Creative Savages

words/pictures/ideas from Savage Solutions, a Milwaukee-based marketing agency

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Savage Solutions is looking for a Project Manager to help our creative team complete projects in a sensible and timely fashion. If you’re a solid candidate for the job, you know that’s far easier said than done. As our PM, you’ll use a wicked combination of Basecamp and Microsoft Excel to monitor the progress of roughly 10-12 concurrent projects, help the Savage team prioritize work effectively, and make sure our client-facing individuals know what they need to know.

Savage is a Milwaukee-based agency that provides brand, digital, and social strategy and execution for a broad portfolio of clients. We understand the value of ongoing professional development and provide our employees with ample room to grow. In addition, Savage offers a collaborative work environment, health/dental insurance, and a sweet 401(k) plan.

Here’s what you’ll do: • Own the Savage project management process from start to finish • Create reasonable, achievable project timelines--and make sure the Savage creative team meets critical milestones • Maximize efficiency and minimize time-wasting • Build trust among our creative team, internal leadership, and clients • Ensure that completed work meets or exceeds Savage standards prior to sharing with the client • Deftly manage expectations for the client and your internal stakeholders

Here’s who you are: • 3+ years project management experience [agency experience a plus] • Excellent written and verbal communication skills • Highly organized with an ability to hit deadlines for assigned work • Highly experienced with Microsoft office, particularly Excel, Word, and PowerPoint • Familiar with project management and time-tracking software • Independent / self starter; takes initiative to innovate and solve problems without direct supervision and/or direction • Very strong work ethic; ability to deal with a frequently changing workload, including many projects and fast-paced situations associated with a small marketing agency

How to apply: Send your resume and a brief cover letter to [email protected].

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If you're a designer and/or brand geek, take a quick break from work to check out recent rebrand projects. Brand New is a design blog under the design organization Under Consideration. “Its sole purpose is to chronicle and provide opinions on corporate and brand identity work.”

Ready? Explore: [http://underconsideration.com/brandnew/]

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Joel, our designer, attended the 2014 Brand New Conference, and wanted to share his reflections about one brand in particular: the Girl Scouts. Here's Part 3. [100% of credit for the rebrand goes to The Original Champions of Design.]

If you can hand off your work for others to use, it can be more rewarding than achieving the original designs.

Jennifer Kinon, co-founder of OCD, stressed how intimidating a project like this can be: you’re not simply handing a new brand over to an internal marketing department, but to 3.2 million Girl Scouts across the country.

“Provide inspiration, not rules,” was Jennifer’s best advice. She showed this by providing the Girl Scouts with a simple poster rather than a thick brand guidelines book. Her simple approach works, based on the many successful external executions of the brand she had to show.

Check out Part 1 and Part 2 of Joel's Brand New reflection!

[creativesavages-blog]

Joel, our designer, attended the 2014 Brand New Conference, and wanted to share his reflections about one brand in particular: the Girl Scouts. Here's Part 2. [100% of credit for the rebrand goes to The Original Champions of Design.]

Show and explain your process – it allows your client to further understand and appreciate your final designs.

Original Champions of Design took the time to show the amount of thought and craftsmanship that went into a seemingly simple logo update. Presenting the progression of the logo development and pointing out each little improvement makes for a more impressive presentation than simply showing a new logo. At Brand New, the designer closed the presentation by describing the project as a “work of art and a labor of love.”

Find Part 1 of Joel's Brand New reflection here.

[creativesavages-blog]

Joel, our designer, attended the 2014 Brand New Conference, and wanted to share his reflections about one brand in particular: the Girl Scouts. Here's Part 1. [100% of credit for the rebrand goes to The Original Champions of Design.]

Draw inspiration from a client’s culture and history during a rebrand.

In spite of being created by legendary brand designer Saul Bass, the Girl Scouts logo was starting to look a bit outdated. To find a way to approach the problem, OCD dove into the rich history of the Girl Scouts to look for ideas. They noticed that the 'trefoil' shape within the Girl Scouts logo had been used since the early 1900s. The discovery led them to understand that the logo needed to be updated and refined--not disposed of entirely.

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Joel, one of our designers, attended the Brand New Conference, and he's got plenty of things to share with brand folk. Read on:

Reflection: The 2014 Brand New Conference

In September, Mark and I attended the 2014 Brand New Conference in Chicago. The event featured 20 speakers from around the world, speaking to their personal philosophy on brand design and sharing recent work.

Throughout the conference, certain themes seemed to be consistent in the speakers’ presentations. I’ve boiled them down to three major lessons about branding that I took away from the two days:

1.  Draw inspiration from a client’s culture and history during a rebrand.

2.  Show and explain your process – it allows your client to further understand and appreciate your final designs.

3.  If you can hand off your work for others to use, it can be more rewarding than achieving the original designs.

Joel will be posting to share his ideas from the 2014 Brand New Conference, so be sure to check back!

