1 Year In! A Timeline Story by Rasheedah Billups
1 Year In!
A Timeline Story by Rasheedah Billups
NOVEMBER
On November 14, 2016 I walked into The Artoholiks for my first day as a copywriter. Truth be told, as excited as I was to be joining the team, I was also nervous and unsure about how things would unfold. I was worried that my right brain had been neglected for too long. I was worried about how useful my background and skills would be on this new team.
December 17, 2016 the day I fell in love with being an Artoholik.
2017
The new year rolled around and I was in the thick of it. By this time, the part-time schedule, I worked out for myself had become a full-time schedule. I found a rhythm. I was loving every moment of it, but talks about impending tasks and responsibilities terrified me. But I’ve got a mean poker face so I don’t think Iquan knew (cat’s out the bag now lol). I did my best to quiet the fear and kept trucking.
Spring came and The Artoholiks leveled up again and shit got real. One day I looked up and I was pumping out content for clients’ social media, managing a blog, and a load of other things I never saw myself doing. I was in it so I didn’t realize how much things had changed, how much I evolved. By this time my right brain was feeling completely loved on, the Wacom had become my favorite thing ever, I “spoke” fluent PhotoShop, Indesign, and Illustrator – lol – and I was totally dissing anyone who shot in auto mode on their camera (just a joke, no judgement).
MAY
In May I smiled. We received copies of the Scotch Porter Spring/Summer ‘17 manual that we put together and I was the editor. This was the moment it came full circle for me. For someone who has dreams of being an award-winning author, this felt good. It felt real. This moment brought me a step closer to seeing my name on the cover of a book.
SUMMER
…pulled up real smooth. Much like the holiday season of ‘16 it was all love. Not only had I been growing creatively, professionally in a new field, but culturally and socially the journey had been packed with growth, new discoveries and the planting of new relationships.
November 14, 2017 we toasted to me being at The Artoholiks for one year. I was astonished. The year had flown by, my life had been transformed in so many ways. I traded in my suits for an Art Is Dope tee.
I can’t wait to see where I’ll be this time next year. 🙂
The thought of not being an Artoholik is a joke to me. Peace out!
WORK: Fresh Meat
Introducing...
What is Fresh Meat? Let’s start here…
Fresh: Recently made or obtained; not canned, frozen, or otherwise preserved.
Meat: The flesh of an animal (especially a mammal) as food.
Now, let’s adjust and combine these two words to make them both better suit men and grooming.
Fresh: Canned but recently obtained, or otherwise cared for.
Meat: The exterior body parts of a man.
In a nutshell...
We helped with creating a product designed for men to keep their meat packing district fresh and clean anytime, anywhere. Below is a breakdown on how we helped, what we did and a look into the buzz that Fresh Meat has generated in just two weeks.
THE IDENTITY
The NAME: The WORD on the street is that the Scotch Porter team, with the help of The Artoholiks developed this name within one week. This is a big deal because the Scotch Porter team had less than a month to develop, brand, package and take this product to market. So, first came the name. In a quick huddle up, the SP team determined that the name needed to be edgy, fun, and spark conversation. Unlike other Scotch Porter products, Fresh Meat needed to have a different voice. We knew this product would create uncomfortable conversations between men, because who wants to talk about smelly balls? So in order to break the ice, it would need to be funny. At the end of the day… balls need to be clean and the word balls will always be funny. Two Truths!
The BRANDING: The fun name was followed by the opportunity to have a lot of fun with what this thing would look like. Myself along with my go-to creative Aaron Brown spent a weekend developing logo and tag line concepts. The minute we landed on the name, we instantly thought… BUTCHER SHOP! Aaron and I decided that we’d both contribute concepts around the butcher shop, but we’d both exercise different fonts, shapes and styles. Below you’ll see that some are clean while others are traditional.
After a week of discussing the sketches, team Scotch Porter and The Artoholiks landed on the core logo, which lead us to building out the rest of the brand elements. From meat packing paper to a suite of icons featuring the Fresh Meat sausage.
