Stay Gold

The 2011 ADDYs saw our talented team at OtherWisz Creative bringing home some hardware!  The Rave Reviews were celebrated at the Tri-Main Building in north Buffalo and saw a good showing of Buffalo creatives hanging, drinking, watching break dancers, drinking… well you get the picture.  Most of the large agencies won the majority of the awards (as usual) but our crew had a great showing, winning 2 silver, a gold and the 'best showbook ad'. The last one was quite a surprise!

The package design we created for Boston Valley Terra Cotta has won it's second set of kudos taking a silver at the ADDYs in the 'Sales Promotion, Sale Kit' category. Last month the BVTC box won an American Package Design Award from Graphic Design USA magazine. The other awards went to two more of our BVTC projects, the pocket folder with line cards set and the 64-page Terraclad catalog.

As a Buffalo Ad Club corporate member, we had to submit an advertisement for the event showbook.  Since the event was a 'rave theme' this year, our ad was a play on words hinting at the club drug ecstasy, or 'E'. See it below. It won best ad in the book and came with a big wall plaque award. 

Kudos from the judges in the Showbook- on the TerraClad book: "Detailed and well executed." and on the TC Box, "Very cool package."

Congratulations to the OW team, great job! We are humbled to have others really appreciate our work --  we know we like, we know the client liked it --  it is cool to know other people like it as well!  See our winners below.

Gold ADDY
Category: Collateral Material, Brochure, Color
Title: TerraClad Product Brochure

Client: Boston Valley Terra Cotta
Credits:
 Mark Wisz, Art Director
, Jill Wisz, Creative Director
, Dan Wangelin, Designer
, United Graphics, Printer

Silver ADDY
Category: Sales Promotion, Sales Kit
Title: Boston Valley Pocket Folder

Client: Boston Valley Terra Cotta
Credits:
Mark Wisz, Art Director/Designer, 
Jill Wisz, Creative Director, 
Dan Wangelin, Production Artist
, United Graphics, Printer

Silver ADDY
Category: Sales Promotion, Sales Kit
Title: Terra Cotta Product Sample Box

Client: Boston Valley Terra Cotta
Credits: 
Mark Wisz, Art Director, 
Jill Wisz, Creative Director/Designer, 
Dan Wangelin, Production Artist
, Hawver Display, Package Manufacturer

Best Showbook Ad
Title: We heard there was a rave tonight...

Client: OtherWisz Creative Corporation

The above photos were shot by Joe Cascio.
"Stay gold, Pony Boy..."

>> See all the 2011 winners at the AdHub website.

BRAND New Cadillac

Western New York's weekly business newspaper, the Business First, ran a great feature on OtherWisz Creative Corporation's re-branding efforts of one of our clients, Boston Valley Terra Cotta.  The article appears in this week's issues (March 4-10, 2011) is titled, Company That  Rebuilds Initiates a Rebranding. It includes quotes from Jill and I, John Krouse the president of Boston Valley Terra Cottta and a few other side notes from representatives from some of the larger advertising agencies in Buffalo.

The articles describes OtherWisz Creatives' initial meeting with BVTC and details some of the efforts that we underwent for their corporate rebranding initiative including meeting and interviewing employees, researching competition and brainstorming with the BVTC staff.

For BVTC, the process of exploration was "eye opening." Said owner John Krouse, "Some questions (from OtherWisz) made us think that we had to redo our business plan and how we thought of our company."

That is how in-depth we got- - forcing the client to re-think their overall message, even questioning the company name! What we ended up with was a refocused message, a new brand, new graphics and a more solid presentation of BVTC. Everyone involved saw the rebranding as a great success.

Thanks to Biz1st write Dave Bertola for scribing a flattering piece on our company and our work and for Biz1st photog, Jim Courtney, for not making Jill or I look goofy in the photos. Nice bonus- the accompanying photos shows us examining the BVTC sample box which recently won a America Package Design Award from Graphic Design USA magazine. yeah!

Link to the article on the Business First website.

Here is a low res PDF version of the article to print and read.

View some of our BVTC graphics work on the OtherWisz website.

Everyday I Write The Book

We are pleased to announce some more kudos for the OtherWisz Creative team! Yeah! We have been informed by the fine folks at Rockport Publishing that our work has been selected for inclusion in "Typography and Enclosures," the fourth book in the LogoLounge Master Library series. Getting published is very exciting and a fine 'feather in the cap' of the awesome creative team here at OW headquarters.

The logo designed for the Buffalo Hockey Experience + Museum has been used to brand this non-profit collection of Buffalo Sabres memorabilia and has appeared on signage, stationary, apparel, the website and blog and in our 40th Anniversary display that is currently in HSBC Arena.

The logo features manipulated type that was skated over with vector skate hack marks.  A plus sign replaces the ampersand to reflect the faceoff circle of a hockey rink.  With matching Sabres' vintage gold and blue, the logo has become a recognizable brand for this collection of awesome hockey memories!

For more info:

> Feature on the OtherWisz website, click OW web.

> Main Buffalo Hockey Experience + Museum website at BleedForTheBlueandGold.com

> The Bleed For The Blue and Gold blog for the latest museum updates.

> And, for those of you that missed it, photos of the 40th Anniversary Sabres Display.