As an organization that sees itself as an integral part of the public trust, Minnesota Public Radio was in search of new ways to strengthen its connection and relevance to listeners across the state and beyond for both its News vertical.
We leveraged audience and cultural research to deliver a Creative Platform built around the core concept of “Listen + Be Heard.”
Grounded in an enriching, shared community voice, bold geometric patterns, and a vibrantly expanded color palette, the Creative Platform embodies community and diversity in interconnected visual elements, documentary photography, and by centering the voices of the audience alongside the vertical’s established journalistic expertise.
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As someone who grew up in a public radio household, I was excited to get the chance to work on this project. It was incredible to work with a team at MPR who were not invested in the project’s success but in pushing both us and themselves to create something that could capture new audiences not by chasing trends but by more deeply understanding who they were and who they can become.
Over the course of more than two years, we worked closely with Mayo Clinic and their partners on both internal and external communications as they prepared to launch a decade-long initiative called “Bold. Forward. Unbound. in Rochester” that is poised to revolutionize the delivery of health care and remake the world-famous hospital’s downtown campus in Rochester.
Our work encompassed teaser videos and an internal website for employees, as well as proposals for physically activating spaces around campus and downtown. With new office space set aside for the working teams from Mayo and partners including PR firms, architects, and others, we designed the look and feel of the new fourth floor of the Harwick building, including signage and naming conventions for conference rooms.
Additionally, we were brought in to help with the naming of a new care concept with the working name “Peri-hospital,” eventually settling on the name “HALO (High Acuity LOngitudinal) Care.”
Following on the success we had with crafting a Creative Platform for MPR News with a fresh approach ahead of the 2022 election season, American Public Media asked us to work on the YourClassical vertical as it made the transition to a digital-first platform — a test case for doing the same for their other verticals.
Seeking to understand the world of current and future classical audiences, we landed on three key areas to focus on: sharing stories, providing trusted guidance, and cultivating engaged communities. YourClassical could connect to the human, lived experiences of its audience across multiple digital spaces by focusing on the human, lived experiences of the classical music world. This resulted in a Creative Platform built around the concept “Bringing Music to Life.”
With a voice that’s knowledgable, approachable, inquisitive and grounded in today, and a visual approach built from a refreshed palette and a geometric mosaic pattern linked thematically to the look of MPR News, the Creative Platform sets YourClassical up to meet audiences where they are and reward their curiosity with new discoveries daily.
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The genre of classical music has devoted fans, but it’s a vanishingly small slice of the overall music industry. Its deep history also brings with it plenty of baggage about thorny issues like colonialism, white male supremacy, and other landmines of current discourse. YourClassical came into the project already working to place a greater emphasis on minority representation, but messaging around that required striking just the right balance. Ultimately, we knew we had to invite listeners on a journey — a ride they could get on and off of when they chose, but that could also reveal brand new worlds if they came along for it.
Naviguard came to us looking for a video that could clearly lay out the benefits they can provide in helping to avoid and settle out-of-network hospital bills. It wasn’t easy to boil down the intricacies of their work, but with close collaboration we were able to craft a script, design animation storyboards and deliver a final product that over-delivered.
Full script:
Navigating the health care landscape isn’t always simple. What’s in your network and what’s out-of-network? What’s covered? It can all get a bit … complex.
On top of that, an out-of-network medical bill you’re not expecting can disrupt your world.
It can come on the heels of difficult personal or family situations, and may make you feel frustrated and helpless in a complicated system.
Health care might not be simple, but with Naviguard on your side, you’ll get the support you need to you need in understanding your out-of-network bills and in resolving them with your provider so you can focus on your life, while we focus on the bill.
We believe better information leads to better outcomes, and with our decades of network experience and unrivaled data, we are there for you when you need it most. And we make it easy by guiding you and staying connected throughout the process.
Naviguard has resolved thousands of cases with a customized and personal approach.
Naviguard can help you manage out-of-network medical expenses so you can focus on your health.
For more information on how Naviguard can help, talk to your health insurance representative orand visit our website at naviguard.com.
Naviguard. Connecting the dots.
As an important part of the Twin Cities business landscape, but with a distinct mission and approach that sets it apart from its coastal brethren, Opus College of Business was in search of a way to understand what the business education landscape of tomorrow would look like, and how they could both adapt to and influence that vision of the future.
As a strategic and creative team, we tackled this by seeking to understand business students today while looking 15 years into the future at how the world might change. With a combination of research and interviews, we outlined different possible visions of this future and presented them to a mix of faculty and staff in a daylong session that would help them see it for themselves.
Following the session we distilled our findings alongside feedback from participants and presented them to the dean of the college, Laura Dunham, including a new mission for the school: “Make the minds leading tomorrow.”
Mni Sota Mortgage Co. launched in the spring of 2024 as a new part of the services that Urban Native CDFI Mni Sota Fund provides to Indigenous communities in the Twin Cities and beyond.
Since its founding, Mni Sota Fund has provided financial education and home-buying classes for the Native community, but would always have to pass buyers off to larger banks at some point in the process.
MSF approached us in hopes of creating a sub-brand that could connect with the right audience and while keeping the entire home-buying process under one roof, so to speak.
We dug deep into landscape research both in the mainstream financial world and in Indigenous culture to understand what kind of value and story could connect best with their audience.
Land o’ Lakes needed editorial content to create a series centered on the future of rural life in America.
I was tasked with delving into the ways that broadband is connecting communities and opening up opportunities for entrepreneurship in places from small town Vermont to farming communities in the Midwest.
Minnesota United joined MLS in 2017, but it wasn’t until 2019 that they made the MLS Playoffs for the first time. Coming into the league at the same time as the high-spending, glamorous and immediately successful Atlanta United (playoffs in 2017, MLS champs in 2018), MNUFC had flown under the radar through two often disappointing seasons.
So when they at last broke through in 2019, they needed a playoff campaign that aligned with their Midwestern personality. Who better to bring that uniquely nonchalant swagger than South Minneapolis’ own Slug from Atmosphere?
I had played guitar with Atmosphere for a few shows at one point, so it was a treat to get to reconnect with Slug, working to get his voice into the script and collaborating with him on delivery during the recording of the video.
My only regret is that Minnesota United couldn’t make it past the first round.
One of the last projects I worked on at Zeus Jones was shaping this interview with brand innovator Joy Howard into an article for the company’s Substack, Within Sight — which I also named.
Howard’s broad experience in reimagining and refining brands through a cultural lens comes through here, and she draws on her history with Converse, Nike, Patagonia and Sonos with warmth and humor and buckets of enthusiasm.
It’s always an exciting opportunity when I get to combine various elements of my own background in producing work. In this case, bringing together my journalism and broader writing backgrounds with firsthand experience of working with brands on unearthing human truths and creating paths forward.
