Fifth Room gets listed on the NJBIZ Top NJ Advertising Agencies List
Wow – so humbling, and extremely cool to be in such great company on this list! The NJBIZ Top 50 lists are in and we’ve made it onto the top 50 Ad Agency list in NJ. We’ve felt that we were amongst the top Agencies in NJ for a few years now, but having it in print and on the web from NJBIZ just reaffirms what our clients have been saying about us. The numbers are based on capitalized billings (2010 annual revenue), and we are really excited to receive the acknowledgment. Hey, as long as we keep moving up we’re doing something right. Read the complete list of Ad Agencies here. Thanks to all of our clients and supporters for the support!
Congratulations to all of the agencies on the list – it’s so great to be able to say that we’re close friends with many of them (and even call some of them our own clients).
We’re Hiring!
We’ve been crazy busy and we’re looking for some talented people to join our team and help us continue to grow and offer stellar service to our amazing clients. We’re in need of a Jr. Web Developer, a bookkeeper, and a rockstar summer intern. It’s a really cool time to join our company as we’re growing in leaps and bounds and have some amazing things in the works. We offer a fun and creative atmosphere to learn and work.
If you think you have the chops to join us, or you know someone who does, please check out our Join Us page and get your information to us today!
Why Spec Work Devalues Our Industry
We’re pretty passionate about what we do and the industry that we work in. It’s important to us to speak our minds in our little corner of the web about things that help our industry as well as things that hurt it.
The topic of speculative (spec) work came up in the studio today and we wanted to share our thoughts on it and why it devalues our industry. The short end of it is that we think that asking people to blindly submit work that they may not be compensated for is wrong. As an agency, we don’t do free work to win a job and we wouldn’t ask anyone to do that for us. Asking someone (or tons of people) to use their time, skills and talents to take a stab at creating a logo or web site at the slim chance that they might win is just plain insulting. You wouldn’t ask a dozen CPAs to do your taxes, then pick the best one and pay them with some fruit, would you?
Rather than rewriting everything that has been said, here are some supporting articles that perfectly echoes our beliefs on why spec work and spec contests are bad for our industry:
No-Spec and what Spec work really is
AIGA’s official position on spec work
Creative Freelancesr article by Heather Parlato
Here are six thing you can do about spec work
We’d love to hear your comments on this, chime in on Twitter, or on our Facebook page.
2012 Coaster Calendar Promo
While everyone else was rushing around trying to find the perfect holiday gift, we were trying to find the perfect year-end or new-year promotion. It had to be fun, and cool, but not too flashy. Something useful. It had to properly represent the brand we’ve worked so hard to build. It shouldn’t be too expensive. Oh, and we needed to get it done really really quickly.
Then, POOF… an idea began to form in our minds. We decided to design a series of letterpress coaster calendar cards, custom branded hand cut wood block card holders, design stickers, labels and packaging. In order to make the best impression, we decided that we should put them all together and get them out the door before the New Year. We immediately ran to the sketch board and started coming up with ideas – one for each month of the year.
So, why did we choose to do this as opposed to, say, a plain ol’ holiday card?
We wanted to do something that would be fun and useful. We liked the idea of having a promotional piece that could sit on our clients’ desks all year long. We accomplished this in three different ways: we created an easily referenced desktop calendar that provides fun facts about each month, and when a month is over, it’s an actual coaster that you can use for your beverage of choice.
We also wanted to do something different and integrate a printing technique (letterpress) that is somewhat new to us, with online interaction (take pics of the coasters and post to our Facebook, or check out some of the websites we mention on the coasters).
So while everyone was vacationing during Christmas break, we here at Fifth Room were researching and creating these coasters. It was a ton of fun doing twelve mini design assignments.
