Employee Retreat (Rookie) Trading Cards
by Jennifer Flaks
title
Employee Retreat (Rookie) Trading Cards
agency
Flaks Studio
client
Riveron
Submission by
Jennifer Flaks
Project Lead
Jennifer Flaks / Creative Director/Lead Designer
Contributors
Jessica Stetson, Production Artist Arden Paugh, Production Artist AlphaGraphics, Printer
Riveron came to Flaks Studio in need of a creative networking solution for the company’s first in-person employee event since the pandemic began. Together, Flaks Studio and the client conceived and collaborated on the idea of custom trading cards, complete with attendee contact information,* expertise, specializations and fun facts, which could be traded and circulated throughout the event between employees from across the country.
The client was extremely enthusiastic about the concept, and we quickly got to work designing a “rookie card” template that could be customized for the 140+ attendees, pairing fun photography and eye-catching graphics with the client’s existing branding and color palette. We further elevated the cards by creating a badge-style emblem that would be used to highlight the event’s host city, in this instance, Scottsdale, Arizona.
This innovative design “knocked it out of the park” by combining the childhood excitement of trading baseball cards on the schoolyard to connecting professionals at a national conference, creating a truly one-of-a-kind experience and establishing a design tradition that can be replicated annually.
*All personally identifiable information has been changed to protect the privacy of the individuals displayed on the original designs.
Jennifer Flaks
The Arizona design community continues to nourish me creatively and boost me professionally. Flaks Studio hired its first full-time employee this past year, a recent NAU graduate, a feat that would have likely been much more laborious without the the support of many of the local design leaders with whom I have cultivated relationships over the past few years, offering mentorship, operational guidance, and even client referrals. As a developng business, we depend on our links to top creative talent through the state's world-class higher education institutions, working with three interns from NAU and ASU. And it's not just our access to top talent; but it is also the support systems and broad ecosystem found here that continues to excite my clients and me. We've connected our clients to Arizona-based print shops; we've hired local vendors, including a web development company to develop the new Flaks Studio website; and we've forged partnerships with other design-allied service providers to expand our service offerings to include motion graphics, copywriting and brand strategy. Arizona offers everything a design firm, like mine, needs to lauch, grow and scale. I feel blessed to be be part of the Arizona design community, and Arizona will always be the home to Flaks Studio.