The PACKAGING: Once all of the elements were approved, we had a strong identity, which was great because we had to quickly focus on how this thing would look and feel on the day it arrives in the customers’ hands. The goal here was to create a small package that men could carry with them daily, but also fit enough wipes that would make his purchase worthwhile. We also thought, how could this package be fun yet masculine. So we decided to roll with a black and white minimalistic approach while allowing the sausage pattern to capture the playfulness of the brand.
VIDEO & GRAPHICS
To support the launch of this product, we armed the Scotch Porter team with an arsenal of graphics for email blasts, social posts, digital ads, website banners, and print materials. Although this product isn’t a gimmick and truly provides a real solution for all men, the SP team produced a video that would help the product attract a viral buzz; in less than 2 weeks, this video reached 15k views.
Hey bro… Pass me a wipe, this recap got me sweating!
THE END
Words by Iquan W. Edited by Rasheedah B.
Introducing Kevin T. Lowery to Expand Management Division
Introducing Kevin T. Lowery to Expand Management Division
Ok, ok, you’ve got us! ?
Over the last couple of years, we’ve focused on equipping you with creative assets to keep your website, social channels, and various brand initiatives up-to-date. Via photo and video we’ve produced for you, we were able to leverage this process and skillset with multiple clients, creating a unique, raw and straight-forward marketing tool to power our business.
You ate it up! Content development is one of our hottest services!
I know you’re probably saying,
“What are you talking about Iquan?”
The Question: How can THE ARTOHOLIKS add value to my business?
The dark side of our business has been size and management. Because we are a the go-to choice, we get pretty busy. What happens to the other moving parts of the business when the designers are busy designing?
Are you following?
Here’s a quick scenario… We all love food, right? We know a few great spots that serve great food. And 9 times out of 10, we don’t complain about the food. We complain about the service. If the service is bad, the food becomes bad.
So…
If we provide awesome creative services, but miss deadlines and etc., just like the restaurant scenario, clients won’t be satisfied.
In an effort to continue to grow and deliver best-in-class, nimble service, I’m happy to announce we’re now in the management game.
“How Iquan?”
Introducing Kevin T. Lowery, the latest addition to the Artoholik team. Kevin is here to save the day with his management and business background. His professional experience includes retail management, finance, and account management. Kevin’s day to day within the office will be to oversee the management team and support our creative group.
Dedicated solely to management and planning, he will have the resources and time – yes time is a resource, but we can never put too much emphasis on time – to impact our projects in a major way, streamlining them so you not only get great results, but great service as well. 🙂
Together, Kevin and I plan on pushing THE ARTOHOLIKS to the next level with dope design, rich assets, and now, strategic planning and management.
Please welcome, Kevin T. Lowery!
We Got Digital (The Follow Up)
Yup, we got digital on ya!
Back in April of this year, we announced that we dived into the digital ocean by offering a new range of online services to our existing clients such as How I Grew Today and Scotch Porter. Read that article here to catch up. And now it’s safe to say that we’re still swimming, pushing through the currents, and slowly but surely delivering added success to our clients’ businesses. Since then, some new clients came aboard and turned our tiny boat into a powerful machine that has sparked some pretty decent numbers. Below is some of the work we performed and how it generated positive results.
The Scotch Porter Digest
A Sunday morning e-blast publication featuring the latest lifestyle news from the Scotch Porter Journal (which we write and edit), content pulled from the brand’s Social Media (which we manage), and last but not least, a product feature. But, our tasks don’t stop there… We pull this publication together via design, content development, planning, scheduling, and deploying every week. Sorry for the braggadocious parentheses but a closed mouth don’t get fed. Right?
In July, the Scotch Porter Digest established monthly records in open rates (10%+) and click rates (0.5%). The four newsletters also generated over $2,000 in revenue. Lastly, we noticed the best open and click rates occurred in the afternoon versus early mornings.
