By Katy Nally

Innovations build on past experiences to deliver cutting-edge solutions. Shaped by the tech industry over the past 20 years, Angela is propelling 2A forward, innovation-style. Her growth mindset, strategic focus and tech background are advancing the 2A team as we continue taking on new challenges. Lucky for us, Angela relishes a good challenge. A storyteller by nature, she has an eye for the pitch and the expertise to deliver.

She’s a facts-first storyteller

Angela has a knack for compiling and analyzing information that comprises the backbone of quality storytelling. She’s right at home in the tech industry, where there’s always something new to learn and new fields to dive into.

For clients, she’s an expert at understanding how to shape stories for a given audience, whether its underscoring the bottom line for business decision makers, or highlighting the impact of lives saved for global health NGOs. By grounding her approach in facts, not fluff, she’s able to craft smart marketing that appeals to the right group.

She’s a Microsoft vet

Angela grew up in the Seattle area, witnessing firsthand the transformation Microsoft had on the region. Joining the still-fresh company in the 90s, Angela became accustomed to Microsoft’s growth mentality. There she managed multi-channel marketing, led PR efforts surrounding business customers, and drove market penetration and consumer adoption for mapping products.

Her decade at Microsoft imparted Angela with empathy to better understand our clients’ needs, and the rigorous pace fortified her energy and appetite for consulting.

She speaks fluent tech

The tech industry found Angela when she started working at Microsoft. There she realized the capability of technology to change the world for the better, and its ability to improve lives. She was hooked and hasn’t looked back. At home she has voice-controlled devices in every room with plans to finalize her smart home.

With years of experience in talking and living tech, Angela understands the complex nuances of many products and the driving forces behind the industry. She keeps tabs on the ever-changing needs of b2b customers, and their supporting partner ecosystems, including both their dependencies and their alliances.

Angela is innovation in our back pocket. Let’s see what breakthroughs we can achieve together.

By Katy Nally

It’s one thing to illustrate something, it’s quite another to bring it to life. That’s the tricky part of storytelling, and it’s why we love Aaron, our motion designer. He literally brings our clients’ stories to life through animation.

While creating an animation is a full team undertaking at 2A, Aaron brings the unexpected playfulness that make them so engaging for viewers. Not only is he an all-in-one illustrator plus animator, he’s also a natural marketer. He’s an expert at conveying technical concepts through a compelling visual narrative in a way that’s easy to understand.

His illustrations capture the heart of the story
Aaron portrays the world around him through sketches. His notebook is full of fluid line drawings in pencil, depicting everything from food trucks to floating heads. His keen sense of his surroundings keeps our designs fresh and our images current.

Aaron refined his illustration talents at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where he received his BFA. He has screened his work—Dwellings and Bric-a-brac to name a few—in various galleries and festivals, including the Ann Arbor Film Festival, New York City’s Animation Block Party and the Northwest Film Forum.

He’s got the right flow for animations
While animation effortlessly tells the story, Aaron’s process to bring images to life is pretty labor-intensive. Motion designing—the final phase in creating animations—involves Aaron adding motion to illustrations on one screen, while viewing a giant sequencing chart on the other, to get the story just right. But he makes it look easy.

Aaron knows how to conjure emotion and entertain the viewer by balancing the right amounts of story and flow. How many motion designers can make viewers swoon for oysters? In a 25-second loop, Aaron merged the creative genius of The Big Lebowski, Rube Goldberg and a Victorian era favorite, the zoopraxioscope. A nautical Pacific Northwest scene was the perfect setting for his animation that gave some flare to our Aw Shucks Party.

He seizes marketing challenges
Aaron knows the value of an engaged audience. When creating an animation to achieve a marketing goal, he never loses sight of the main message, and develops visual concepts to make it pop. His storytelling abilities go beyond illustrations and motion design: Aaron has a way with words and helps craft scripts to elevate clients’ messaging. Most of the animations 2A produces involve highly technical subject matter (like this one about Azure Cosmos DB), which Aaron helps communicate smoothly and with personality. 

We’re pretty emotional about Aaron and his motion designs. We’ll let him tug at our heartstrings any day. Got a story you need brought to life through animation? Send us an email and let’s talk.

By Katy Nally

It’s hard to turn down a tequeño. The combination of gooey queso blanco inside, and fried pastry dough outside, make these Venezuelan snacks pretty irresistible. But their unforgettable flavor is just the beginning. In crafting the brand for a local tequeños company, we learned the full story behind this crispy finger food—one steeped in patriotism, parties and culinary prowess.

Cristina Clemente asked 2A to help tell the story of her tequeños company—Bululú—from the ground up. Marketing a company that makes food is quite different than our typical B2B projects for mostly tech industry clients. But at 2A, we know the value of expanding our reach and building new areas of expertise. Plus, this was our chance to think tropical, and use words like fried, deliciousness, and party people.

Our task was to create a brand for Bululú that was as mouthwatering as its tequeños, and paid homage to their heritage. 2A worked with Cristina to create a company name, tagline, logo, and a soon-to-launch website. This new identity will help Bululú expand its customer base (which now includes Azteca in Bellevue!) and boost awareness about its product.

Tequeños aren’t your average snack—at least not in the US. So we wanted to create a brand that not only introduced consumers to tequeños, but also conveyed their full story, beyond their deliciousness. We homed in on three aspects as tequeños’ strongest selling points.

They’re a homegrown Venezuelan tradition

• In crafting a name for the company, we landed on a word that’s distinctly Venezuelan. Keeping the word in Spanish signals to customers the South American origin of tequeños.
• For the company logo we chose a tropical shade of red that’s vibrant, fun, and reminiscent of the Cora Cora bird that roams Venezuelan beaches.

They have a knack for bringing people together

• In Venezuela, people tend to congregate around a plate full of flaky tequeños at gatherings of any kind. We wanted to bring this fun, party association of tequeños front and center. What better way to do that than with the word: Bululú. It not only rolls off the tongue, but it’s also slang in Venezuelan for a loud, raucous crowd of people. It’s the place where you’d encounter some tequeños.
• We brought this party element into the visual design of Bululú and created some tequeño illustrations that cascade like confetti.

They’re fried, in the best way possible

• When did frying things become so taboo? We wanted to own the fried part of tequeños and not shy away from what makes them so delicious. We elevated the word fried, including it in the tagline: proud-fried party bites.
• We used the word Bululú as the basis for the new logo, and used a font that emulates the wrapped, fried crust of a tequeño.

The Bululú website will launch later this year, so stay tuned for the full reveal!

By Katy Nally

Aw shucks, our clients and crew made our annual summer party a success! Our AW SHUCKS Party was part client appreciation, part nonstop oyster shucking, and an all-around good time. Thanks to everyone who came out last week, and for those who couldn’t join us, there’s always next time.

Each year we pull together as a team to conjure a true 2A party experience. It’s a collaborative effort that begins with deciding on a name. Once we landed on calling it our AW SHUCKS Party, we drafted and sent invitations, created an RSVP web page, and designed posters and signs.

Adding to the ambiance this year was an animated short, featuring synchronized swimming oysters and beer bottles. The mesmerizing show of twirling oyster shells and free-falling pearls surely dazzled our guests. Watch it here and see if you’re hankering for some oysters and stout afterward.

Besides our clients, friends and families, the other stars of the evening were the 480 Taylor Shellfish oysters and dozens of foamy glasses of Reuben’s Robust Porter. We purposely paired the shellfish with porter to create a briny, creamy experience. It’s an old (quite old) favorite we thought we’d try out. Having the oysters front and center also gave us the chance to use the hashtag #selfishforshellfish in our Instagram—and we’re still trying to say it three times fast.

Making its debut at our AW SHUCKS Party was our kegerator, or shall we call it R2beer2, or maybe kegasaurus? The debate still rages.

The rest of our spread was sourced from local vendors. As a Seattle-grown company, we always jump at the chance to support businesses in our community. Our dense and delicious bread was hand-crafted by Sea Wolf, and Abby provided her now-famous pickled carrots. In a wondrous display of summertime, our flower arrangements from Bleed Foot Florals included actual blackberry branches!

All in all, we set the party bar pretty high this year. 2018 has a tough act to follow. Can’t wait!

By Katy Nally

What’s your story? It’s easy to answer as an individual: you can introduce yourself, say where you’re from, what you like to do, where you work and pretty soon you’re weaving a narrative. It’s the same for businesses. But when you’re just starting out, that story can be hard to define and convey.

At 2A, we’re experts at storytelling for business. Stories anchor all that we do. Whether we’re crafting key messaging, designing logos or refining a brand, we make sure everything connects to a cohesive narrative that’s understood across audiences. In the case of Concentric Impact, we came in at the beginning and helped shape its unique story.

Jeff Kinney came to us seeking branding for his nascent sustainability accounting business. Jeff has a background in green building and transportation planning. While getting his MBA at Foster, he noticed small homebuilding companies were often overwhelmed by the full range of green building certifications. He decided to start a consulting company to provide sustainability management and reporting for small- and medium-sized businesses.

