Journal

Reaping the benefits of holding to a mission

When you’re in marketing, you see a lot of companies strive to balance the economics of doing business with the integrity of their mission. It’s not easy, and better yet, how does one measure a philosophy or a passion? We’re in the business of helping our clients deliver communications that speak to their mission. But when you do it for somebody else, sometimes you have to step back and ask yourself, “am I delivering on my own mission?”

A few years ago, we set Rhizome Design’s mission to work for eco-friendly and socially responsible companies. This past year we did deliver on that mission with over 90% of our projects for clients that: provide health-related services; create responsible manufacturing environments; have green-oriented goals; work in the renewable energy sector, or simply save our environment.

We’ve been very lucky that way, and it’s a pleasure being creative for our clients in this capacity. To this end our path in the past year has lead us to:

1. Design a new website and shoot new photography for the Elliott Bay Brewing Co., our favorite handcrafted, organic beer and eco-friendly pubs.
2. Revamping the website, media kit and communications for the Valley Cultural Center in the San Fernando Valley. 2010 marked the implementation of their first “Green Initiative.”
3. Design a 32-page Corporate Responsibility Report for PMI (Pacific Market International). A great project that showcases this company’s amazing success in tracking their social and environmental footprint. See the report.
4. Work with the City of Puyallup and stakeholders from The Department of Ecology, Washington State University and the University of Washington to name and brand a new online Stormwater Resource.
5. Shoot new photography and design a new website for Whidbey General Hospital, a non-profit rural hospital. We worked with WGH to create images that not only they could use, but we could use for our own Rhizome Images collection. (So look for new healthcare images in our Rhizome Images® collection as well as a new web revamp for WGH this spring.)
6. 

   Whidbey Camano Land Trust's Annual Report

   Design an annual report and separately, a logo for the Whidbey Camano Land Trust‘s campaign for Save The Forest Now! $4.2 million was raised to save a 664-acres of land on Whidbey Island, now officially named, “Trillium Community Forest.”

7. Design the Salmon-Safe Celebration Invitation for NBIS–the Network for Business Innovation and Sustainability. The event recognizes the Salmon-Safe Puget Sound Urban Certifications for The University of Washington Seattle campus, REI, SAM’s Olympic Sculpture Park, PCC Natural Market (Edmonds) to name a few.
8. Become a resource of editorial imagery for Sustainable Industries magazine.

Finally in 2010, our Rhizome Images® Picturesque Forest Project provided over 220 trees to a Global ReLeaf fund, with 100 trees going to various other ReLeaf funds through AmericanForests.org. This brings our total to 867 over the past 3 years and this year we’ll easily pass the 1000 mark! In 2010 we also opted to donate to the Save the Forest Now fund, since saving a forest in your own backyard is just as important–and in this case, it comes with instant gratification benefits.

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