10,000($) in sales
Since the start of the program ?
The Seed & The Seed Feeds
Back in April we called this job our waste management service, and we weren’t kidding. While it sounds like a joke, it’s very much real. Our use of the term waste management service has nothing to do with our beloved client and everything to do with the necessity and fundamental tasks this job entails. Not every client will need our amazing creative minds for every inch of their projects. But the fact that we can assist in other ways is very powerful. For How I Grew Today, we simply take her amazing video episodes and chop them down into snackable pieces of content. Out of a single two-minute video, we are able to create Instagram stories, episode teasers, and graphic cards for ads and promotions. Last but not least, we manage the entire video content series syndication across YouTube, HowIGrewToday.com, email blast, and all of her social media platforms. So, why is this valuable? Her talented videographer isn’t in the business of doing any of the above except for shooting and editing the videos.
30% increase in engagement across all platforms combined
Instagram, Facebook, Email, and .com
Pokka Pens & Lucid Bless
Good news spreads fast! Back in June, we acquired two new clients who needed help with their digital platforms. Pokka Pens came knocking first… We help Pokka with a lot of their branding needs but throughout the process, we learned that Pokka needed some digital tools such as email and social media content. Here’s how we’re helping the cute pen brand. Shortly after, along came Lucid Bliss, a premium hair care product for women who battle with alopecia and general hair loss. The brand is owned by a celebrity hairstylist who already manages two of her other Instagram profiles, one personal and one salon. So she hired THE ARTOHOLIKS to manage the product’s profile by creating and deploying content.
1,500($) in automation emails
abandoned cart series, welcome series, and monthly activations
WORK: Pokka Pens
Everyday is a Pokka Day
the cutest project ever!
Back in June, we started working with the beautiful couple behind Pokka Pens, and since then… We’ve helped with their website, e-mail and ancillary graphics to support their latest activations.
ABOUT THE PEN
The Pokka Pen is an everyday tool created for people on the move. While you can use this pen any and every where, it’s designed for those typical moments like the bank, in the car, shopping etc. The beauty of this pen is that it fits in your pocket without stabbing you in the junk. ha!
Our first task was to integrate Mail Chimp with the Pokka Website.
The second step was to brand the automatic Shopify emails and then create templates for the Mail Chimp emails.
It’s crazy how a simple change of color and an add-on can change the day. But people forget about these little details all the time. What make’s us happy is when the customers and friends notice…
the updates and notifications are really impressive – straight out of the amazon playbook
In addition to the graphics and pretty stuff, we also helped with some of the strategy (because design can’t sell by itself right?). We put together a few automation features that perform actions to communicate with Pokka’s potential and existing customers.
40
40% Abandoned Cart Opens
50
50% Opens on Welcome Emails
17
$17 Average Order Revenue
We didn’t leave off there. We hate to be mistaken for a ‘design agency’, because we cover so much ground with all of our clients. Within the three month span of working with Pokka, we assisted in Content Creation by developing written copy, photography, video editing and just general consulting to ensure Pokka is taking the correct steps to grow their brand.
As of September, we’ll begin helping Pokka with their social media platform by posting, creating content and managing their social profiles. We hope you enjoyed this post, now go grab some Pokka’s!
WORK: The SEED (How I Grew Today)
Call us your waste management company…
It won’t always be the prettiest job, but it’s needed. On time, done right, and out of your way!
OK, OK… Waste management might be too harsh and our friend Marquita of How I Grew Today, might be offended. See, we’re not saying that this project is trash at all. However, her new project ‘The SEED’ is majority management and little design. When you think of THE ARTOHOLIKS, you think… Cool graphics, videos and photos right? When Marquita came to us to help her with her new video series, she had already did the fun part by having someone else create the videos.
