Kudos to the ADDY committee for the Party-Part of the night. We had a blast.

And now to the awards. We did A-OK walking out with both Best of Print and Best of Broadcast. We also racked up three gold ADDYs and four silvers, and while we shouldn’t, we will share the spotlight of the two silvers bestowed upon our friend Ryan Cockrell for the Riggs Partners CreateAthon video. Glory!

Honored work included:

• Best of Print for Vaughn’s BBQ, poster and sales collateral
• Best of Broadcast for Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System, Breast Health Center, television campaign
• Gold ADDY for Preservation Trust of Spartanburg, logo
• Gold ADDY for Vaughn’s BBQ, poster and sales collateral
• Gold ADDY for Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System, Breast Health Center, television campaign
• Silver ADDY for Central Carolina Community Foundation, annual report
• Silver ADDY for Hilton Head Island Convention and Visitors Bureau, direct mail
• Silver ADDY for Girl Scouts of South Carolina – Mountains to Midlands, website
• Silver ADDY for PAALS/Heartworm Project, event poster

We want to shine a little light upon our Riggs Partners apprentices, who contributed mightily to our big haul. And thanks to our good, good friends Mad Monkey, as our creative partners in the Spartanburg Regional “Who’s Your Plus One” television. (We believe in the cause–find a woman you care about and MAKE SURE she gets a mammogram!)

It has never been more true: a fine time was had by all!

There are so many reasons to register to be a part of the first Virtual March in support of responsible reproductive health policy in South Carolina:

• South Carolina is considered an HIV “hot spot” by the CDC
• STIs and STDs are spreading at alarming rates, with half of all new cases affecting young people between the ages of 15 and 24;
• Teen pregnancy rates are on the rise (three in 10 girls will become pregnant at least once before the age of 20);
• Woefully inadequate female representation in our state government (SC ranks dead last)

Here’s the kicker. We know how to solve this! And 80 percent of South Carolinians agree on the solution: policies that provide for comprehensive sex education and prevention programs. We just have to let our legislators know.

If you want to be a part of the solution and are willing to send an email to your state representatives (it’s that easy), register for the Virtual March.

Riggs Partners is honored and excited to be working with TellThemSC.org in getting the word out. We think there’s no greater issue facing our state today.

Thanks to everyone at Central Carolina Community Foundation and special thanks to Tonia Cochran and JoAnn Turnquist for being such great collaborators.

Opera, boring? Blasphemy!

Opera is a dramatic, heart-wrenching form of entertainment, full of complicated love triangles and murderous villains. The Palmetto Opera has spent molti years working to share its love of opera with the people of South Carolina.

Founded in 2001 by a group of motivated enthusiasts, the Palmetto Opera started small until its first big break: a sold-out, full-length performance of The Marriage of Figaro. The organization’s wish is to garner enough community support to fund the presentation of a full opera performance every year.

Enter CreateAThon.

We developed a strategy for the Palmetto Opera designed to introduce a new, younger, previously untargeted audience. We designed a modern, interessante new identity. (Huge thanks to guest designer Jason Smith!) We also created a beautiful new design for the website.

To introduce the new identity, we designed invitations for the Palmetto Opera’s annual fundraiser dinner, An Evening in Italy, and we developed a new program to introduce opera to the new target audience in a comfortable, approachable atmosphere. More details to come in Part 2. Ciao!

Thanks to the creative team: Katy Miller, Cathy Monetti, Jason Smith, Lauren Bowles, GP Worrell, Zach Lepine and Sammy Rutkowski.

In Part 1 of the Spartanburg Soup Kitchen project, the CreateAThon team addressed the objective of reintroducing the Soup Kitchen and the relevancy of its work by developing a new identity and outdoor campaign. Next, the team integrated the new identity into a plan for launching the public phase of its capital campaign.

To drive donations from the general public, we developed two exciting incentives. First, we designed custom melamine dishware sets, called Soupware. It was great fun creating the design, which incorporates the “S” from the new logo. We suggested that a new design be created each year, so annual donors can collect different sets over time. The dinnerware sets will be sold on a tiered pricing model, ranging from a hundred dollars for two sets to a thousand dollars for eight sets.

Second, we designed a series of new t-shirts, called Soupwear. These items provide incentives for lower-level donations.

The CreateAThon team developed a brochure to present these fundraising incentives to the community. To further promote the campaign, we created a master design system for a new website, helpthekitchen.org, so people can make donations online.

It has been a great pleasure helping the Soup Kitchen in their mission to feed the hungry. Keep serving up those plates full of goodness!

CreateAthon Spartanburg Soup Kitchen Team: Teresa Coles, Lee Price, Julie Turner, Tim Floyd, G.P. Worrell

Spartanburg County is constantly developing. Although business growth is important, many of these new office buildings and communities are taking over what were once forests, watersheds and other green spaces.

The Spartanburg Area Conservancy (SPACE) exists to balance progress with preservation, protecting and maintaining Spartanburg’s undeveloped land as the county continues to grow. SPACE protects land by purchasing conservation easements, creating green spaces and maintaining lands already entrusted in its care.

SPACE is a non-profit organization that relies heavily on donations, so the CreateAthon team devised the Evergreen campaign to attract generous donors. Just as evergreen plants provide unending color and beauty, the Evergreen campaign will help to preserve Spartanburg’s natural beauty for generations to come.

