Approaching every project with curiosity, an open mind, and care.

Burlington Pride on the Riverfront

Problem: Burlington, Iowa’s inaugural Pride on the Riverfront 2024 Parade, Festival, and Pride After Dark drag show needed a brand, logo, website, and marketing presence and they needed it yesterday. With less than 6 weeks until event day, a small budget, and a conservative demographic, Pride on the Riverfront needed an identity and PR strategy that blended the lines between LGBTQ+ community members, allies, and the rest of the community in order to pull of a successful event.

Solution: The resulting logo of Burlington’s Great River Bridge spanning across a rainbow river following the Mississippi’s actual topography represented both water under the bridge and connecting existing gaps; paired with a muted, retro color palette and accompanying typeface visually communicated a catching up with the times rather than attempting to thrust the community further into the future. To convey the real human element of the event, website content focused on the brand ethos with effortless UX, social media content leaned heavily on human-centered photography and an inbound/educational approach, and a boots-on-the-ground event schedule up to a 100-mi radius was pulled together. Email marketing, PR, and event programming strategies laser focused on honing the Building Bridges brand story to build brand advocates.

Results: 61k impressions, 2.5k website visitors, 3 newspaper articles, 2 radio segments, and 2 TV spots, 64 vendors, 34 parade entries, 30 sponsors resulting in 150% of fundraising goal, 2000-person parade and festival attendance, and 300 Pride After Dark tickets sold for an ROI of 200%.

Suzie Agelopoulos

Problem: Suzie’s business had taken off so quickly she never even had the chance to think about her brand. She came to me unsure of what she wanted other than something that reflected her target audience which conveniently was a mirror of her.

Solution: A brand that captures the essence of everyone’s favorite, mysteriously wealthy, globetrotting aunt — the one everyone wants to ask, “What do you DO?” Because her business is largely based on Suzie’s own story, the brand identity wove in chic and subtlee nods to her Greek heritage. Combining classically soft feminine touches with bold imagery, typography, and colors, we speak to the childless, entrepreneurial, travel-hungry modern millennial woman.

Results: Suzie reported an increase in social media, engagement, and sales following the implementation of her brand.

Elevate Her Marketing

Problem: Online courses are a highly competitive and niche market so businesses need to utilize scroll-stopping ads to stand out, capture leads, and increase sales.

Solution: Brand-resonant creative paired with conversion copy and laser-focused audience targeting.

Results: 1% CTR and positive ROAS for 12-client roster

A Few Things We’ve Written

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  • Sound Like You?

    I don’t make enough money to require legal protection.

    There’s nothing I can do TODAY to get my business legally protected.

    I’ll hire a lawyer to get my business legally sound once I have enough clients.

    ❌Oops...I didn’t realize that having ANY client puts me at legal risk, no matter how much money I’m making. Now I’m losing hard-earned growth to this avoidable legal snafu.

    Truth is this: you don’t always need a lawyer on retainer

    All you need is someone to tell you exactly what to do so you can get your biz legally protected in a matter of days, not years.

    💻Keep Your Business Progress Runnin’ Here: [link]

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  • As an industry, we have barely scratched the surface when it comes to applying artificial intelligence. At the exponential rate of technology innovation, how long will it take for AI-powered features to be as integral to the translation pipeline as translation memory - 5, 10 years? 

    I expect sooner. Keep reading.

  • If this month’s MultiLingual theme isn’t enough of a sign, the translation industry is engulfed in the buzz of AI. We’re told this new technology is capable of disrupting everything about the way we work and live, and anyone not already considering how to integrate it is already behind. Companies around the world are scrambling to apply both the competitive edge and the buzzword to their business model — and you’re probably one of them, considering you’re here, reading this article. Keep reading.

  • When many of us think of vehicle crash tests, we imagine a new car being “driven” by a crash dummy straight into a cement wall at high speeds. Data on the damage is gathered from cameras placed throughout the vehicle, along with the crash dummies’ sensors. This exact test can only be performed once and is costly as well as time-consuming. 

    Now consider running this same exact test in the metaverse; except this time, testing is instantaneous and can be run limitless times with different parameters – weather conditions, passengers, and side-on collisions. The latter is what we refer to as a digital twin. Keep reading.

  • This Sunday, September 30th marked International Translation Day, an annual celebration that acts as an opportunity to pay tribute to the life and work of translators and interpreters who aspire to make the world a slightly smaller place by breaking down language barriers. The day is celebrated with a series of dedicated events, seminars, and symposiums across the world.

    Four women shared their experiences building careers in the translation industry, and while their job titles, experience, stories, and backgrounds differ wildly, their sentiment was the same. Keep reading.

  • In this post, we'll explore the relationship between DesignOps and design systems. We'll look at the benefits of both and what they set out to achieve. We'll also provide a step-by-step guide on how to implement a design system in your organization. So, grab a coffee, get cozy, and let's dive in! Keep reading.

  • As a core part of design systems, we look into what design tokens are and why you should be using them.

    When it comes to your brand, consistency matters. When a brand shows up in a consistent way, it helps to build trust and connection with a user, the same way consistency in any relationship creates trust over time. Keep reading.

  • As a successful luxury travel and lifestyle blogger, Christina Galbato knew the power of organic outreach. After all, it was how she’d built her following to well over 200k in just three years. It was also how she’d been selling her first online course, “The Influencer Bootcamp,” which focuses on helping influencers grow their presence on Instagram, create high-quality content and monetize and work with brands. Keep reading.

  • Memsource's patented AI-powered Non-translatables feature identifies content that can be translated automatically if the quality is equal to human translation and provides a match score of 100 or 99% to predict the amount of post-editing effort required. Keep reading.

  • Here's all the information for Pride on the Riverfront 2024, friend!

    A massive thank you to everyone who provided feedback to help make June 22nd as successful as possible. Click the button below to access all final information regarding check-in times and locations, vendor maps, committee contact information, and more: View email.

  • Hi there, As a thank you for being a subscriber, we're excited to share a first look at the 2024 Pride on the Riverfront festival lineup. 👀 View Email.

  • Curate an efficient, component-based design system manager for every functional and UI specification. Foster design system governance across large cross-functional teams — including developers. Keep reading.

  • Burlington, Iowa - June 3, 2024 - The Burlington City Council Chambers witnessed a remarkable display of solidarity as supporters flooded the space to advocate for inclusivity and recognition of the LGBTQ+ community.

    The crowd was dotted with rainbow flags, buttons, and stickers as community members witnessed the city of Burlington officially declare June as Pride Month for the local community for the first time in history, alongside a proclamation for Juneteenth, the federal holiday commemorating the ending of slavery in the United States. View press release.

  • Women in Localization (W.L.), the leading professional organization for women in the localization industry, is delighted to announce the launch of a new Chapter in Russia. This will be W.L.’s seventeenth (17th) Chapter, expanding their global reach into thirteen (13) unique countries. Keep reading.

  • Struggling to scale your online course business? Here's the tea..

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  • Holy support, Batman! Check out all those queer-friendly businesses in Burlington and the surrounding area..

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  • IYKYK

    Designed by Burlington To A Tee and available exclusively at Embellishments & Designs..

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  • In the translation industry, the disruptive effect of AI is not yet apparent. Machine learning/AI has traditionally been associated with one feature: machine translation (MT). It is true that with the recent advancements in neural MT, the output quality is inching closer to human translation. 

    However, neural MT still makes serious mistakes and its quality can be upset by more complex sentences. More importantly, professional translation has different standards than simply passing for human translation; translations might require a specific style, consistent terminology, coherence across sentences and paragraphs, etc. Keep reading.

  • Design systems are increasingly becoming more popular, and tend to be driven by self-taught people. According to a 2019 survey by Sparkbox, 70% of the in-house respondents and 65% of agency respondents said they first learned about design systems by reading about them. Design systems can be scrappy, static, and maybe only need to benefit a few people at the start – but, if adopted company-wide, transform team culture and the ability to make new things, faster, over time. Keep reading.