Winning at O2 Creative!
With over 4,000 entries from all over the world, we are excited to announce that we have been awarded not one, but TWO Silver Davey Awards by the International Academy of the Visual Arts (IAVA)!
What are the Davey Awards?
The annual International Davey Awards honors the achievements of the “Creative Davids” who derive their strength from big ideas, rather than big budgets.
We were awarded a Davey Award for the trail signage we produced for the Town of Winter Park and Headwaters Trails Alliance and another for the digital and print marketing we did for Winter Park Lodging Co.
Project: Trail Signs
Client(s): Town of Winter Park and Headwaters Trails Alliance
Fun Facts:
- These projects combined took over a year to complete.
- 100+ signs were designed and printed.
- O2 Creative is now an expert in ‘wayfinding,’ (the organization and communication of our dynamic relationship to space and the environment).
- We took these very complex and detailed projects extremely seriously because what good is a system of signs if they don’t get travelers to the desired destination?
Design:
- We identified and used materials that would survive the test of time in this climate for years.
- Created designs that would be relatively simple to replace and add sections to cut down on future costs for Winter Park and Headwaters Trails Alliance.
- Used similar fonts and styles for the signs in Winter Park and the Headwaters Trails Alliance to create consistency and a unified feel throughout all trails in the area.
Favorite Parts:
- We truly enjoyed collaborating with Headwaters Trails Alliance and the Town of Winter Park on this project.
- Seeing the trails in use by locals and guests alike has been the biggest payoff.
- It’s cool to know that the trails will be enjoyed by thousands of people for years to come!
Project: Digital and Print Marketing
Client: Winter Park Lodging Co.
Fun Facts:
- We’ve been working with Winter Park Lodging Co. for 5+ years.
- Winter Park Lodging Co. has a lot of different clients they work with.
- We helped create content that would effectively communicate with all of those clients.
Design:
- We spent a long-time developing and tweaking the brand.
- Focused on keeping all pieces developed consistent with brand.
- Updated their website to display the luxury accommodations.
- E-newsletter template that reflects the overall brand.
Favorite Parts:
- Seeing how the collateral we created has had a positive return on investment for Winter Park Lodging Co.
- Visually seeing the collateral working together.
We at O2 Creative hold all our work to our highest standards, and it is nice to know that our work meets the standards of the International Academy of the Visual Arts too!
So What Makes us Successful?
- High standards – We strive to ensure that all of our work exceeds our client’s wildest dreams!
- Inspiration – Look around us! The natural beauty in the Rockies never ceases to inspire!
- Collaboration – FACT: Teamwork makes the dream-work!
- Good Karma – You get what you put out there…
- Green Walls – There is never a dull moment when you’re surrounded by neon green and art!
- Pug-sulations – Consults with the pugs! You’d be surprised how opinionated (and right) they can be!
- Knowing our clients and their consumers – This is key!
Happy Thanksgiving from O2!
Happy Thanksgiving from O2!
We hope everyone is able to enjoy a safe and happy holiday complete with family, friends, and lots and lots of pie. As for the O2 team – well, we have a lot of different plans for Turkey Thursday.
Philip and Eric are staying home with the family, where they’re cooking up the full Thanksgiving spread – turkey, vegetables, and of course…pie! Here’s a sneak preview of Philip’s pecan pie on its way to the oven:
Brad is road tripping back to Kansas to spend the holiday with friends, where he plans to make an appearance at no less than three different Thanksgiving feasts. This weekend he’s also attending the wedding of two close friends – so close, in fact, that he’ll be a groomsman in the ceremony! He’s not the best man though, so we think it’s safe to assume he’s probably the worst man, right?
Cynthia has plans to spend Thanksgiving with family in Denver. A feast in the Front Range, fantastic!
Jaryd is sticking around the Fraser Valley for the holiday. He has plans to get in some early season snowboarding at the Winter Park Resort…and who knows, maybe Copper and Steamboat too. He also hopes to attend the celebration for Fraser’s feature on the Travel Channel. That’s right – Fraser’s own Cozens Ranch Museum will be a part of the Travel Channel’s “Mysteries at the Museum” show set to air this Friday, and the Crooked Creek Saloon is hosting a watch party!
All in all, we’re super excited for Thanksgiving. Hope everyone has a good one. Happy Holidays, friends!
To contact O2 Creative, call 970-726-8021 or email [email protected]
Click here for our last blog: 5 benefits of rebranding
Holiday Cards from O2
Halloween already came and went. That means we’re in the midst of holiday season! Thanksgiving is fast approaching, which makes Christmas and New Year’s Eve just around the corner.
That also means holiday card season is just around the corner as well. Holiday cards are a great way to keep in touch with family and friends. They’re also a fun way to spread some seasonal cheer, whether you’re celebrating Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Years, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Festivus, or another holiday yet.
O2 can create the coolest holiday greeting cards for your business, or even just for you personally. We’ll design cards that truly reflect your holiday spirit, whether you’d like to include fun family photos, or even a custom-designed graphic.
The card creativity doesn’t have to end there either: we can design cards of all shapes and sizes, with all sorts of finishes, on all sorts of different materials. You can go big, small, matte, glossy, square, round, or just pick your own custom shape. We can even print cards on unique papers or other specialty materials. The choices are virtually endless!
In addition to providing professional graphic design services, we at O2 are what you call print brokers. We have close working relationships with several different wholesale printers, which affords several advantages. Since we don’t own our own printing presses in-house, it allows us to keep our overhead lower, which keeps the price lower for you. Since we work with several different wholesale printers that offer a variety of unique printing services, we can quickly and cost-effectively source a variety of print products.
In addition to holiday greeting cards, we can create lots of other stationery for you or your business as well: business cards, brochures, letterhead, posters, you name it. For the best print products, and the most eye-catchingly memorable holiday cards, contact us today.
Happy Holidays from O2!
To contact O2 Creative, call 970-726-8021 or email [email protected].
Click here for our last blog: hiring a marketing agency vs. marketing in-house
Hiring a marketing agency vs. marketing in-house
Hiring a marketing agency vs. marketing in-house – which is better for your business? We at O2 believe that hiring a professional marketing agency can benefit your business in a number of ways. Here are just a few:
Time: Ah, precious time. This can be a premium for many businesses. Marketing takes time too, from devising strategies to coordinating campaigns to creating ads and promotions to…you get the idea. Hiring an agency means the agency will worry about marketing for you, which saves your business precious time.
Expenses. Hiring an in-house marketer can expend a lot of money (salary, benefits) and expend time too (recruiting, interviewing, hiring, training). Hiring an agency can often be less expensive than marketing in-house, especially when you consider that O2 specializes in working with small businesses – we’re a small business too! We can create marketing packages that will fit your needs as well as your budget.
Experience. At O2, we have over 30 combined years of marketing experience, and we’re undertaking new marketing endeavors every day. We can provide you with expert direction if you aren’t sure how to market your business. Our experience also contributes to our next point…
Efficiency. Since we’re extensively experienced, we can quickly and efficiently identify the best marketing initiatives for you. We do this stuff every day! We’ll help you create the right message for the right business at the right time.
Perspective. Small business owners must often keep a narrow focus on their business. While this can be necessary for the sake of the business, it can also make it difficult to step back and think about your business in the big picture of marketing. Hiring an agency can provide a much broader perspective on marketing and other matters. Let us handle your marketing so you can focus on the operations of your business.
Resources. We’re a comprehensive professional agency with a large variety of services to offer. In addition to marketing and advertising services, we can also provide graphic design, web design, promotional products, printing services, and more.
Fun. Okay, why does this matter? Well, we really think you’ll enjoy working with us at O2. In addition to being experienced professionals, we’re actually friendly fun folks too. For instance, even though we’re in the office working hard on Halloween, we still took the time to have a little holiday fun. To prove it, here’s Brad dressed up like Joe Dirt, and Sophie dressed up like a ladybug:
Happy Halloween!
To contact us at O2 Creative, call 970-726-8021 or email [email protected]
Click here for our last blog: Dolls for Daughters
Dolls for Daughters
O2 is pleased to be a part of the holiday toy drive for Dolls for Daughters and Toys for Boys.
