The Elevation Blog

Welcome, adventurer! The Elevation Blog is where we share our expertise and experience to help you unleash your creativity and soar higher. Learn about the techniques, strategies, and skills that are needed to take your creative to the next level. Create content that engages your audience, furthers your goals, and elevates your brand.

Who said hard work shouldn't also be fun?

The Power of Visual Identity: More Than Meets the Eye

Visual identity is one of the most crucial aspects of building a strong brand. Let’s face ...

How AI Inspired Elevation to Create the 2023 Promax Awards Opening Sequence

This week, the 2023 Promax North & Latin America Awards celebrated innovation, ...

5 Street Artists Pioneering the Future of Design | People & Artifacts

So far in People & Artifacts - A Design Deep Dive, we’ve focused on mainstream ...

Branding vs Marketing - 4 crucial differences you need to know

Curious about the difference between branding and marketing? Even though many people use ...

5 Ways AI Can Boost Your Branding

Sorry, Hot Topic, but AI has been the hot topic this year. It turns out topical graphic ...

Mission Mastery: How to write a mission statement to elevate your brand

How do you write a great mission statement? Whether you’re building a brand from scratch ...

Brand Orbit Through Strategic Content | Elevation's Guide to Brand Building Part 3

Do you know what really takes branding to the next level? An engaged audience.

5 Designers Who Redefined Brand Identity | People & Artifacts

When it comes to branding, identity is everything.

Building a Brand Core | Elevation's Guide to Brand Building Part 1

A skyscraper needs a sturdy foundation. A towering oak needs deep roots. A Crunchwrap ...

Should Writers use AI tools like ChatGPT?

I'm James Grosch, and I'm a writer at Elevation. I've seen a lot of new technologies hit ...

The Dynamics of Brand Ownership: How Brands and Customers Co-Create Value

This post written by Elevation's Creative Strategy Director, Brett Rakestraw, was ...

Elevation's Guide to Brand Building

How do you build a great brand?

How to Stay Curious: The Rise of AI Image Generation

This post written by Elevation's Director of Strategy, Brett Rakestraw, was originally ...

Meta-virtual worlds: An overview of The Sandbox

Any definition of the eventual metaverse includes the emergence of 3D modeled virtual ...

Meta-virtual worlds: An overview of Decentraland

The first question that comes up when discussing the metaverse is generally, “what is the ...

5 Influential Typographers of the Last Century | People & Artifacts

This moment wouldn’t be possible right now without typography.

The dawn of great AI image creation is here. What does it mean for the future of design?

When I saw the early tests for AI image generation using text prompts, I was both excited ...

6 Designers Who Changed Magazines Forever | People & Artifacts

Magazines are one of the most influential mediums in design. Since the publication of the ...

Building a web3 native brand: A deep dive into Doodles

When the NFT craze began to take off in the spring of 2021, most people didn’t know that ...

How to Receive Feedback Like a Creative Professional

Feedback is one of the most important aspects of a creative partnership. I’ve already ...

The Keys to Giving Effective Creative Feedback

When it comes to creative partnerships, there are many skills that are necessary for ...

How Brands Are Getting NFTs Right

It’s been just over a year since the digital artist known as Beeple sold an NFT for $69 ...

Glossary of Metaverse & Web3 Terms

AirDrop An airdrop, in the cryptocurrency world, is a marketing tactic that involves ...

4 Tips to Help Your Presentation Take Flight

In school, most kids would grumble when the teacher would assign a presentation. While ...

Style Over Realism: The Latest 3D Animation Trend

We are on the other side of the uncanny valley.

Nostalgia Branding: Bridging the Past and the Future

This post written by Elevation's Creative Strategy Director, Brett Rakestraw, was ...

5 Fonts Every Designer Needs to Know

I love fonts. Currently, Font Book on my Mac says that I have 1,419 fonts on my computer. ...

Art + the Brain: How Mental Health and Creativity are Connected

For creatives, we may not be thinking about how the art we are creating or engaging with ...

M&M Mascot Mess: 3 Rebranding Lessons to Help You Find the Sweet Spot

M&M’s made a mess last week, and for once it’s not because I dropped some in the seat ...

Purpose-Driven Advertising: How Brands Are Rethinking Social Media

The trend of purpose-driven advertising has been on the rise for a few years now and is ...

Looking Ahead: Advertising Trends in 2022

2021 has been the year of digital resilience. The global pandemic changed the advertising ...

10 Questions to Ask Before Your Rebrand

There are two constants in business: change and rebrands.

Reasons Why Company Culture Matters For Your Branding

The world of branding and marketing creativity is pretty special. Since we deal in the ...

Brands and Marketing in the Metaverse - Part 4: Brand Activations

In part two of our series, we covered commerce in the metaverse. In part three, we talked ...

How the Metaverse Will Transform the Event Industry

The metaverse is here, and it is already making huge waves. From art to gaming to sports ...

