Are you familiar with Splashes of Hope? It’s a nonprofit foundation dedicated to transforming environments, and enriching and facilitating healing through artwork. Their team of mural artists has created projects for social service agencies and medical facilities around the globe with a special emphasis in New York State.
Recently one of our clients got splashed with a donation of several beautiful customized murals for their community mental heath center. The murals were painted by Splashes of Hope, which also created murals for New York Hospital Weill Cornell Medical Center, New York Tyree Learning Center of Sea Cliff and Mount Sinai Beth Israel, to name a few.
For more information (nonprofits only), contact Splashes of Hope or call (631) 424-8230.
The last few months have been all about updating our website and this news/blog section, the very one you’re on now. We hope you like the results! We started from scratch with a completely new design and all fresh copy to better focus on our expertise in the nonprofit world. We partnered with tech expert Erik Contzius and learned a lot about this ever-changing medium. We are ready to share the results of that learning with clients considering a major website overhaul.
> If you need help building a new website or updating a current one, give Lazzaro Designs a call or shoot us an email.
We just delivered the February edition of Gazette (shown top, right), the employee newsletter for St. John’s Episcopal Hospital. Customized employee newsletters function on several levels: They communicate important messages, such as reiterating service standards or building pride in the organization; they help employees know they are appreciated and recognized; and they serve as an internal marketing tool, since often hospital employees are patients, as well.
TIP: When we create employee newsletters we seek to mix in ongoing features that readers will appreciate and anticipate. Examples might include focusing on various departments (so what does Nuclear Medicine do and where are they located?), wellness corner (with the all-important fall reminder to get the flu shot), and thank you letters from grateful patients (who doesn’t like to be called out in a positive way?).
> If you need help creating or producing a newsletter, give Lazzaro Designs a call or shoot us an email.
Several years ago, Lazzaro Designs was retained to create what the client called an “annual report” for the Department of Orthopaedics at Beth Israel Medical Center. After an in-depth meeting where we asked questions and listened, we helped the client focus their attention on creating a major capabilities brochure, with all the impact and pizzaz of an annual, but without the “financials” that the word “annual” implies. We understood their needs were threefold: 1) drive patient referrals, 2) make a splash in the orthopedic community at large given their status as a renowned center of excellence, and 3) provide material for philanthropic giving. Here’s specifically what we did:
Voice: Lazzaro Designs organized the 36-page book primarily around the subdivisions with a hefty physician directory at the end. Our writer undertook the massive job of interviewing all the key players of each division and consolidating all the salient points into concise, professional, but accessible copy. She also wrote the tagline for the book that captured the department’s mission.
Vision: Maryellen created spreads that enticed with eye-popping design that relied on a savvy mix of photography, illustration and exciting use of color to reflect the dynamic department. She created a theme using a significant image or object for each spread to illustrate the subdivision—an xray image for joint reconstruction, various balls for sports medicine, a teddy bear for pediatrics. She also designed a stunning cover featuring the perfect anatomical illustration to convey the book’s thematic tagline: “Restoring movement, Repairing damage, Rebuilding bodies.”
Getting it Done: Lazzaro Designs project-managed the enormous effort, including coordinating the interview and approval processes. We also retained and coordinated the photographer for all the significant photos throughout the book, arranging and facilitating the individual physician appointments during a series of headshots days, and providing numerous on-site facilitation and art direction for all such efforts.
The client was thrilled with the impressive result, which had all the gravitas of an annual report, but a longer shelf life. For years, the department proudly used the book and witnessed a boost in referrals and donor dollars.
> If you need help creating a capabilities brochure or annual report, give Lazzaro Designs a call or shoot us an email.
