One day, one room, 16 creative minds, and 43 cards.

The Schindler Parent Creative Team SP CREAM met at the agency on a Saturday in January. 16 creative minds in a room. 43 cards on the programme. On the back of each card: a keyword about the agency, written in the corporate font, designed in the corporate design. On the front: its creative realization – wild as a bird – just as the whim takes us. The result: the SP cards as an expression of individual inventiveness.

But let’s start from the beginning: Until recently, every new employee at the agency received a manual, which contained explanations about how the company works from A to Z, where to find what and whom to talk to, if anything would be unclear. But since nothing remains as it is, this manual constantly needed to be updated, rewritten, and changed over the years. The text was reworked over and over by different copywriters, who yet missed one or the other keyword that had long lost all meaning, despite all the attention to detail.

Reason enough to make a decisive cut with the latest update and start something entirely new: the SP cards. The idea: creating a modular tool that can be partially updated if necessary instead of having to be reprinted completely. An instrument that not only describes the agency, but also conveys a certain spirit. The way we think. The way we design. The way we work.

The result were 42 motifs that are completely different in style and design. Created in one day, in one room, at one table. With music, apple chips, coffee, and cigarettes. Filmed, photographed, and documented. A feast for the eyes for everyone delving into it. Now the SP cards hang in postcard racks in our entrance area, waiting to be assembled into neat little boxes for new employees.

Even before their delivery, the SP cards have become a tool for employer branding: Not only by presenting the company in a creative form, but by the process of its creation itself: through lived corporate identity. An expression of corporate culture. This is unusual, too, for the whole creative team to spend a weekend together working in one room. That was team building at its finest. The next task is already waiting for the team.

At the same time, the SP cards have been received with enthusiasm at a completely different place. The printing company we asked to print the cards for us liked the idea so much, that they wanted the same for themselves.

More information is available from:

Christoph Siwek

Creative consulting/group leader text
Christoph.siwek@schindlerparent.de