Now, obviously we missed the New Year’s deadline, but we were okay with that. But, how’d we do it? Well, let us tell you…
Design & Printing
Luckily, we’ve got amazingly talented designers right under our roof here in NJ…so design wasn’t a big problem. The biggest challenge was designing for a new medium – letterpress. It’s not the same as designing for the web or even for offset or digital printing. We have amazing local friends that do spectacular letterpress work, but in our search for getting these done (done well, quickly & cheaply), we found a vendor in Colorado that does these on a regular basis and has a way to get them done very cost effectively. So we tapped into the talents of Meadowlark Creative to produce our 2012 promo piece. The talented Shelby Montross was insanely helpful in bending the learning curve for us. She offered us some great tips and guidance in how to design for letterpress on these thick blotter coasters. She even sent us some awesome progress photos along the way! We’re crazy satisfied with the results!
Labeling
We figured we’d send these out using US Postal Mail in some nice boxes, but we needed a solution to seal them and address them. Luckily, our favorite online business card vendor has some great stickers and labels…so it was an obvious choice to get circle stickers and mailing labels from Moo. Their online tools are great for designers, and they always deliver stellar quality with great turnaround times.
Packaging
There’s a ton of box companies, both brick-and-mortar and online, but Google delivered Bayleys Boxes. We needed a specific size to hold 3.5″ x 3.5″ cards (13 of them) and a block of wood, and it had to match the style of the promo piece. We found exactly what we needed at Bayleys Boxes. Their prices were good and they deliver pretty quickly – even when we realized we ordered the wrong size boxes and had to order again!
The Branding
Our favorite part was having a personalized electric brand made with the Fifth Room creative log on it. The guys at Brand First were super helpful in suggesting the right kind of “brand” for our project. The only problem now is we keep looking around the office for more things to burn our logo into! It’s an interesting experience to actually brand something, after running a branding agency for all these years.
We did a short run of these for a handful of prospects we wanted to get in front of as well as some of our most active clients over the past few years. We would’ve liked to have done thousands of these and gotten them in everyone’s hands, but reality set in and we just couldn’t justify a six-figure promotional piece in a recession. We’ve gotten some early feedback, and so far people are really happy with them – that’s always great to hear!
We posted some photos on our Facebook page here and made a fun little video that you can watch below.
We did this fun project for ourselves, but we did this kind of thing every day for our clients. If we can help you with something great like this, please get in touch with us.
Fifth Room Coding Challenge #1
To the victor go the spoils!
Saving The Breasts
In honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Fifth Room Creative is working to raise some money for Susan G. Komen. We’re not asking anyone for any money though… instead we’re simply asking people to stalk us.
How does it work?
We’ll donate $0.25 in support of healthy women worldwide each time you:
- Like us on facebook
- Follow us on Twitter
- Sign up for our email list
It’s pretty simple really.
Keep us honest, here’s the current numbers as of October 1, 2011:
- Twitter Followers: 873
- Facebook Likes: 59 (lame – come on people)
- Email Signups: 0 (it’s a new list, relax)
Other ways you can help – spread the word for us!
GDUSA Triple Play
We’re honored to have learned that we we awarded with three GD USA awards for our work.
We’ve been awarded for the following work:
- Clark Davis Associates Rebranding – view the logo work here and the related collateral here.
- Our web site – you’re looking at it
- Our company brochure – learn about our fully realigned brand here or contact us and we’ll happily send you one!
It’s always a great honor to be selected by our peers for work that we pour our heart and souls into.
New Milestone, New Look
It’s been five amazing years for us so far!
It’s hard to believe that just five years ago we took a chance and opened an agency to help clients do amazing things – and to do what we love each and every day. Amazing that client after client, we’ve been fortunate enough to work with so many inspiring companies.
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NJBIZ 40 Under 40
NJBIZ Honors New Jersey’s 2010 Forty Under 40!
Steve Guberman, Owner and Creative Director of Fifth Room Creative in Denville, has been named a winner in the 2010 NJBIZ Forty Under 40 awards program. Learn more here and here.
Welcome Gillian
We’re really excited to welcome Gillian Deak to the Fifth Room Creative team! Gillian joins us through the merger with Alchemy Consulting and Design and brings vast experience in design and project management to the team.
Please help us in welcoming her to the company and feel free to learn more about her here.