Meet our Branding Consultants – Guide Studio
Meet our Branding Consultants – Guide Studio
As we talked about in our last blog post, we selected our branding consultant from a crowded and competitive field of two dozen national applicants.
We talked about the three major reasons why Guide Studio was the firm we selected:
- They have extensive experience in similarly sized Midwest communities.
- Their focus on design AND implementation (how we will use the brand once it is complete).
- Their experience in wayfinding and signage (a future project we will take on after our branding initiative is complete).
Many of the firms that responded to our Request for Proposal last fall were advertising, marketing, and design agencies. While all of them demonstrated their talent and experience, it was very important to us that our branding consultant had extensive experience working with municipal governments.
Guide Studio focuses on community-based work and recognizes that community brands are inherent to their communities – they are in the hearts and minds of our community members. As they say, “Our job is not to create a brand for Kaukauna”, but to understand how your people experience your community and what they believe it stands for – helping you articulate it, and providing you with tools to communicate through and manage your brand into the future.
Guide Studio, originally Studio Graphique, was born in 1997 and celebrated their 20th year anniversary in 2017. It was in 2017 that the firm rebranded as Guide Studio, which is a better reflection of what they do: guide municipalities in connecting their people to their place, using branding, communication and wayfinding. Kaukauna is working closely with three members of the Guide Studio team, who have a combined 57 years of experience in their industry. Guide Studio is headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio.
Guide Studio’s portfolio of work includes communities from Connecticut to Colorado, with a concentration in the Midwest, including Ohio, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Indiana. You can see some examples of their work with other municipal clients here.
The three members of the Guide Studio team that are working in Kaukauna are: Kevin Fromet, project manager and designer; Caroline Chaikin, brand and communications strategist; and Gina Gerkin, creative director. We’re looking forward to showcasing all of Kaukauna’s assets to the team at Guide Studio and can’t wait to share our progress with you.
You can follow along with updates throughout the branding process here.