spark

Have you heard of Verizon Media? Obviously, Verizon alone is huge, however their digital media arm is behind some of your favorite sites like including Tumblr, Huff Post, and Yahoo just to name a few. Back in 2018, we were hired to help VM develop the look for an internal program focused on increasing leadership and cultural competencies. This project included multiple phases and is still on going.

Prior to rolling up our sleeves and getting busy with Phase I, we worked with members from their team to study Verizon’s 100-page brand book (that’s a joke, but not really LOL). It was important for us to understand how far we could go with design. We also took the opportunity to review what other VM internal programs did when it came to design and branding. This initial process wasn’t all fun, but it’s necessary to help us learn  about the client, team and project.

In summary, we helped with:

• Logo and Branding
• Impactful Tagline
• Merchandise Design (Apparel & Accessories, and
  Printed Materials, just to name a few)
• Content Creation
• Photography & Videography

Phase II of our engagement culminated with a trip to California to document the start of the program and to develop content to help them tell their story. Now this… is the fun part!

The Artoholik Team had to determine which resources, including team members, would be needed to accomplish the job. We had to review things like which light kit to pack, cameras to bring, how many, where we’d stay and what we’d do once we got there. Stressful right?

The event was hosted at the Yahoo Sunnyvale Campus which was only a few miles away from the infamous Silicon Valley. During our daily commute, we passed the offices of Google Cloud, Microsoft and Texas Instruments. But the real highlight came once we stepped foot on the Yahoo campus. We got to tour each building and it’s offices while scouting shooting locations.

During the workshop sessions were it felt like we documented word for word. There were so many interesting dialogs and events, so we just tried to cover every. After a few sessions, we were reminded that the added bonuses of working with our lineup of clients is amount of new information we are exposed to. It’s a lot easier to create content for brands when you can really get behind what they’re “selling”.

After spending the workdays documenting for VM, we made sure we took advantage of being in Cali. We braved the traffic and headed north to San Francisco. We stopped off at the Painted Ladies, took a walk down Haight Street, and then hit the Mission district for some Urban Exploring. The other evenings we made our way through downtown San Jose and fell in love with a two Mixology bars Paper Planes and 55 South. Both known for their innovative cocktails and good vibes.

Overall, the trip was a success! And in case you have a strange affinity for workplace food options like we do, you should know that we gave the Yahoo cafeteria, URL’s Café, 5-stars! They literally serve everything, like everything… There were so many options that we won’t even bother to give you a short list.

Sounds fun right? Here are a few fun facts about this project and our trip…

•     It was Rasheedah’s first trip to Cali
• We shot over (1000) images and over (200) video clips
• We ate at Carl’s Jr. twice and didn’t go to In-N-Out Burger (in case you didn’t know, it’s a unwritten law that you must stop into an In-N-Out Burger during a Cali trip. Especially if your eating fast food)
• We went to bed every night after 1AM and got up for work at 6AM
• We sat in traffic for a combined 60 minutes each way (yup, that’s Cali traffic for ya’)

Stay tuned for a more in-depth showcase of the project. We’re still working with this awesome team!