Today’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch carries an article titled “Niche firms thrive in the city,” with reporter Steve Giegerich starting his Midtown-focused piece through Eric and Mary‘s eyes:

Mary and Eric Thoelke were first to land on the stretch of Locust Street where he now runs a thriving marketing outfit. The area had fallen into disrepair since its heyday in the early 20th century as a mecca for domestic car dealers.

“There was nothing here,” says Eric Thoelke, recalling a neighborhood populated with social service agencies, a handful of light industries and little else. “It was tumbleweeds. Seven minutes from downtown, and nobody knew about this place.”

Undaunted, the Thoelkes in 2002 put out the sign for their boutique marketing firm, TOKY Branding + Design, and got down to business. Not long later, an independent photographer and designer that did business with TOKY rehabbed and moved into a nearby loft.

Another boutique firm followed. Then another.

Yep, the momentum has been remarkable. Be sure to check out the whole article, which has quotes from many of our fantastic Midtown neighbors about the creative family we’re all building here together.

TOKY’s begun 2012 with a brand new conference table, around which new ideas are daily hatched or sharpened. Who’s responsible for the design and build? Our Midtown neighbor, Mirato, a client we teamed up with last fall for a rebrand (including name change) and fresh new website. We’re fans of their work — beautiful designs, eco-friendly materials and process — and love what they’ve made.

Mirato’s Rob Grimm told me yesterday that their team’s goal was to create a piece with “clean, simple style — something that felt very TOKY and was unique to TOKY.” The “vertebra” that runs through the center is an element used in some of Mirato’s other work, but its implementation here is totally new. Rob admitted that getting each of the various pieces lined up perfectly and the surfaces level “took an enormous amount of tweaking,” but the finished product is worth it.

“We stayed true to our core materials for this project,” Rob added, “using only bamboo, steel, and glass” — materials that are rapid-renewable, recycled, or recyclable. He added that the bamboo is in its natural color — it’s been clear-coated but not stained, which means no off-gassing.

Like most creative projects, this one began with a series of sketches. We asked Rob if we could post a few related to this project, and he obliged.

Cheers to the team at Mirato on this project. We’ve have a great time hosting clients around the new table, and look forward to many beautifully productive meetings to come!

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.

TOKY and nine other agencies have teamed up for the Holiday Agency Crawl in St. Louis’ Midtown Alley. Join us Tuesday, December 20th from 5:30 – 8:30pm for a peak inside TOKY, Scorch, Spoke, Atomicdust, Happy Medium, RGG Photo, Back 2 Basics Marketing, Sudden Impact Marketing, and Mercury Labs.

Midtown Alley is one of St. Louis’ fastest growing neighborhoods, a historic section of St. Louis just east of SLU and west of downtown. Once known as Automobile Row, Midtown Alley is now home to many of the city’s hottest creative agencies, best-known restaurants and residences.

Come out and join us for live music, free drinks and noshes and all the tipsy creatives you ever wanted to see.

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.

The publishers of the Logo Lounge series of books, the popular compendiums of the best of logo design, have let us know that we’ll have five logos in two upcoming books.

Our logo for SPACES, a California-based arts organization, and a concept for Opera Theatre of Saint Louis have been accepted for Logo Lounge 7. According to the publishers, over 36,000 logos — 36,000! — were submitted to the panel of judges. Some competitions are harder to judge than others.

Three others were selected for inclusion in the Logo Lounge Master Library Series, a best-of-the-best set.  These include our 2020 logo for the Catholic Healthcare Association, the Art The Vote logo, and the identity for our own Midtown Alley neighborhood.

Save the day of Saturday, October 1, 2011. Our neighborhood, Midtown Alley, is planning its Third Annual Midtown Alley Street Fest. This year its blowing up into something more amazing than ever before, with 10 bands playing throughout the entire day (for free). About a half-mile of Locust Street right outside our window will be closed off and ready for the crowds coming to see the live bands, try beers in the Microbrew Beer Garden, sample food from the many award-winning local restaurants, see the Antique Car Show and much, much more.

Many of the local businesses (including ours!) and available living spaces will have their doors open. Come down on the first and see what all is going on in the Neighborhood, and see why we love it so much here.

More information on the Midtown Alley site.
RSVP for the event on Facebook.

or like Midtown Alley Street Fest:

Poster designed by TOKY

Last weekend, cyclists from across the globe came to Midtown Alley for the second annual Midtown Rally Bike Race. And it was killer fun.

The Rally was part of the “Tour de Grove” series of races through the St. Louis area, planned and executed by Mike Weiss and Jerry Bruce of Big Shark bikes. The races were part of the prestigious USA Cycling National Racing Calendar, and featured the speed and fury of America’s best cyclists. The Tour de Grove is also part of the USA Crits Series — joining the best criterium races in the United States.

It was awesome, packing the streets of Midtown Alley in the late evening hours with a festival atmosphere. And nothing compares to a full tilt peloton circling a corner at 50 miles and hour just inches from your face. TOKY was a proud sponsor of this thrilling event, and we’ll be doing it again next year!

The Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis (CAM) has announced that its 2011 Viva la Masters! Gala, held last Friday at the Ritz-Carlton, was the most profitable event in the museum’s history, netting over $352,000. TOKY was a lead sponsor of the museum’s month-long series of fundraisers, called Mysterios de Mayo, and provided all of the design for the back-to-back galas.

TOKY’s Geoff Story attended the Viva la Masters! Gala, along with Jassen Johnson of Midtown Alley and Sam Foxman, our friend and client at Contemporary Events. Sam also designed the environments for the gala. Check out the photos from the evening here (photos by Sarah Carmody, courtesy of CAM).

Click here to view the embedded video.