We initially heard about the Dolls for Daughters organization through our friend at Powder Addiction, Jennifer Harper. Jennifer introduced us to the founder of Dolls for Daughters, Jessica Bachus. Jessica started the organization in memory of her daughter Kenzi, who was stillborn in 2007. Toys for Boys was founded to provide for boys as well. Kenzi’s Kidz was also launched to provide fundamental items for children to succeed in school – anything from school supplies to clothing to toothbrushes.
Since its inception, Dolls for Daughters has continued to grow and make a positive impact on communities. Each year has been increasingly successful: in 2013, over 21,000 new items were delivered to underprivileged children throughout Colorado, including some 4,200 new toys.
We at O2 hope to add to the momentum for Dolls for Daughters, which is why we’re pleased to be a drop-off spot for new toy donations. Other toy drop-off spots in the Fraser Valley area include Epic Mountain Sports and Riverside Spirits (the liquor store at the base of the Winter Park Resort). Together we hope to expand Dolls for Daughters and Toys for Boys to Grand County, in addition to the organization’s presence in the Front Range. All the toys we collect here will be donated to the Mountain Family Center for the benefit of underprivileged children in our community.
So this holiday season, please stop by the O2 office or one of the other drop-off locations and donate some toys (please, new toys only). We hope you’ll agree with Jessica and us when we say that every child should be able to enjoy a new toy during the holidays. Help us support Dolls for Daughters, Toys for Boys, and Kenzi’s Kidz. We hope to have all the donations collected by December 5, so please drop off donations ASAP!
To learn more about Dolls for Daughters, check out their website at www.dollsfordaughters.com.
To contact us at O2, call 970-726-8021 or email [email protected]. To drop off some toys, just stop by our office at 345 Zerex Street in Fraser (across from the Shell gas station). Thanks everyone!
Click here for our last blog: professional communication
O2’s ode to summer
This week marked the first snow accumulation here in the Fraser Valley. We at O2 really enjoyed seeing the changing seasons on the surrounding mountainsides. We also enjoyed the spectacular snowy fall photos that have been trending on social media. So cool to see fall and winter in the same pic!
The first snows also signaled that summer is officially over. Like, for real this time. We took a moment to reflect on what was a great summer for all of us, and reminisce about some of our favorite moments from the warmer months.
Eric and Philip both enjoyed their first summer of camping in their new RV camper. They took the camper to some of the most colorful corners of Colorado’s Favorite Playground and beyond, enjoying the glamorous style of camping (“glamping”) that the RV affords them. The whole family enjoyed camping, including their son Jacob…
…and the pugs too…
…well, maybe not so much for Sophie.
Jaryd looked back on some cool camping trips of his own, including a hike-and-camp on the 4th of July. The Fraser Valley’s fireworks looked incredible from up on the Continental Divide!
Brad, of course, enjoyed yet another summer season of fly-fishing. He also got a cool camera capable of underwater photography, which allowed him to capture some stunning images of trout. It’s also apparently proof that, yes, sometimes he actually does catch fish. Sometimes.
With that said, we’ve accepted that summer has passed, and we’re ready for the snowy season. The snowfall also got us excited for all the wonderful winter activities in Colorado’s Favorite Playground. Time to get ready for some skiing and snowboarding!
As an agency, we also realize the winter months are among the busiest of the year for local businesses, and we’ve already been preparing for it. (Remember to get your winter marketing planned today!)
So what was your favorite memory from the summer? Are you excited for another snowy winter? Which season do you like more??
To contact O2 Creative, call 970-726-8021 or email [email protected].
O2 on the set of a shoot
O2 Creative’s graphic designer Eric recently had the opportunity to work on a commercial shoot!
Eric served as a production assistant for the art department on the set of a commercial shoot for Blue Moon Brewing Company. The shoot took place at the nearby Devil’s Thumb Ranch in Tabernash, just down the road from the O2 office in Fraser. We’re all pretty excited to have a member of team O2 on the set of a shoot.
Eric has always wanted to work on a film set, ever since his parents took him to Universal Studios as a child. When he was offered a spot on the production crew for this project, he jumped at the opportunity.
As an art production assistant, Eric’s job was to set up each scene and make sure every little thing would look good for the camera. The shoot was incredibly detail-oriented, from minute elements in the background of a scene, to the placement and appearance of each prop. For instance, the glass of beer in each scene had to have exactly one inch of head, which had to begin just above the Blue Moon logo on the glass. If the head didn’t look just right, Eric and the crew had to “fluff” it back up before taking the next shot.