So, where did that leave us? Management! Yup, we were hired to consult and help deploy these videos. So while this isn’t our norm, it still allowed us to be creative by…
- Producing a social media calendar and plan
- Developing additional creative assets
- Managing the process of content distribution
- Monitoring social engagement
The reason we have no problem calling this a waste management project is simple. Unlike our web projects, branding projects or any other design jobs that we work on, Marquita, needs us, while those other jobs pose a ‘WANT’ greater than a ‘NEED’. People want to work with us because we’re young, cool, seasoned, flexible and a ton of other reasons, but they don’t always need us. The SEED is a perfect project right now for us because we are now in a place where we NEED our clients to NEED us. This type of project is no longer subject to subjective opinions, this project is all about the FACTS.
Moral of the story? Be needed, be a waste management company and stay in business.
We got Digital!
Yup, we got digital on ya!
We have great news! With growth comes change, with change comes new responsibilities, with new responsibilities comes more work and opportunities for us to excite you. Over the last couple of years, we flirted with digital services by helping some of you with things such as your email blasts, social media graphics, and digital campaigns. However, we were careful about how much we committed ourselves to offering. We all know the saying, Stay in your lane! We also know that design will only get us but so far down that long lane. So we made the decision to switch gears, we’re moving over into that newly fresh paved lane and will now offer digital services to all of our clients, big and small. Stay tuned for a few case studies over the next couple of months,
but for now, check out our offerings below. And don’t forget, tell a friend!
Creative
Management & Deployment
Analytic & Reporting
Content Creation
social
Deployment
Monthly & Quarterly Social Plans
Creative
Paid Digital Advertising: Creative & Management
Analytic & Reporting
content
Graphics
Video/Photo
Copy Writing
SMBNYC x IQUAN Winter 2017
Randomly our Artoholik crew members Steve Cancel @smbnyc & Iquan Worthington aka @iquanw get together at least twice and year and document their hangout through photos and video all just for the fun. With Spring closely approaching, we decided to compile a batch of images from their recent Winter campaign titled smbnycxiquanwwinter. This is the first time that the duo, systematically edited and posted their images together with a proper hashtag and timeline. Oh, and there’s a vlog to go with it if the images don’t tell the story of their day completely.
MY 10 RULES OF BRAND-BUILDING
You know I used to beat that block, now I be’s the block.
Iquan shares some of his experiences to form a down and dirty version of how to grow your small brand.
Earlier today I received a phone call from a friend stating that she needed some inspiration. I thought, “Cool, how can I help you”. She then rambled on about an idea she has and a commitment she needed to make in order to pursue that idea. Turns out, she didn’t really need inspiration, she just needed to vent. I get it, everyone wants to do things their own way. Unfortunately, today a lot of people want it their way and very quick too. What saddens me about my friend’s rant, was that she had already made up her mind and didn’t sound confident at all about the decision she arrived at.
Somehow, everyone in my age group is an entrepreneur. I call this the Puffy/Jay Z era. They made it cool for us to want to start our own, which is very dope! Over the last 10 years, I’ve seen my friends who were rappers start music labels, artist and designers start clothing lines, cooks become chefs, and so on. We all jumped aboard of the Entrepreneur Express, with the strength of our talents but forgot the knowledge of business; but perhaps we never had the knowledge to begin with.
You know i used to beat that block, now I be’s the block. The truth of the matter is, you can be more talented than the next person — the better DJ, Chef, or Artist — but unless you’re super awesome and can pretty much sell water to a fish, you need to learn a few things that will transform you from hustler to entrepreneur.
I’m still very active in the struggle, everyone knows I can design, take a pretty photo, and build a decent website. But what good is all of this if I’m not generating the money I want to make for myself and the team? After 10 hard years I’m finally here and I decided to write this post to help my friend I mention above with her decision.