Brands and Marketing in the Metaverse - Part 3: Community

Right now, we are building the infrastructure for the metaverse. Not just the hardware ...

How to Take Your Style to the Next Level

Ok. So you’ve come to a realization. Your design could be better. Maybe you’re working on ...

Brands and Marketing in the Metaverse - Part 2: Commerce

The rise of the digital age has brought with it massive growth in countless industries ...

Brands and Marketing in the Metaverse - Part 1: Overview

Welcome to the first installment in our 4 part series on the metaverse, and how it’s ...

25 Lessons from 25 Years of Outdaring Gravity at Elevation

This year marks the 25th anniversary of Elevation. Founded in 1996 by Stephen Cocks, the ...

The Best Brand Integrations from the 2020 Olympics

If you keep up with my blog posts, then you know I’m a big fan of disruptive ideas and ...

Web3 Is Coming - What Does It Mean For Brands

This post written by Elevation's Creative Strategy Director, Brett Rakestraw, was ...

How to Create a Killer Content Strategy for Your Event

Your venue is booked. Your speaker lineup is set. Your tickets are selling. It looks like ...

How To Grow Your Brand Through Creative Partnerships

When it comes to building a sustainable brand, it’s good to have friends. A unique brand ...

Wide Format and Beyond: Breaking Past 16x9 Video To Make a Big Impact

1,920 pixels wide. 1,080 pixels tall. If you work with video, there’s a comfort to seeing ...

A Brand Walks Into a Bar - The Use of Humor in Branding

The Funny Thing About Funny Things Humor is one of our most fundamental forms of ...

In Brand Building, "Moments" Still Matter

There’s a great essay called “1,000 True Fans” that makes an interesting point: as a ...

How To Set a Project Up For Success

The First Law of Mentat: “A process cannot be understood by stopping it. Understanding ...

Five Ways Virtual Spaces are Transforming the Future

It seems like “virtual” has become the most ubiquitous adjective of the last year. ...

Four Things You Must Consider When Planning a Hybrid Event

When will things get back to normal? That’s a question we’re all too familiar with these ...

Evergreen Design Trends

Trends have been coming and going since the beginning of time. From bell bottom jeans to ...

Is Audio Taking Over Social Media

What’s That Sound? It would appear that the newest technology flooding the internet, and ...

What is Integrated Marketing?

Advertising is Based On _____________ Integrated Marketing is a bold, amorphous term (an ...

NFTs and Your Brand

And Then There Were NFTs If you take nothing else from this post, take this. The pace of ...

Elevation Glossary of Creative Terms

The creative industry is loaded with acronyms, sayings, phrases, and words that can seem ...

How to Promote Your Brand on TikTok

It is becoming increasingly clear that TikTok is taking over the social world. Although ...

Why Storytelling is Always the Future

If there’s anything true about people, it’s that we love stories. We eat them up. They ...

A Guide to Brand Archetypes

Anyone involved with branding knows that we are well past the era where knowledge of a ...

The Strategy of Style

To paraphrase Charles Bukowski, “Style is everything.” It is the non-verbal clues that ...

Rebrand vs. Brand Refresh

While the terms rebranding and a brand refresh are sometimes used interchangeably, we ...

How to Translate Your Brand's Story Into Content

As children, we learn stories. We connect with, and become characters in them. As we grow ...

4 Keys to a Successful Creative Partnership

Creative partnerships between a studio and a brand go together like peanut butter and ...

Marketing: How we move forward

There's no doubt every industry has been a rollercoaster ride in 2020, but if you work in ...

The Elevation Guide to Best Practices for After Effects Toolkits

We are big believers in toolkits. Toolkits give clients the ability to independently ...

Creating 3D Environments in Game-Changing Speed with Unreal Engine

As designers, it’s crucial for us to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to new and ...

A Zoom Call With the GOAT (Tom Brady): The ABC Virtual Upfront

Over the years, we’ve worked with many networks designing and producing upfront ...

Lights, Camera, COVID Safety Checks... Action!

No one can deny that we’re seeing some great innovations in the way of live action ...

6 Storytelling Strategies from a Screenwriter

Storytelling has become a trend. With books like Storynomics, Stories That Stick, and ...

Best Practices for Safe Live Action Shoots

One of the greatest challenges the entertainment and advertising industries face moving ...

The Future of Real-Time Animation is Here

Chances are that you already have the software for instantaneous character animation ...

4 Lessons From the Making of a Toy Commercial

Four serious lessons from a not-so-serious commercial.

Remotely Producing a Major Broadcast Spot

How we helped ABC and Toyota adjust their plans on the fly and say goodbye to Modern ...

Uncertainty Calls for Empathy and Creativity

How to shift your strategy in uncertain times.

The Essential Guide to Elevating Your Digital Events

We love events. There’s something inspiring and uniting about people gathering from all ...

Substituting Live Action for Design and Animation

Have to cancel your shoot? Desperate times call for creative measures. Here’s our guide ...