Toky baileysrange website

The soft-opening iteration of the website, www.baileysrange.com

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November 2011

TOKY’s Nationwide Work for Panera Continues

This summer, TOKY kicked off its relationship with Panera Bread designing a range of summer-celebrating in-store materials that could be found nationwide throughout the brand’s bakery-cafes.

We were pleased to have this partnership move strongly into fall, with a new round of autumnal signage, greeting stands, catering materials, and merchandise signs installed in nearly 1,500 bakery-cafes in 40 states around the country. We crafted this series around a “Welcome to Our Table” theme, encouraging Panera customers to gather together with family and friends and savor fall’s best flavors.

 

As fall comes to a close, you might be wondering: What’s in store for winter? Stay tuned.

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November 2011

Central Library’s “Texts In The City” Gala Invitation

 

We’ve been very pleased at the enthusiastic reception for this year’s Gala invitation for the St. Louis Library Foundation. For the last two years we’ve created iconic invitations to this signature fundraising event (here and here), and we always try to top ourselves.

This year’s invitation was especially challenging, since the theme we were working with seemed to lead down the route of a simple “Sex In The City” parody. Instead, our designer Mary Rosamond came up with a wonderfully clever way to take real literary texts and weave them together into an evocative passage about a gala party under the stars in a faraway sparkling city. The passage is paired with illustrations handcrafted from bits of found book and advertising ephemera. Mary designed a custom accordion fold, “so that it would look like you were turning through the pages of the books quoted in the story, make you feel like you were entering into the story, with characters coming to life on the pages.”

It was a good solution – a format that fit the content well, was out of the ordinary, yet very cost effective to produce. The result is hauntingly beautiful, childlike, and quietly elegant all at the same time.

The “Texts and the City” Gala, to benefit the St. Louis Public Library Foundation and the renovation of our magnificent Central Library, takes place November 19 at St. Louis City Hall. Tickets are available here.

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