The visual language of graphic design is an essential component to the success of these projects. Working with multifaceted clientele helps make the case that SPYN studio can visually communicate cultural design with BACKBONE.
Comida 2017, is the 4th Annual Latin Culinary Arts Experience.
Comida is Kansas City’s first Culinary Arts event that showcases the cuisines of Latin America, Brazil, & Spain. The event includes visiting celebrity chefs, local chefs, restaurateurs, and cutting edge mixologists.
Comida educates the community about the diversity and variety of Latin cultures through unique cuisines, specialty cocktails, visual and performing arts.
Event proceeds benefit the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Greater Kansas City (HCCGKC) and educational programs of the Greater Kansas City Hispanic Collaborative (GKCHC), the HCCGKC’s 501c3 sister organization.
Comida attracts over 600 guests including community leaders, professionals, and corporate sponsors from the Greater Kansas City region.
About the Initiative
The campaign included the following marketing communications tactics based on the project, collateral design/development, community meetings and events, website design/development, and Public Relations. Scope of work, research and budget contributed to the customized strategy that was designed, developed and executed for this project. See enclosed visual and printed presentation.
Bleeding Brown was a visual advocacy initiative centered on the Latino community. The project’s focus areas were around the issues of racism, inequality, economics, prejudice, teen pregnancy, and varying issues that hinder the acceptance of Latino culture in America. With the significant growth of Latinos throughout the Nation, it was important to begin to identify the current issue within the Greater Kansas City bi-state region. The purpose was to generate awareness around current and/or ongoing challenges; spur community conversations; demystify cultural and ethnic assumptions and “truths”; and bring focus to instigate solutions.
SPYN’s approach to the project was to create a new view to the subject matter through participatory art. The concept used images and stories to bring communities together. The project design was created to highlight all the varying voices and images of “Latino” with subliminal messaging that allowed the audience to derive a well-informed opinion of wide-spanned, complex ethnic group’s human spirit. This allowed the audience of the printed collateral and artwork to participate in the experience they were reading and viewing, and provided them with a platform to gain personal confidence within themselves through this intimate participation others that were not like them or were very much like them. The project lent to self-discovery, open-mindedness and overall education by demystifying uninformed perception, while allowing everyone’s inner artist learn to do for themselves as well as for others.
Bleeding Brown was an ADDY Award winning project, and had a successful public relations campaign.
The Kansas City Museum is proud to announce that it is one of ten partner organizations in the United States to participate in “Latinos and Baseball: In the Barrios and the Big Leagues,” a multiyear collecting initiative launched by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. The initiative will identify artifacts that reflect the social and cultural influence of the game on Latino communities. A press release from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History was issued in January. A press release from the Kansas City Museum was issued on July 12, 2016.
The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History is seeking to document stories from across the U.S. and Puerto Rico and plans to collect a number of objects that could include baseball equipment, stadium signs and game memorabilia, as well as food vendor signs, home movies, period photographs, and more. Curators will select objects based on the stories they represent as well as insight into personal, community, and national narratives involving the national pastime. The goal of the Smithsonian’s collecting initiative is to work towards the development of a traveling exhibition centered on Latinos and baseball by 2020.
“Baseball has played a major role in everyday American life since the 1800s, providing a means of celebrating both national and ethnic identities and building communities,” John Gray, Director of the National Museum of American History, said. “Through the lens of baseball, the Smithsonian seeks to illuminate the rich history and culture of Latinos and their impact on American culture and society.”
“I am excited to be involved with the partnership of the Kansas City Museum and the Smithsonian National Museum of American History to tell the story of Mexican Americans and other Latinos in baseball,” Dr. Gene T. Chávez, Curator for the Kansas City Museum, said. “Kansas City has long been a baseball town, and Latinos have had a tremendous role in the game. It is time to share their contributions with the nation.” Kansas City Museum Executive Director Anna Marie Tutera said, “With Kansas City’s World Series status and the new Urban Youth Academy in Parade Park under development thanks to the Kansas City Royals and the Kansas City Power & Light, the Kansas City Museum is proud to showcase Kansas City through this new partnership with the Smithsonian. Our 2015 exhibition, Mexican American Fast Pitch Softball Leagues: Connecting Communities Across State Lines, has inspired us to contribute local stories to a national narrative.”
