Exciting News at Cukjati

  

Contact: Mary A. Cukjati                                                             For Immediate Release

(719) 633-4777, mary@cukjatidesign.com                                        December 14, 2011

Cukjati Announces New Managing Partner & Associate Creative Director

Cukjati | brand development + creative is delighted to announce the appointment of Ryan Schaul to Managing Partner. He joined the firm in 2007 as Account Services Director, managing the firm’s client relationships; however, in recent years, he has strengthened and re-structured the firm’s project management function and now directs that service, too.

Lessons in (re)Branding - Part 1

By Mary Cukjati, CEO/Creative Director

Should I? Shouldn’t I?

It is with trepidation that I wade into the fetid swamp of comments erupting from the new Colorado Springs visual and editorial identity. The dread derives from three factors:

1.  Cukjati qualified as one of the final branding firms in the competition for the work. I don’t want my comments to be taken as disparaging to Stone Mantel, the process or the respected people involved.
2. My western Kansas Quaker upbringing: I’m more comfortable working hard and serving my clients in the background noise of the community than speaking out publicly. And finally,
3. Comments on visual and editorial approaches to branding are entirely subjective often reflecting the individual’s bias more than anything. Does the uproar about the new Colorado Springs logo and tagline merit a comment?

Yes, I finally decided I should comment — because there are lessons to learn.

What Happened to Halloween?

By Ryan Schaul

Halloween isn't what it use to be. Unfortunately, retailers and consumers prematurely focus their efforts on Thanksgiving and Christmas. How is it that I was able to watch National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, before the Charlie Brown Halloween Special even aired? To eerily sound like my elders, “when I was young…”, I remember when Halloween was filled with an entire night of trick-or-treating. Houses were decorated with ghosts and ghouls, and neighbors were always around to pass out candy. Now, as I look at the houses in my neighborhood, there are no decorations, no homemade graves or ghosts hanging from trees. In an ironic fashion, Halloween is “dying” right in front of our eyes and it makes me sad.

The "King" of Creepy

By Konstance Smith

Since it's almost Halloween, we thought it would be fun, as a staff, to blog about our favorite Halloween campaigns. I started brainstorming and the truth is...I don’t really have a favorite. The truth is, there really aren't many Halloween campaigns that are very memorable for me. But in the spirit of Halloween, I have instead chosen a campaign that I have always found a little creepy, but love anyway. I’m talking about Burger King’s “The King.”

Cukjati's Rocky Mountain State Games Poster Brings Home Top Honors

At the recent the National Congress of State Games Symposium, in Oklahoma City, OK the poster Cukjati designed for the Rocky Mountain State Games was awarded Top Honors for Best Poster for a State Games. 

Social media and you

By Troy Stiles 

We've all heard about this social media stuff and there’s more to it than just narcissistic status updates and net shorthand. (Which btw: I had no idea there were this many chat acronyms – http://www.netlingo.com/acronyms.php LOL!) Facebook and Twitter are the current rulers of the social space as we know it, but there are many others like Foursquare, YouTube, and LinkedIn that are vying for a piece of the online pie, too.

Let's face it, client face time is decreasing

By Ryan Schaul, Director of Client Services


Way back in the day, during the time period of Mad Men and such, three martini lunches were the considered the norm in the area of agency account service—a lot of schmoozing and a lot of boozing day in, day out; being in front of clients as frequently as possible was norm.  Keeping agency top of mind awareness for the client was key back then.

What makes a good media buy?

By Kristen Porter, Media Buyer


What does make a good media buy? The goal is to first define who and what you want to reach. In these fast moving and changing times, there are endless ways to reach your target… but it’s who exactly you want to reach- what’s their age? Are they married? Male/female? Do they have a family? What’s their income level? Where do they live? What do they like to do? What’s their occupation? Answering these questions will help lead you to where you should advertise. I like to sit down with the client and define the above BEFORE doing anything else. The biggest mistakes I have seen are when a client says that they want to advertise during a specific program or on a certain radio station or during a certain sporting event because “that’s my team” or because they “love that show” or “listen to that station all the time.”

Cukjati's Air Force Football poster earns top 10 spot

Since college football isn't fully underway yet, and it's highly un-American not to want to know who is the best, the Bleacher Report decided to rank the top 50 College Football Posters in the country. Cukjati's design for the Air Force football team's poster earned a top 10 ranking (#7 in fact).

Check out the full story and rankings here:
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/781880-college-football-2011-ranking-the-top-50-teams-by-schedule-posters

Design Trends...Should We Follow Them?

By Konstance Smith, Art Director

As creatives it’s important to be informed on current design trends. Viewing trends and the work of others helps stimulate our own unique ideas and pushes us to be more inventive, creative, and original. If we want to be the best, (and we do) it is vital that we know the current techniques used and the work that is being produced. We need to know what our competition is doing. Studying trends helps us to evaluate our own work to ensure that we prevent our designs and ideas from becoming boring and stale.

Pleased to meet you. Let’s be friends.

By Troy Stiles, Director of Business Development


As a relative newcomer to the world of Business Development I've got a lot to learn. I like knowing. I like learning. And right now, I feel like I don’t know a whole lot, which means that I've got a lot to learn on the topic of Business Development.

Great account service….Is there such a thing?

By Ryan Schaul, Director of Client Services


If you look online for tips to providing good agency account/client service, you’ll find a lot of the same general ideas or message points - just written differently by each industry expert or client service professional. All these “tips” are fine and work for the most part when it comes to providing good account service.

It's All Business at Cukjati

Cukjati Welcomes Troy Stiles

Cukjati is pleased to announce the addition of Troy Stiles as its new Director of Business Development. In addition to seeking out and cultivating potential business relationships and opportunities, Troy will also be responsible for the management of Cukjati's day-to-day social media activities and strategy. Troy previously worked as Creative Manager at USA Triathlon and recently graduated from the University of Denver, earning his MBA in international business. We welcome Troy to the Cukjati team!

To learn a little more about Troy, please visit his bio page.

Playing with the Big Boys

Cukjati Competes On National Level

Cukjati's concept, design, and produtcion of the Care and Share Foodbank of Southern Colorado's Annual Report recently received the Print Best of Show award at the 2010 Pikes Peak Advertising Federation Awards. From there, it contnued on to take Gold at the regional American Advertising Federation Awards in Phoenix, and then on to compete at the national American Advertising Federations Awards in San Diego this June. We are very proud of this accomplishment and strive to continue to produce award-winning work. 

http://www.cukjatidesign.com/portfolio/care-and-share