Last year, we got to make fun of big collars, let our art director run wild with paper, and put a pretty sweet metaphor on a cover.
Even better, we did all that within one project.
That’s not where we started with Wabash Valley Power Association, of course; it was the result of many years of working together and feeling good about what each of us brought to the partnership.
The generation and transmission electric cooperative first came to us to get the word out about POWER MOVES, its energy-efficiency programs for members. Which of course led to our producing video of a hard-hitting interview with a fridge, among other things.
It also led to one of our favorite working relationships of all time, one where we have the room (and encouragement) to get smart, silly, and inventive—often all at once.
And it led to our involvement with a major Wabash Valley milestone: the annual report commemorating the cooperative’s 50th anniversary. It was an important chance for the nonprofit to tell its story and to highlight something it previously had not: its human face.
This is an organization that exists to make life easier for people who really need the support, one that was formed to get electricity to rural homes and businesses as inexpensively as possible. It’s a people business, and that came through in every element of the project, from the warmth of the colors to the poetry of the cooperative’s presentation of its history and purpose.
We presented a few ideas, of course, and were giddy when they chose the one that we liked best, too. Thrilled with how smoothly the project came together. (And thrilled to celebrate over beers with the Wabash Valley team when it went to print, all those many months after the project started.) Thrilled once more when the report won a gold Addy award a couple of months ago.
Now we’re delighted to have heard from Wabash Valley that the report earned a silver “Spotlight on Excellence” national award for annual reports through the Council of Rural Electric Communicators and the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. Wabash Valley further earned a gold award for Best Total Communication Program for POWER MOVES, which continues to bring some of the greatest fun we have on the job, and our “Buried Treasure” ad for geothermal heating and cooling systems brought in a silver award for Best Individual Ad.
We’re proud to be a part of Wabash Valley’s work, delighted to work with such great people, and looking forward to a whole lot more fun doing big things with them.