To promote the capital campaign, the CreateAthon team designed a beautiful “pochure” (a brochure that unfolds into a poster) explaining and visualizing the importance of SPACE’s mission. They also refurbished the SPACE logo.

This is a mock up of the team’s suggested ambient ad. The idea is that overnight, SPACE will transform a parallel parking space in downtown Spartanburg into a green space, complete with sod and a park bench.

Kevin, Julie, Tim, Jay and Melissa – great job!

Vista Lights didn’t get carried away with the Christmas tree; it wasn’t even a pine tree, just something tall and leafy and strung in pretty lights. Apparently Santa made an appearance, but I never saw him. I mostly saw cute little ballerinas, food stands and a bunch of really cool art exhibits. I only heard one carol, and I can’t even remember what it was.

I’ve always been weirded out when stores start stocking holiday decorations way back in October. I believe Halloween candy needs to be on clearance before dreidels and reindeer start showing up. It’s a little morbid when Freddy masks are just one aisle down from Rudolph.

I hope I don’t sound rude. Trust me, I’m no Scrooge. I love the holiday season. I hang paper snowflakes in my doorways and start my holiday shopping the day after Thanksgiving. But not a day sooner.

So again, I applaud you, Vista Lights. It was great to get out of the house and have fun without spending very much money. Last night I had a free crab cake, discovered a few new hangouts, and got a light, yet satisfying, appetizer of holiday cheer.

It was Riggs Partners’ 15th year competing, but last Friday was my first time attending InShow. For those who don’t know, InShow is AIGA South Carolina’s juried competition showcasing exceptional talent from around the state.

Basically, a display of creative genius in all its glory.

I arrived with the Riggs Partners clique to the InShow gala locale. It was an old brick building on Whaley Street with a hidden majesty you couldn’t quite see, but you could feel.

Inside, guests were chatting with each other, some networking, others catching up with the friends they only see on this day each year. Most of the attention was on two long tables running down the center of the room. Displayed on the tables were the winning entries. Immediately, I joined everyone else in perusing the aisles of work.

I was amazed at the varied mediums of work entered in the InShow. I saw not just posters and websites, but also bat mitzvah invitations and a student short film. It was interesting to see how many different forms creativity could take.

This year the InShow event was dubbed the Grocer’s Gala, and the awards were handcrafted Styrofoam blocks of cheese. Riggs Partners stacked up nine. Our self-promotion piece won, as well as our work produced for:

• Bearden-Josey Center for Breast Health
• Central South Carolina Community Foundation
• Regional HealthPlus
• Vaughn’s BBQ
• Village at Pelham
• Girl Scouts of South Carolina-Mountains to Midlands

We were also honored with two special judges awards: Most Delectable Self-Promo for our own newsletter, In The Country of Epigrams; and Freshest Interactive for the Girl Scouts of South Carolina-Mountains to Midlands website.

After the awards presentation, the members of Riggs Partners posed for pictures, juggling our huge stack of cheese. We congratulated and celebrated. It was a good night to be a part of Riggs Partners.

Then I took a moment to step back and just be there in that antique building, soaking in the creative atmosphere and letting myself be filled with inspiration.

This industry sure is fun.

Imagine cooking 500 hot meals every day from a 300 sq. ft. kitchen. For 20 years or so, the Spartanburg Soup Kitchen had been operating out of a church kitchen and dining room, while the need to serve more meals just kept growing.

The board embarked on a capital campaign to raise money to build a new Soup Kitchen facility. While their case for support was sound, they lacked the packaging and community awareness to make the campaign a success.

So the CreateAthon team went to work on developing a new brand identity, outdoor campaign, and web site to re-introduce the Soup Kitchen as a vital part of the community. These outlets gave the Soup Kitchen the marketing foundation it needed, but the team didn’t stop there. Lee Price, Julie Smith, Tim Floyd and Teresa Coles developed a strategy for the Soup Kitchen that would help attract individual gifts to the Soup Kitchen well beyond the capital campaign. More to come in Part 2.

These fantastic organizations co-host a fundraising event they describe as a “poker run-style dog walk.” At least until our CreateAthoners looked over the list of activities and deemed the description lacking. It’s an entire afternoon of dog party! A dog fest! A day where dog is king! And Poochapalooza was born.

Work included identity, two custom illustrated posters (Lauren Bowles) an event website, and a promotional lawn sign.

CreateAthon Poochapalooza Creative Team: Lauren Bowles, Katy Miller, Cathy Monetti, Jay Coles, Julie Turner, GP Worrell, Jason Smith

Special thanks to our printers, The Half and Half of Columbia, SC

The Heartworm Project is a volunteer nonprofit organization that provides medical care for shelter animals in need. The Heartworm Project’s original goal was to treat heartworm positive dogs at local shelters who were scheduled to be euthanized because of their illness. But they’ve expanded their mission to include any medical attention that shelters cannot provide to dogs and cats of all ages.

PAALS (Palmetto Animal Assisted Life Services) is a nonprofit organization that serves the community by training assistance animals to help individuals with disabilities other than blindness or deafness. The animals assist with educational and recreational activities for those with social needs and certain physical disabilities.