Bolton Design Creates Compelling Referral Piece

Over Valentine's Day, I received this gorgeous marketing piece from my trusty graphic designers, Tracey and Nat, at Bolton Design. I was blown away!! So much so, that I immediately called Tracey to get the full story on the concept.

Happily, she was willing to share the whole story on the creation and execution of their "Refer Your Love" marketing campaign.

"For the past couple of years we had been toying around with ideas on how to ask our Clients for referrals in a creative and fun way. But, it wasn't until reading a case study about a Refer Your Love promo campaign in The Designer's Guide to Marketing and Pricing, by Peleg Top and Ilise Benun that our idea really gelled.

Since Valentine's Day and the Chinese New Year fell on the same day this year we combined themes from both traditions into a unique seasonal promotion. We selected the color palette, hot pink and white. We found hot pink take out containers and filled them with custom fortune cookies. The raspberry colored and flavored fortune cookies perfectly matched the containers and were stuffed with custom messages we crafted ourselves:

Bolton Design hearts you.
The first step to a better brand is to imagine it.
You will find great success in creative endeavors.
The perfect solution is closer than you think.

Then, we took this simple promotion one step further. Each of our clients also received a custom card that said, "Refer Your Love" on the front. Inside we wrote a witty and gracious message that conveyed our appreciation for their business and our desire to work with more people like them. Enclosed was a custom designed reply card with a SASE. In keeping with the theme, it was stamped with Chinese New Year postage. To really highlight the hot pink of the packaging and envelopes, all pieces were placed in a plain white box and cushioned with white paper shred."

-Tracey Bolton, Bolton Design

Tracey and Nat are the branding experts I have trusted for the past five years - they have been the source of several marketing and design solutions for me, including www.sarahsloboda.com, and the identity for my photography brand. We'll be working together again in the very near future so stay tuned for what they do for me next!

Oh, and I forgot to mention, the cookies were delicious. Thanks, Tracey and Nat!

Pasadena Field Trip

My friends Jerilyn and Peter got married this year, on the 4th of July, and I was fortunate enough to be their pre- and post- wedding event photographer (I got to attend the wedding as a guest!). It had been four years since I was last in California, to shoot the wedding of my brilliant graphic designers, Tracey and Nat Bolton (who did www.sarahsloboda.com). Previously, I had spent a great deal of time there, in my short-lived career in television, whilst helping to produce the 2005 People's Choice Awards. It was interesting to reflect on that time of my life, as I saw some familiar sights, and some new ones. All in all, I was so happy to be back in California!

I love the sagebrush scent on the desert air, and cool breeze near the ocean. I love driving around, through twists and turns and over and through the mountains. It was a lot of fun being there. I stayed (and worked) in Pasadena, and also had a chance to hit the beach and a fish taco stand in Malibu, as well as pay a visit to one of my favorite places on earth - The Getty Center, high atop a hill overlooking LA. After 6 solid weeks of rain in New York, the remarkably clear sky in southern California was an absolute godsend.

Below are several of the photos I took on this trip. Soon, I will post the highlights from Jerilyn & Peter's wedding weekend, and you will be able to find their gallery on this page: http://pa.photoshelter.com/c/sloboda/gallery-list

All of the photos in this post were shot on color film, using a Voigtlander make rangefinder camera: