PROFILE: STUDIO1011
OWNERS: Finn and Janie Yonkers
TYPE OF BUSINESS: Design firm
LOCATION: 150 Chestnut St., Providence
EMPLOYEES: 6
YEAR ESTABLISHED: 2000
ANNUAL SALES: WND
Studio1011 is a design firm of diverse capabilities.
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From trade show exhibits, to Web-site creation, to interactive and multimedia products, to branding campaigns, to print communication, it does its best to help clients reach their target markets, wherever they may be.
The firm has evolved since owners Finn and Janie Yonkers started it in their studio apartment in Boston in 2000. In the beginning, it focused mostly on trade show exhibit design, something Finn had been doing since 1993.
As the company grew, so did its capabilities, he said. And exhibit design became an opening that let them use their design capabilities in other ways. It is one reason Studio1011 is able to integrate multiple marketing approaches for each client.
For example, when Studio1011 creates a virtual product demonstration for an exhibit, that product demo can also be posted onto the client’s Web site or used by sales staff for marketing purposes – something that is not necessarily a given in today’s marketplace.
Often, Studio1011 will create interactive polls, for a trade show exhibit, which generate information to be used by the client or to further develop the company’s capabilities.
“The content [of each exhibit] is modular,” Yonkers said, and that allows the firm to reposition a client’s products and services for other target markets.
The fact that the content is reusable makes it cost-effective for clients, he said. “Fiscally, you’re getting the most out of your investment.”
Studio1011 is not above using fun to help clients get their messages across. For example, in an exhibit the company designed for a global pharmaceutical company promoting a drug for asthma, Studio1011 combined voice-over technology with 3D animation and video game technology to create a virtual trivia game for doctors.
As the doctors answered asthma trivia questions in the game correctly, they could proceed to the next level. For each correct answer a balloon would launch from an airway-like structure in the center of a group of kiosks. Where the balloon popped, on a bull’s-eye-like panel above the kiosks, would determine the score.
“We make it engaging,” Yonkers said. “That’s how you reach them.”
That engagement often begins before the trade show, with an “e-vite” that might contain the combination to a locker within the client’s exhibit, where show attendees can store their freebies and personal items.
At the show, Studio1011 uses the interactive surveys, or special effects such as the balloon-popping game, to keep attendees coming back to the exhibit, Yonkers said.
And afterward, the engagement follows attendees back to their homes, usually in the form of an interactive CD, which might contain a virtual 3D replica of the exhibit’s architecture, along with other content.
About 50 percent of Studio1011’s client base is large, usually national or global companies. The other half is small, generally regional companies.
The design firm does not focus on one particular industry, though it has developed expertise in the health care, automotive, energy, telecom and technology fields.
Yonkers said Studio1011 caters to multiple industries and various-sized companies because doing so exposes the designers to new trends. From that exposure,they develop new techniques that can be used across their entire client base.
“Most firms have a static process that they use to develop solutions,” Yonkers said. “Ideas are generated the same way each time, resulting in solutions that are predictable.”
But because of the company’s varied experience, he said, Studio1011 uses the brand and corporate culture of the client to inspire the process, helping them use their tools to create fresh solutions for their clients.
Since moving to Rhode Island in 2002 for personal reasons, Yonkers said, the company has prospered, with revenue increasing by 40 percent between 2004 and 2005. And in 2006, Studio1011’s client base tripled.
He said he attributes that growth to Studio1011’s expanding capabilities. Now that the company can provide exhibit design, along with Web design, print design and branding development, it can offer more to existing clients and to new clients.
Repeat business and word-of-mouth referrals also contribute to the growth, Yonkers said. So has opening themselves to working with smaller clients.
“As they grow, we grow with them,” he said. “They know we understand their brand.”
Additional information about Studio1011 is available at www.studio1011.com.
