Hot off the press, or noteworthy developments, this is where you'll find it.
5 Schools = 5 Lessons
Over the course of three days, education marketers from all over the world gather at ConnectEd, American Marketing Association’s Symposium for the Marketing of Higher Education, discussing cutting-edge approaches, new tools and technologies, and latest trends. This year Tandemodus is particpating as an exhibitors at the symposium, and has presented materials that feature their strategic capabilities in education.
For the past several years, Tandemodus has partnered with American Marketing Association to design print and online promotional strategies for the symposium, as well as a variety of other AMA conferences.
Member Spotlight
Tandemodus was a recent spotlight in Business@Work, the member newsletter from the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce. The article speaks about our involvement in the upcoming Higher Education Symposium in Chicago.
The Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce is one of the largest Chambers in the nation spanning across the six-county Northeastern Illinois region (Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry & Will) as well as parts of Indiana, Wisonsin and Ohio.
Their mission is to make Chicagoland the most business-friendly region in America and enhance our members' success through aggressive programs in advocacy, member benefits, services, and actionable information.
Ripple Effect
They say first impressions are everything. At the 2008 Cusp Conference, Tandemodus was present for Mike Ivers’ opening delivery, which became known as “Fired up, Ready To Go.” The profound speech motivated partner Andy Eltzroth to later join the board of directors of Goodcity, a nonprofit led by Ivers that works to empower leaders and build community in underserved neighborhoods throughout Chicago. Goodcity seeks to propel social entrepreneurs to achieve maximum impact through in-depth training, mentoring and milestone-based funding. In early summer, Tandemodus launched a redesigned website that gives the organization an uplifting presence to reflect their inspirational work.
Sound of Recognition
The redesign of Greater Chicago Food Depository’s newsletter, Food for Thought, received a Silver Trumpet Award by Publicity Club of Chicago.
The Public Relations Coordinator at the Food Depository nominated the publication for the award, and had the following to say: “Thank you again for your hard work on the redesign and all following issues—we love the design and are excited it is being recognized by the PCC.” : )
Job Summit
The 2011 theme for the Green Collar Jobs Summit, “Navigating the Credentialing Landscape,” was broken down by a range of industry experts. Tandemodus helped put a face to the issue with the summit branding: pictograms representing trending facets to the growing industry.
Currently managed by the Chicago Jobs Council, the Chicagoland Green Collar Jobs Initiative works to explore and identify employment and job training opportunities that prepare disadvantaged workers for emerging green jobs. The industries of focus include energy efficiency, renewable energy, waste reduction, urban agriculture, and horticulture (among others).
20 10 Best Wishes
The Tandemodus holiday card, affectionately called 20 10 Best, has been posted to FPO, a blog dedicated to visual stimulus and detailing of the development and production of printed matter.
FPO is curated and developed by Bryony Gomez-Palacio and Armin Vit of UnderConsideration, which also happened to be listed as one of the ten best websites on our holiday card. (We’re not sure if that’s the reason we’ve been featured, but we’re flattered nonetheless.)
Brand Identity Essentials
Logos, Identities, Brands…What’s the difference? Design terms are too often used inconsistently, leading to confusion for designers as well as clients. Contrary to common usage, the words “logo,” “identity” and “brand” are not interchangeable. We were recently published in the book Brand Identity Essentials, which lays a foundation for brand-building, defines the tools and building blocks and illustrates the construction of strong brands through examples of world-class design.
Buy Rockport Brand Identity Essentials here.
Website Reengineering
Klein and Hoffman is a recognized leader in all facets of structural, civil, environmental and building envelope engineering. They deliver creative solutions for the investigation, design, renewal and preservation of the built environment.
The new kleinandhoffman.com was reengineered from the ground up. We developed a new site structure and reorganized the project and services sections. The new site was built in Expresson Engine, a Content Management System (CMS) developed by EllisLab.
Workflow Integration
Its hard to imagine designing and developing a new website these days without some sort of content management system (CMS). We have recommended and used a variety of solutions such as Wordpress, Expression Engine, Drupal and Joomla, depending on our clients’ individual needs. These tools provide the authoring and editing capabilities that most organizations are looking for in a new website.
For today’s dynamic websites, even more functionality is required to support, track and interact with users as well as manage inbound requests. This has led us to Redmine, a web based project management system that provides support for team interaction throughout the project life cycle. The Redmine toolset includes project planning and tracking, work progress reporting and collaborative knowledge sharing. This cross-platform, cross-database web application was written using Ruby on Rails framework. Above is a sample of the fully customized client environment currently under development for The Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago.
Redmine provides a variety of features such as:
Multiple projects support
Flexible role based access control
Flexible issue tracking system
Gantt chart and calendar
News, documents & files management
Feeds & email notifications
Per project wiki
Per project forums
Time tracking
Issue creation via email
Multiple LDAP authentication support
User self-registration support
Multi language support
Multiple databases support
Future for Green Jobs?
Could a new green economy add jobs and provide much needed opportunities for Chicago’s workforce? The Chicago Workforce Investment Council and Chicago Job Council partnered to analyze the data to determine just that.
(CWIC) is an independent nonprofit organization that works to ensure that Chicago has a skilled and educated workforce to keep our businesses, economy, communities and families thriving.
(CJC) is a city-wide coalition of community-based training organizations, advocacy groups, businesses and individuals working toward ensuring access to employment and career advancement opportunities for people living in poverty.
The full and executive online reports were created not only to summarize data but also to provide recommendations to expand workforce training in “green” industries throughout Chicago. We have partnered with CJC for the past few years to provide brand development and creative direction for initiatives such as Opportunity Chicago as well as website strategy, design and Wordpress development for Illinois Works for the Future.
Interview on Curiosities
Designer Feaster interviewed us to discuss and feature the report Curiosities: Volume 1.1 selected by AIGA for “365: AIGA Annual Design Competitions 30” for outstanding design. Read the interview.
Design Feaster is affiliated with Design Feast: a go-to resource for students, professionals, educators and the design-curious—delivering relevant and diverse design content, creative voices and projects.
