They both spent a day reading reverse movable metal type being set in a forme, organizing the California case, registering furniture, and working the press with good ol’ Bill of ACME Printing. While the letterpress process is more time-consuming than modern alternatives, the history and love going into the piece were worth the wait.  In this age where the vast majority of media we consume is either electronic or printed as cheaply as possible, it’s nice to lose yourself in a heavy, almost creamy paper, and a printing method that’s been around since the 15th century.

Most girls get excited about their dresses – designers get excited about how they’re going to print their invitations.

And lucky you, your first week has been a busy one, what with websites launching, a couple of us attending release events, birthday cake and more. The previously mentioned La Palina website launched last week, and we’ve been burning the candle at both ends to get it filled out with content. On launch day it had only two sections – About La Palina and Blog. We added the third early this week (Our Cigars), and have continued working on getting the rest up and running as soon as possible.

Of course it doesn’t help to have the client distracting us with parties. On Thursday the 24th Senior Designer Ian and Creative Director Tomas wandered on over to Morton’s the Steakhouse on Connecticut Avenue for the DC release party. Inside we had the pleasure of rubbing shoulders with some of DC’s cigar-smoking A-listers. While neither Tomas nor Ian are really cigar smokers, the airflow (regulated by dozens of huge fans) ensured that if you weren’t a smoker you wouldn’t be caught in a cloud. We have to say, the whiffs we caught smelled damn good.

Creative Director Tomas and La Palina owner and refounder, if that’s a word, William Paley. Guess which one spends more time in front of the camera…

After the La Palina event, Tomas attended the Puro Cafe opening, which was catered by two clients of ours – 42° Catering, and Alembic Cocktail Catering, and promoted via the magical PR of a third, JML Marketing + Communications. As Tomas put it, “We love it when our clients get together, what a great combination.” Delicious food, tasty cocktails, good PR… a great combo indeed.

Last night was the first time we actually saw the new 42° truck, which is silly considering we designed both it and their logo.

And speaking of tastiness, our new intern Christina had her birthday over the weekend which gave us an excuse to buy a cake. We were meeting with Jenn (also known as the “JMLator”) from JML Marketing + Communications on the same day, and we’re beginning to think that she has some sort of treat related psychic power. Last time she was in the studio for a meeting, Ian had brought in a milk chocolate bacon bar. We’ll have to keep an eye on her…

No one understands the importance of a well-designed graphic identity better than a marketing and communications professional. Well, our own marketing and PR guru came to us looking for a new identity, one with a clean aesthetic and a touch of humor that captures the personality and personal service the firm provides.

The JML Consulting logo and palette were developed from bits of Jenn’s own quick signature and a collection of her favorite hues. Rather than include a basic web address that was exactly like the firm name, she chose to pique the interest of potential clients by using something a little more fun. NomathNoscience.com alludes to the firm’s more creative and tongue-in-cheek approach to marketing, and while it’s just a placeholder page at the moment, it will eventually become the blog. Stay tuned for the full site launch!

]]> http://ripe.com/blog/2010/06/02/jml-brand-launch/feed/ 0 http://ripe.com/blog/2010/05/18/so-green-were-golden-glc-certified-that-is/ http://ripe.com/blog/2010/05/18/so-green-were-golden-glc-certified-that-is/#comments Tue, 18 May 2010 17:56:57 +0000 Maryam http://ripe.com/blog/?p=344 Make no mistake, declaring a set of corporate values can be an intimidating process.  While doing what we love (designing, that is) is more than enough to keep us happy and glowy, we’ve long felt that sustainable design and business practices are concepts everyone can rally around, and towards which it is worth dedicating some time and effort.  It’s for that reason we’ve spent the past several years refining our green ethics and working on an intra-studio cultural shift under the guidance of Adrienne Spahr Kim of Green Living Consulting.

Addie, who’s encyclopedic knowledge of green practices is intimidating to say the least, has been a nurturing guide, and has helped us raise our certification level from silver to gold.  Getting up to this level required a bit more than just swapping out old light bulbs for energy-thrifty CFL’s, or recycling paper products.  A few of the new practices we’ve implemented include increasing the incentives for employees to use green transportation, giving each ripie an air filtering plant for his or her work station, and shifting to all natural or environmentally friendly cleaning solutions.

It’d be easy for us to cozily rest on our laurels in our now certified greener studio, but we’re not finished yet!  We’re always working towards the elusive platinum level certification.  While many of the hurdles between gold and platinum are building/construction/infrastructure related (and thus, even more difficult to accomplish), we’ll continue puttin’ aside some green to be green(er)!

PS. If you’d like to start greening up your own business, you can start by taking a look at the tips in the Greener section of our site.  Or, better yet, you can give Addie a call.

Soon after they sent Brad Trent down from New York to photograph the ripe team and the studio.  What followed was a long, long day of shooting where Creative Director Tomás was heard stating several times, “Oh God, all this smiling is making my cheeks ache.”  Besides Tomás’ aching cheeks, however, it was a great experience.  It was a blast having Brad, his assistant Bo, and Business Week’s art director, Mike in the office… and we even surreptitiously snapped a few shots of our own to document the event. Afterwards it was a night of pizza and wine at Matchbox in Chinatown.

The article released yesterday in Business Week: Small Biz, and is also available online.  It details the green practices of six different businesses including a printer, an antifreeze recycling company, a beverage wholesaler and others.   A big thanks to the whole Business Week team for their thoroughness and effort.

So… want to know ways to make your business greener?  Why not read the article, or head over to the Greener section of the ripe site.  Although the first option is probably the most entertaining — there’s a picture in there where Tomás has a tree growing out of his head.  Or if you’re really serious, why not give Adrienne Spahr, our friend from Green Living Consulting, a call?  She’s helped us more than we possibly could have imagined.

It’s hard to be thinking about marketing yourself in this economic climate — not to mention marketing yourself in a sustainable fashion.  Most firms and businesses seem to be cowering and waiting for the next bit of bad news to surface.  But the smart, pro-active firms are making plans and preparing for a new wave of business to arrive, and when it does, they’ll be ready for it while their counterparts might not.

Marketing firms and design studios can make a positive ecological impact if they have the knowledge, and if their clients are serious about maintaining sustainable design.

At the end of our presentation, we’re going to ask attendees to post any additional questions on our blog.  If you attended our presentation, please feel free to ask us anything regarding green design, marketing, printing, etc. If you can’t think of any good sustainability related questions, ask us something else!  We’re happy to share (some of) our secrets. We’ll answer them in a new post in the next few days.

If you’re holding an event and would like us to come and speak, feel free to shoot us an email at sprout@ripe.com.

It all began on a cool fall day last year. We were armed with nothing but a Pages document, a phone and relentless patience. Yes, we were calling each junk mailer and asking to get off of their un-rad mailing lists.

Admittedly, my junk mail epiphany came while watching Oprah’s Earth Day special (don’t judge), at which point Matt Damon brought GreenDimes into our lives, saving us time and money and the world some precious resources. We have seen the paperless light. They have two services: one which is free and for one person at a time, and another for $20 with unlimited names sans legwork. We have the $20 premium service that has the added bonus of keeping us off of new lists, while taking us off of the campaigns and catalogs that we specify.

We are highly recommending this product to our friends, clients, and colleagues. Do it for the trees. Do it for the back health of our mail carriers. But most importantly, do it so you can get back all those hours that would have otherwise been spent hating the direct-marketing-man.