[creativesavages-blog]

NOW HIRING: SAVAGE NEEDS AN ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE

Savage Solutions is looking for an Account Executive to join our stand-out team! Just keep the clients on track, keep the Savage team on track, monitor invoices and expenses, use spreadsheets to track project results and margins, and learn everything we know about marketing strategy. (Did we mention there might be multi-tasking?)

Here’s what you’ll do:

Be on a first-name basis (FNB) with Savage clients. Understand what they do, what they aspire to do, and who their target market might be

Budgets!

Create reasonable, achievable project timelines--and make sure Team Savage meets critical milestones

Review ongoing/retainer projects to help further achieve client goals and objectives

Meetings.

Listen to what our clients have to say; build trust

Sound good? Perfect! Let's talk. Send a note and your resume to [email protected].

[creativesavages-blog]

Braving the Market without a Website (Temporarily)

If you landed here after visiting our “website,” you probably realized that we don’t really have one. At least not now. Kind of strange for a web design & development firm, right? We agree. Which means there’s a method to our madness, and we’d like to share it with you. We took down our website a few months ago because our agency has been changing and evolving at an exponential rate over the past two years. Our three-year-old website just wasn’t representing this “new” Savage Solutions. It was a nice-looking and functional website, but it wasn’t us. So we took it down! Just like that. Risky, yes. But this little Milwaukee marketing firm is busier than ever! We may not have a full website at the moment, but that hasn’t stopped new clients and projects from rolling in every week. We can confidently say that we have never been as proud of our client portfolio as we are today. Don’t worry! We’re designing a new website, but we want to make sure it represents Savage Solutions to the fullest. No rushing allowed!

In the meantime, please explore the Creative Savages Blog to your heart's content!

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Our favorite Associate Creative Director, Joel, was nominated for the Ice Bucket Challenge! Which gave us the opportunity to donate to the ALS Association AND dump ice water on him. Win-win!

Bublr Bikes, Gateway to Milwaukee, and RokkinCat - you better get your buckets ready!

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Savage Solutions had an incredible experience yesterday: we helped launch Milwaukee's own Bublr Bikes! Together, our crew designed the brand, designed a pretty neat website, and created all of the material on the Bublr stations and at the event. (And we're the voice of Bublr on Twitter and Facebook!)

The Bublr Bikes launch has generated such positive feedback, and we can't wait to see the bike share system pick up speed. Pedal forward, Milwaukee!

[austinkleon]

Read as much as you can. Nothing will help you as much as reading.

J.K. Rowling (via austinkleon)

That’s J.K. Rowling’s #1 writing tip, but applies just as well to graphic design, creative direction, etc. It helps to see inside the minds of others as you shape your own work.

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Every year, Savage plans and executes a fundraiser event on behalf of St. Joseph Academy. Last week, more than 135 golfers came together at Tuckaway Country Club for a sold-out golf outing! We had beautiful weather, just warm and sunny enough that St. Joseph Academy students running a lemonade stand on the course had plenty of business.

Together, our golfers, auction donors, and generous sponsors raised more than $85,000 for the elementary school on Milwaukee's south side. Thank you!

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Shooting photo/video for a client in a semi-deserted Times Square at 3:30am on Sunday night. And they say New York is "the city that never sleeps."

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Your brand is more than a logo.

“At its core, your brand is the entire essence of your company. It's found everywhere, from your online presence to your office décor to the tone of your voice when answering the phone. It's what drives you and your employees and is instilled in every internal and external communication you offer to the world.

“To create an effective brand, you must dive into the deep, sometimes scary, depths of your company and truly understand why your organization exists. Why do people – your customers and your employees – choose you? Perhaps more importantly, why do they stay?"

Read Cory's full Milwaukee BizTimes column here.

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At Savage, we ask our new employees to share thoughts after their first week of work. Here's Alisha's insight!

Having wrapped up my first week at Savage, it already feels like home. I've been given fantastic brands to work with and I truly enjoy coming in every day to our bright orange office. So much has happened it's hard to believe it's only been a week! But between video shoots, web launches and a coworker's wedding, these amazing people somehow still found time to make me feel welcomed to the team.

[visualgraphc]

Always

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Savage Solutions has been working with The Gateway to Milwaukee, a local business association, since 2005. Yesterday, our team had the opportunity to dedicate a FULL DAY to our longest-running client. We launched their new website, attended the annual Gateway Days event with other member businesses, and captured late afternoon/evening photography of a couple Gateway district mainstays: General Mitchell International Airport, the Garden District Neighborhood Association community garden, and the Packing House.