Kansas City Design | T2 + Back Alley Blog - Part 2

Latest Tweet

Teri Rogers
July 22nd, 2010
by Teri Rogers
, , , , , , , ,
0 Comments
Retweet

Unspectacular Things. They Matter.

Dieter Rams

OK, yes, I love great design. I live in a world driven by design. Fueled by design. And that’s why I love great designers. Watching this film moved me – like the first time I saw film/art from Charles and Ray Eames.

Dieter Rams is a visionary. He was then, even in the early days of working with Braun, as he moved from a focus on industrial aesthetics to aesthetics for the home. And he is now. In his laboratory, the environment was such that new products were influenced by many and ultimately, made better for all.

The world has come full circle – but some things remain certain and true for all time.  The world of design – and advertising – has always been defined by creativity.  But what really defines great work – is collaboration – work that is influenced by many, working seamlessly together, creating a finished product that is better for all.

Rams’ Ten Principles of Good Design are timeless as well — tenants to live by:

Good design is innovative.

Good design makes a product useful.

Good design is aesthetic.

Good design helps us to understand a product.

Good design is unobtrusive.

Good design is honest.

Good design is durable.

Good design is consequent to the last detail.

Good design is concerned with the environment.

Good design is as little design as possible.

In the film, Rams says “The unspectacular things are the important things, especially in the future.” Real word or not — I liked the way that made me feel.

Photo Credit: Abiasag Tullmann

Teri Rogers
June 16th, 2010
by Teri Rogers
, , , , , , , , , , , ,
0 Comments
Retweet

Our Business Mantra: Turn And Face The Strange

Changes Bowie

Not unlike most businesses, ours has undergone many changes over the course of the past several years. And our strategy has guided it at times and tried to keep up with those changes the rest of the time. This post was inspired by David Bowie a veritable master of change. Listen to the song while you read this post and you’ll see why I was inspired.

Take Two used to be known mostly in the Kansas City market for our post-production work. In order to keep up with a changing industry, we created Back Alley Films to do original film production and motion graphics design. We then created our Integrated Experience Lab to focus on emerging digital and multi-platform work: things like augmented reality, interactive design and experiential design. We’re now known as T2 + Back Alley Films and, while our client base still includes Kansas City based companies, it has expanded to include clients all over the world.

Change has been a great opportunity for us to reinvigorate our business, reinvigorate our staff and completely reexamine our business model. As a result, it has literally changed the way we do everything.

These days, from the very first moments of working with a new or prospective client, the people that we bring to the table is an eclectic group — and a strategically formed one. No longer do we rely on our new business development team — or our producers — to do all the work, instead, we bring the talent to the table. We combine the strategic and the creative thinkers – for a new age of strategic/creative thinking. That means our team, our creatives, our brand experts, our interactive and experiential design teams, our mobile technology team and our social media strategists are part of just about every project or idea, from its earliest inception.

The reality of our business – and any business, really – is that change IS the reality. And in this case, we’re finding that change is making us better at what what we do. It’s creative services — but it’s broader than what it used to be. I bet it’s happening everywhere. What about you? How are you changing the scope of the way you do business? Our generation will be defined by this. Let’s talk about it — and learn from each other.

Teri Rogers
June 1st, 2010
by Teri Rogers
, , , , , , , , , , , , ,
2 Comments
Retweet

These Days, I’m An Online Content Producer

Online Content Producer Image

As the CEO of a creative services company, there are no shortages of networking events or conferences or even cocktail parties that I attend where the conversation inevitably goes the route of: “So, tell me what you do.” As my business has grown and evolved, so have my responses to that question. If it’s local to Kansas City, T2 (taketwo) is pretty well known — so I inevitably say that I’m sure you know us best for film and video production — both corporate, commercial and entertainment projects — but you may not know how we have evolved in the past few years into a multi-platform creative services company.

These days, what I say I do is — “I’m an online content producer.” Sometimes they look at me blankly — but my guess is that they won’t for long.

With the advent of Google TV, which I mentioned in a post last week) and Apple TV and other online viewing options, consumers can have online content delivered via their television set. As a result, being an online content producer is where it’s at. The Diffusion Group did a recent study called The Economics of Over-the-Top TV Delivery: How Television Networks Can Shift to Online Content Delivery predicting that by 2020 more Americans will be watching online video than TV. There’s more, in a recent study by Edelman, the Internet IS entertainment – especially among 18-34 year olds, rising from 27% in 2009 to a whopping 42% thus far in 2010. These days, the Web is literally where people go for entertainment, information, gaming and more – and Edelman’s study supports that. In the U.S., 32% of 18-54 year olds head to the Web for entertainment, which compares to 58% of that same age group watching TV. As an aside, a weekend poll called Will You Buy a Google TV, indicates that some 30.9% of respondents are at least interested in investing in the opportunity to stream the web to TV, which is a trend smart marketers – and smart business people will be paying attention to.

Bottom line — it’s clear that consumers are interested in online content and, whether they view it online or opt for Google TV or some other solution, I’m happy to be in the business of creating and providing it to them. For years, we’ve been in the business of telling stories through beautiful imagery and strong messages and, ultimately, compelling consumers to action. We still do that –- and lots of other things – but we also are in the business of producing content – for any platform out there. Things are now changing faster than we can come up with ways to describe it. Anybody think it might slow down anytime soon? Hmmm.