The En Vivo Latino Music Festival comes to the Kansas City Live Block in the Kansas City Power & Light District on Sunday, August 21st! Featuring La Santa Cecilia and special guests Maria The Mexican, Tekila, La Fonda All Stars, Tropical Azul, DJ Jalapeno, DJ 151, DJ Khadi, DJ Hawk and DJ Sal Cruz. En Vivo is a celebration of music, culture and living lively! Enjoy a full day of great DJ’s and bands, food and cocktails, games and more! Presented by Miller Lite and the KC Live! Block.
About the Conference / Lecture
The campaign included the following marketing communications tactics based on project goals, social media, collateral design/development, community meetings and events, website design/development, product design/development, and Public Relations. Scope of work, research and budget contributed to the customized strategy that was designed, developed and executed for this project. See enclosed visual and printed presentation.
The Kansas City Museum and National Trust for Historic Preservation had interest in creating a communications campaign that would help further their research of the diverse cross-section of Latinos in the following categories: Spanish-speaking, only; Latino Spanish-speaking, only with limited English comprehension; Spanish-speaking/ Bilingual, Spanish preferred with English comprehension; Spanish-speaking/Bilingual (Spanish and/or English, preferred); and Non-Spanish speaking/English-speaking only communities in Kansas City, Mo. and Kansas City, Kan. The Latino communities ranged from Latino newcomer to Latino third-generation and beyond demographic groups, which included a diverse mix of assimilated and acculturated cultural groups. spyn custom-designed a digital marketing bi-state campaign that sent a call-to-action throughout the diverse Latino communities throughout the region, inviting them to the table for a “Kansas City Conversation.” The project had one overarching goal: to understand how an ethnic group made up of varying backgrounds, experiences and cultures (…within a culture) felt about preserving their communities. To being the conversation, the client wanted to know the cohorts to explain what the word “community” meant to them and how they wanted the be involved.
Based on the client’s research goals and spyn’s involvement and experience in Greater Kansas City’s Latino landscape, spyn was recruited to plan and execute a research-driven multicultural/grassroots communications campaign. spyn’s strategic tactical approach was to target the projects cohorts through a creative visual communications strategy that could speak universally to the entire cross-section of cohorts whether they ranged from Spanish-speaking, only to Non-Spanish speaking/English-speaking only, assimilated or acculturated. The method chosen combined a micro-site for registration, a printed collateral system and an electronic communication, utilizing e-mail and Internet marketing. There was more than an 80 percent response from the targeted cohort group through the email marketing and web registration efforts.
After the success of the Kansas City Conversacion project, the Nuestra Herancia America project was quickly developed, and spyn was brought on board. The project’s message was to promote the research and lecture series of Danial Serda, PhD. and Gene Chavez, EdD. The lecture series topic celebrated the American heritage and the history of Mexicans in Kansas City, Kansas through research data and demographics, historical photography and raw video interviews. spyn’s renewed strategic approach was to create a digital communications piece that would resonate throughout the Greater Kansas City, dovetailing off the success of the project’s first-phase approach and success through email marketing and a three-page micro-site. The success led to the Nuestra Herancia council and a Latino artifact collection initiative for the Kansas City Museum. spyn introduced Ed Reyes, editor of Dos Mundos, a local bilingual weekly community newspaper, to the project leaders, which led to the development of a mid-america Latino archive, as Mr. Reyes donated 30 years of Dos Mundos newspapers and photography to the Kansas City Museum and National Trust for Historic Preservation’s for the Nuestra Herancia initiative.
About the Initiative
Our Goal of Nuestra Herencia | Our Heritage is to assemble, preserve, and make accessible a collection of diverse materials that document Kansas City’s Hispanic | Latino/a communities.
The project enhances the Museum’s capacity to sensitively and respectfully research and represent the lives of Latino/a Kansas Citians throughout the city’s 200+ year history.
Collected materials and any oral history originals will be housed by the Museum according to professional archival and museum standards in environmentally-controlled physical facilities. All Museum activities are pursued in accordance with its mission, plans, policies and procedures in regards to collection development, collections management, fund-raising, interpretive public programming and research access. The Museum provides professional staff for the care, preservation and exhibition of the collections.
