Branding

Video Creation with Missoula Media Company

April 26, 2022

We are proud to announce that Valier as joined forces with two other Missoula, Montana video creation veterans to create Missoula Media Company – a video production, website design, website development, and graphic design company based out of…well…Missoula. Valier will continue to thrive, but our focus has shifted more towards web application development and away from digital marketing over the years. We have long felt that joining a collective that includes local photography and video production pros would be a good move to expand our capabilities from a digital marketing perspective, and we were right. So far, we are blown away at the way our involvement with MMCO has elevated our digital marketing!

Digital Marketing is Collaborative / Three is Better Than One

At Missoula Media Company, website design, branding, and graphic design can become much more collaborative, with three media professionals at the helm:

Merritt Lentz – Graphic Design, Website Design, and Motion Graphics

Merritt is the founder of Valier and a veteran designer, developer, and graphic designer with over 13 years of professional experience in the industry. According to Merritt, Valier needed to break out of the bubble of working in remote offices and regular Zoom meetings. Valier’s relocation to Missoula, Montana served as the perfect transitional time to make this move, with our new offices located at 101 East Broadway Street – right in the vibrant beating heart of downtown Missoula. This new space with expansive views of the mountains serves as the home of Valier as well as Missoula Media Company.

Benjamin Zeimet – Videography and Photography

Ben is Missoula Media Company’s lead photographer and videographer, and simply put, his work takes all of our projects up 10 levels. Building a website with award winning photography and videography provided by Ben flat out changes the game. During a time where everyone can build a decent looking website, we are separating ourselves from the pack by providing rich media that is captivating and immersive. Additionally, we can now take on full video production projects, where Valier was limited to providing motion graphics and 3d modelling.

Nick Davis – Writing and Producing

Nick is Missoula Media Company’s producer and writer. Nick has an extensive background of over 20 years in video production, and is quite frankly the best producer in the region. His story telling drives branding projects forward into new and illuminating places, and bringing his writing skillset into the website design arena has been transformative in terms of elevating the quality of the content we can create. Nick’s passion for the outdoors and life in Montana has helped him to produce some amazing outdoor video projects, including this amazing video for Epic Montana:

What does this mean for existing Valier clients?

It means that you can now hire us for top-of-the-line video production, photography, and writing through our partnership with Missoula Media Company. Whether you are a locally-based business or one of our clients from around the globe, we would love to work with you remotely or travel to a filming location to create immersive rich media for your brand. To learn more about Missoula Media Company and the services we offer, or to ask for a quote, contact MMCO today!

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How to Choose a Logo Design that Fits Your Business

November 17, 2018

Picking a logo design can be tough. There are thousands upon thousands of font faces, color schemes and design styles to choose from, and it can be difficult to figure out which combination of these elements will create a winner. So where do you start?

I always recommend starting by finding some logo examples that you like. Regardless of the goals and style that your brand embodies, if you don’t love the logo, you won’t feel comfortable handing out your business card, driving past your sign, or branding company vehicles and clothing. There are a ton of great online resources for this, such as logopond.com. Browse through the website and pick out 3-10 logos that you really like, and try to identify what you like about them. Do you like the font? What about the color choices? Figuring this part out will help you establish a shared aesthetic with your logo designer and set the project on track for success.

Once you have identified the styles that fit your personal preference, it’s time to refer back to your mission statement to determine what message you would like your logo to convey. Your designer should be able to work through this process with you, which involves figuring out the four W’s of marketing; the “Who, What, Where, and Why” answers to questions that should be addressed as part of your marketing effort. Who will buy your products or services? What types of products or services will you be offering? Where do you expect to use your logo? What are your goals? Your logo needs to reflect your answers to these questions. For example, a logo for a motorcycle apparel company will likely be very different from a logo used by an online yoga channel for digital materials.

Once you have addressed the four W’s of marketing, its time to put your developer to work on creating concepts. They will use the information that you have provided during the previous steps to create a set of logo concepts that are meant to serve as the initial building blocks for the rest of the project. You might end up loving all of the designs, you might end up disliking all of them, but most of the time, you will end up liking some of the designs much more than others but will need to refine these concepts further. One important thing to remember is that this package will help to identify the winning logo design as much through the liked concepts as the disliked ones, as logo design can be very much a game of calculated deductive reasoning. I like to think of it as a competition among potential logo concepts to determine the winner.

This process reviewing batches of logo concepts will continue until you have found a logo that you love. Ideally, this only takes a few revisions but sometimes your designer will nail it right off the bat, and other times it will take a while. In my experience, the quality of the finished logo design isn’t affected by the number of iterations required to reach the finished product.