Here are the 10 biggest lessons I learned while building the artoholiks:
number 1
Be clear about what you want. Have an idea on what you want do, who you want to do it for, and why. With the resources we have at our fingertips, anyone can make a t-shirt or two. A friend of mine, a martial arts instructor created a line that inspires other martial artists. That’s a voice! He’ll get support from the first tier of supporters which is friends and family; the second tier, is the Martial Arts industry. He’ll be in Dojo’s all over if he follows the next 9 steps.
number 2
Adjust… Find your industry competitors and know their next steps. Also, know your customers! With this knowledge, you will always be able to craft your business to grow with the times.
number 3
Consistency… Being consistent sounds easy but it’s not. In the process of changing up in order to keep up, you could easily lose you core VOICE or make it confusing and nearly impossible to identify. Do everything in your power to maintain steadiness. Do not lose your voice.
number 4
Stay Hungry! Not Thirsty… Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. You’ll be tempted to expand or try something else. Chances are, if you didn’t perfect your initial idea, adjust well or maintain a level of consistency with your original idea then there’s no way you’re going to get it right in your expansion. Stay put for a moment, and master what got you here.
number 5
(infiltrate) OK, I may have slowed you down, that’s good! That was my goal. Here’s where being the best that you can be comes into play. Educate yourself, work for or put yourself in the presence of someone who is doing what you aspire to do and get schooled. Take this info and use it to get your business over the hump and into that next step.
number 6
My Favorite… If you have passion, then you’re doing the right thing, because without it, at this point you would have given up. If you had time to infiltrate, then you aren’t making real money. But that’s OK, you have passion, you’ll figure it out! Be patient, take the money you are making and reinvest it back into your business and you’ll be fine.
number 7
At this point, you’re not in it to make friends, you’re in it to make ends. You gathered some info, sacrificed the new Jordan release to get that new piece of equipment, and you’re almost there. Meanwhile, shorty is over there stepping on your toes trying to do what you do. You’re not hating if you keep your resources to yourself, you’re not hating if you choose to keep your next move to yourself. You learned everything you need to know by working hard, getting up early and staying up late to research, and building relationships; you earned it, you keep it.
number 8
Manage your growth… You might feel a little successful at this point because you are starting to break even and may even have a team, some support, or a little help. Stay put, chillax, just like everything else it will grow, don’t rush your fate. Continue to work with it and have faith, before you know it, that shiny storefront won’t be out of your price range.
number 9
STAY LEARNING… The girl above, didn’t ask me one single question. See she’s aware that I’m successful and have being going at it for 10 years. However, she didn’t ask one question. Me, I am the complete opposite, I ask MAD questions. Like a whole bunch! So many questions, you might be lowkey annoyed. Read, ask questions, find a mentor, and never stop wanting to learn.
number 10
You may laugh at this but I mean it when I say it… Have FUN! Having a job is WHACK and it’s probably the reason why you decided to start your own business. Remember that! Hire people who love working with you, people who will ride with you. When you’re having fun, it makes that empty bank account less depressing. People will want to be down, to buy from you, and to support you, because good people love happy people. #FACTS
Urban Exploring: Exploring 2016 (Episode 8)
THE SYNOPSIS
Happy New Year Artoholiks! Iquan woke up excited about the new year and he made it his business to go visit a few of his creative friends in Newark just to learn what their excitement is for 2016. This impromptu episode is packed with inspiration, motivation and pure positive energy all based around Iquan’s personal goals and short comings from 2015. Enjoy!
Subscribe
www.youtube.com/user/TheArtoholiks
THE DISCOVERIES
Rebecca Jampol on twitter
Eric of New Wave Barber Shop his shop
Andres Jimenez his social
Tehsuan Glover his blog
Tamara Fleming her work
Akintola Hanif his stories
THE MUSIC
Playlist
1. Sángo — Só Você (Ft. Elhae & ESTA.)
2. MORE // NIGHT — Relax yo
3. PYRMDPLAZA — House Bump For Joe Kay
4. JLL — Blue Skies
5. Mozaic (AGO) — Rachel Foxx Strong (Mozaic Flip)
6. Kurai Noir — Corinne Bailey Rae – Put Your Records On (Nehzuil Remix)
7. AbJo — Loop 544 (for Dilla)
8. PYRMDPLAZA — Rush Feat. Abjo