With a solid concept, Jeff came to 2A to get help with a company name, tagline, identity, design and messaging. The first step was for Jeff and our team to think through target audiences, potential clients and a go-to-market strategy. This exercise helped Jeff narrow down what consulting services he wanted to offer.

Next came messaging. “Sustainability accounting” was a good place to start—both words are easily understood, though they’re not typically paired. But both have their own connotations as well. Jeff wanted to make sure “sustainability” conveyed efficiency more than idealism. This phrase—and Jeff’s interpretation—became the foundation for our story.

From there, we built on this concept to construct a messaging guide and a company identity. We wanted his company name and logo to reflect ideals like efficiency, reporting and business rigor, and still convey sustainability accounting. Through brainstorming sessions, multiple meetings and ongoing collaboration, Jeff chose Concentric Impact and we created a simple yet memorable logo to match. The logo features the business name and the design is evocative of the efficiency of concentric circles.

Concentric Impact: Sustainability Accounting for Growth

In the end, we equipped Jeff with a messaging guide that communicates his company’s core benefits. It’s a living document that Jeff can test and refine as the story of Concentric Impact evolves.

What’s the story behind your business? Need help finding the right words and building an identity? Get in touch!

By Katy Nally

Messaging gets easier when you have something powerful to say. In the case of Pride, so much has been condensed into just one, short word. In a flash, I see the parade, the colors, the characters, but Pride also conjures emotion. All that from one word, and I haven’t even been to a Pride parade yet! But this is the year for me.

As a new consultant at 2A, I’ve been spending time exploring Capitol Hill where our office is located. With its rainbow crosswalks and establishments like Gay City, I was already aware Capitol Hill served as Seattle’s center for the LGTBQ community. But this month in particular, the neighborhood was bustling with Pride, which showed up in some very creative phrases—Plan your Pride, Dine with Pride, in Pride we Stride. After seeing Pride in storefronts, on chalkboards, and on banners on Broadway, I realized the power of this one word, and was impressed at how much it conveys.

The word “pride” has long been associated with the LGBTQ rights movement. On the first Christopher Street Liberation Day March on June 28, 1970 participants coalesced around the chant: “Say it clear, say it loud. Gay is good, gay is proud.” This first march commemorated the Stonewall Riots and was more somber than celebratory. It honored a historic night of resistance, when police raided the Stonewall Inn—a popular hangout for gay men, lesbians, drag queens and transgender people —and the patrons fought back.

Since that initial march, Pride has become both a platform and a party. The very act of being proud is simultaneously a show of support for the LGBTQ community and a cause for celebration. It’s this two-toned nature that makes Pride—and its simplified form as a rainbow—such a powerful message.

This weekend, I’ll finally see a Pride Parade in action! Seattle Pride, which hosts the parade and other Pride events, elevates issues by uniting and celebrating the LGBTQ community. Here’s to you, Pride.

By Katy Nally

I’m a sucker for tickets. In our age of consumerism, I prefer tickets to things. Tickets are temporary, but the events they grant access to leave lasting impressions that only take up memory space. Few know this better than the film industry, with the bulk of its sales tied to tickets. For them, the question is always: how do we get more butts in the seats? One answer, throw a party and make your guests feel special. Done right, that party can foster new customers.

Seattle is fortunate to have SIFF, a nationally- and internationally-renowned film organization that celebrates films and shares compelling stories with the community. SIFF hosts the largest film festival in the US—the Seattle International Film Festival, which ended with a bang on June 11 at MOHAI.

I live near SIFF Uptown and—with minimal planning—occasionally drop by to check out new movies that often make me feel cultured and connected. I’m not exactly a regular. But when an enticing SIFF email invited me to the opening night party of this year’s film festival—accented by words like gala and red carpet—I clicked on the registration link. I checked with my cinephile friend and she assured me the movie premiere followed by the “adult prom” was well worth it.

She was spot on. SIFF masterfully orchestrated an opening night party that made me feel like a celebrity. An actual red carpet led to the entrance of McCaw Hall where I joined other Seattlites who were fancified for an evening of posh society. Not only did the movie The Big Sick make me appreciate the once-dreaded “rom-com” genre, but the gala that followed was a stellar example of wining and dining to make an impression. And SIFF thoughtfully put its local partners front and center. Favorite restaurants gave out freshly made snacks, there were Dilettante Chocolates in glass bowls on the bar tables, and food trucks anchored the outdoor scene.

While an event like this takes tons of coordination and thought, the return can prove worth it. Making customers feel good can keep them coming back for more. It certainly worked on me. Later that week my friend and I attended a showing in the film festival, which I otherwise wouldn’t have suggested.

In the field of selling products, it pays to remember the value of experiences.