Eric was one of about 25 people who worked on the set. He really enjoyed the opportunity to contribute his own creative suggestions to the director throughout the project. Each person played a unique role in the production of the commercial, and everyone functioned as part of a greater team with a unified goal. Eric’s experience working as part of a creative team at O2 better prepared him to work on the set of the shoot for Blue Moon. Working on the set also helped Eric gain new insight on how O2 can work as a creative team more efficiently on future projects.
The commercial itself offers an artistic perspective into the similarities of craftsmanship between snowboard making, woodworking, gourmet cooking, and of course, beer. The commercial will feature the rustic spaces of Devil’s Thumb Ranch, as well as the mountain scenery of Colorado’s Favorite Playground. Keep an eye out for the commercial to air soon!
Do you have any cool experiences working on a creative project? Please share your stories with us!
To contact O2 Creative, call 970-726-8021 or email [email protected].
Click here for our last blog – O2 at Gears & Beers!
O2 at Gears & Beers
We’re avid bikers at O2. We’ve even written about this before.
That’s why we’re excited for this weekend’s Gears & Beers enduro race at Granby Ranch.
We raced in the previous Gears & Beers event, which was so much fun we’re racing again tomorrow. Plus, it’s the last race of the season. Join O2 at Gears & Beers tomorrow!
The race consists of three different stages. Stage 1 is an uphill climb beginning at the base of Granby Ranch, climbing up a cross-country trail (exhausting), then a downhill ride back to the base. Stage 2 involves a ride up the lift to a tough traverse across the resort’s most technical cross-country trails, with lots of riding over rocks and through narrow forests. Stage 3 is a speedy downhill sprint, which really tests your balance – and your brakes. The race is an exciting challenge and an exercise in personal endurance (hence the name “enduro” race).
Of course, Gears & Beers wouldn’t be complete without…well, beers. The entry fee includes a burger and a beer after stage 3. And trust us, you earn every calorie!
For the mountain biking ladies, Granby Ranch is also hosting a “She-MTB” women’s bike clinic tomorrow too. All in all it stands to be yet another fun weekend of mountain biking at the Ranch, especially since the fall colors are in full effect.
It’s all part of the enjoyment of living in Colorado’s Favorite Playground. After a hard week’s work in the office, we love to get out and have some fun biking. Or camping. Or fishing. Or just playing with the dogs (p.s. there’s still time to vote Thumbelina for Grand Dog!)
What’s your weekend plans?
To contact O2 Creative, call us at 970-726-8021 or email [email protected].
Click here for our last blog: winter marketing
A year in the new O2 office
It’s officially been a year in the new O2 office. (A whole year? Where does the time go?!)
If you recall, a year ago we moved from the little cabin office on the one end of Eisenhower…
…to the bigger corner office on the other end.
So far, the new office has been everything we hoped for. It’s bigger, which gives us more space for creative projects and meetings with clients. It’s more comfortable, with our large meeting table and lounge area complete with couch. The corner location has also yielded us more walk-in traffic. The office’s interior is more colorful too, with our office walls painted the standard-issue O2 green.
The office has served us well over the seasons. We made it through the Rocky Mountain winter, though not without plenty of icicles.
Summer has been a different story. To stay cool, we’ve kept our door and windows open during the warmer months. However, whenever a breeze blows through the office, the ceiling tiles and light panels will move and shift with the wind. It’s quite a strange occurrence…especially when one of the lights fell!
The office was prone to getting toasty, especially during June and July. At one point Philip and Eric brought in a small air conditioning unit, which kept things a little cooler. Brad nicknamed the air conditioner R2D2, though we’re not sure why.
The office even endured a lightning strike recently. While quietly working one day we were interrupted by a deafening BOOM, which instantaneously took out the power in the office, and also took out the office printer. No worries though – we were back up and running by the next business day.
Overall, the first year in our new office has been great for us. Everyone has enjoyed the space, particularly the pugs, who especially like lounging on the couch.
Here’s to many more years to come!
To contact O2 Creative, call 970-726-8021 or email [email protected].
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