Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend

This week I had the honor of traveling up to Washington, DC to accept national awards for my creative work. Back in the fall I submitted two campaigns to the Credit Union National Association for their Diamond Awards contest, and both campaigns ended up being first-place winners (aka Diamonds) in their categories! The Diamond Awards had over 1,000 submissions and 34 categories. Two for two - not bad! Makes me think I should've submitted more ...

Here I am with my Diamond Awards. Unfortunately this is the only photo that came out from the evening. They did whisk me off to have professional photos taken but I have yet to see those!


COMPLETE CAMPAIGN category
This campaign was called "Gary Takes It Easy." I illustrated the character, Gary, and then brought him to life with photos, Facebook, and Twitter, as well as created a direct mail series, web graphics, signs, banners, posters, a trade show display board, and a newsletter centerfold about his story. I had him printed as a life-size cardboard cut-out so he could travel around and promote Entrust Federal Credit Union at different events. He has become an icon for Entrust now and at every event people want their pictures taken with Gary! Search for "Entrust Gary" on Facebook and Twitter to see more.


SINGLE PR EVENT category
This campaign was for an event called 20Cents that I created to help promote financial stewardship for 20-somethings. (For 20-somethings, by 20-somethings.) I did everything from putting together the committee to designing all the marketing materials and website to executing the event. We had live music, breakout sessions, a catered dinner, and game night. The Religious Herald published an article about it, and American Family Radio interviewed me about the event, which you can listen to by clicking here!

Since November

It's been four months since my last blog post, and I promise it's not from lack of things to talk about - I've been so BUSY that I haven't even had a moment to think about blogging! Novus Creative continues to grow. Being that it's tax season, I had the chance to look back at my Novus Creative (formerly AF Design) records and was pleased to see I did twice as much work in 2009 as I did in 2008, and so far in 2010 I've done ALMOST as much work as in the entire year of 2009. And it's only March!

Here are just a few new clients since my last post in November:

McGuireWoods
Doctor Techno-Marketing
Geezeo
Retail Merchants Association
First Choice Dental Care
Life4Real
Crown Virginia

Plus there are all the new companies that I've worked with on behalf of my Print/Promotional clients:

Virginia Steel Erectors
State Fair of Virginia
Paragon Financial Services
Greer Financial
Agriculture in the Classroom
Richmond Premier Technology Group
Keiter Stephens

It's been busy and I'm loving every minute of it. I continue to learn with every project and look forward to meeting the design, marketing, and writing needs of my current and future clients.