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.

Thanks for the kind words, designworklife!

Multiple reports confirm: It was a really great day. In the nearly 10 hours spent at FK Studios in Midtown, more than 100 people were photographed, with everyone enjoying delicious food and treats generously donated by Baileys’ Restaurants, The Cup, and Wanderlust Pizza. Great cause, great camaraderie with others in the St. Louis design community.

Thanks to Jason Stoff for photographs three and four.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that Old North St. Louis Restoration Group is in Washington D.C. today to receive the 2011 “National Award for Smart Growth Achievement”, awarded to the community by the Environmental Protection Agency. Old North was awarded for “Overall Excellence in Smart Growth”, the highest honor from the EPA’s Office of Sustainable Communities.

The next part made us stand up and cheer: ”A specific effort cited by the EPA was the revitalization of two main blocks of the neighborhood — 14th Street north from Warren Street to St. Louis Avenue (nearly to the door of the Karandzieffs‘ venerable Crown Candy Kitchen) — into something called Crown Square. The $35 million project involved the redevelopment of 27 buildings along 14th Street and surrounding side streets. It resulted in 80 new households in an area that had been largely abandoned, and the opening of a growing number of new locally owned businesses.”

Way back in 2006, TOKY branded the Crown Village district and the Crown Square development. We designed the logo after being blown away by the wonderful line of old commercial store signs that line the old 14th Street Mall (above photo courtesy of the great Built St. Louis blog). We helped position Crown Village as an alternative to the overheated Washington Avenue Loft District with our tag line “Great City Living, Without the Lofty Price”. And it was no easy task to get the Karandzieffs to allow their Crown Candy Kitchen to become the public keystone of the new brand.

Hats off to Sean Thomas and his never-take-no-for-an-answer squad of Old North visionaries on their much-deserved award.

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.

Want to be a part of the largest food-collection bicycle ride in the country? Grab your bike and join us for Cranksgiving: THIS Sunday, November 6th, at 10 a.m. at Schlafly Bottleworks!

Now in its sixth year, Cranksgiving is hosted by BicycleWORKS, with proceeds going to our friends at Food Outreach. Riders can choose from a 5-, 10-, or 25-mile route, on which they’ll stop by several local grocery stores to pick up non-perishable food items to donate to the cause. Last year, more than 650 riders collected more than 6,000 food items, making it the largest Cranksgiving event in the country!

TOKY has long supported BicycleWORKS and their many fine projects. T-shirts for this year’s event are currently sold out, but you can still order yours online. You’ll be able to pick it up the week after the event at BWORKS. Once again, all proceeds from the sales go directly to Food Outreach.

For more information about Cranksgiving, visit bworks.org/bikeworks. We hope to see you there!

St. Louis Help-Portrait Volunteers

One of TOKY’s Creative Directors, Katy Fischer (rocking the orange pants above), and TOKY friend and collaborator Hilary Skirboll (to the left of Katy) have received a meaningful and delightfully named Kick Ass Award for the year 2011. Billed as ”an annual celebration of kick ass individuals and organizations making positive contributions to our communities,” this award series started in Austin in 2004 and made its way to St. Louis via the late culture and literature magazine 52nd City. (TOKY’s happily familiar with the award, as Director of Business Development John Foster kicked ass last year.)

Katy and Hilary were honored for putting on a St. Louis iteration of Help-Portrait, a global program that provides a way for the less fortunate to have professional portraits taken of themselves and their families.

More than 40 local photographers, stylists, volunteers, and non-profit agencies have contributed to the effort these past two years, and Hilary and Katy take their respective hats off to them. Another TOKY Creative Director and resident photography genius, Geoff Story, shot portraits for the last two years (he’s three people to the left of Katy in the grey shirt). Photographer Mark Katzman, who has generously hosted the shoot at his studio, deserves a special note of thanks.

Help-Portrat 2011 is scheduled for Saturday, December 10. Interested in learning more? Drop Katy a line, and she’ll be back in touch. In the mean time, you can watch these brief and lovely recap videos from 2010 and 2009 to see how special the program really is:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

In October, TOKY’s national partnership with Panera Bread continued with this colorful, cause-supporting Baker’s Dozen Bagel Box designed by our team in St. Louis. With each customer purchase, Panera has donated to local efforts to fight breast cancer, in every one of its communities all across the country. TOKY is proud to have played a part in this vital effort!

• Tonight, Friday September 23, 6 – 10pm
• Mad Art Gallery: 2727 S. 12th Street, St. Louis (map)
• Tickets are free for AIGA members and children under 13. 
Non-members can purchase tickets (meaning donate to a good cause) for $10 before the event and $15 at the door. The friendly folks at the door will accept cash or credit.

The list of presenting Foodstock artists is impressive, and we’re proud to say it includes five members of the TOKY team:

• Annette Gleason, Interactive Designer
• Bruce Burton, Senior Print Designer
• Geoff Story, Creative Director
• Kirsten O’Loughlin, Senior Interactive Designer
• Katy Fischer, Creative Director

Keep an eye out for their work: Bruce will offer “Eat,” a pierced-tin lunchbox he converted into a wall lamp, and Kirsten has a new letterpress piece she’s titled “The Devil’s Orchard.” As for Annette, Geoff, and Katy, you’ll find a sneak-peek of their works below.

See everyone tonight!

“Lemon,” Annette Gleason, acrylic painting on board

“Okay Cafe,” Geoff Story, color photograph

“Plenty,” Katy Fischer, mixed media on found wood

This past weekend I had the opportunity to sport the new BicycleWORKS cycling jersey at the 2011 THF Realty Gateway Cup. BicycleWORKS asked me to design their 2011 jersey for the Bike MS: Express Scripts Gateway Getaway Ride – which takes place next weekend.

TOKY has been a long-time supporter of BicycleWORKS and would like to congratulate them on their new space in Soulard. Be sure to stop by September 17th for the Grand Opening. More information at www.stlbicycleworks.org.