Most days I just feel spoiled. Less than two blocks away from TIG’s front door lies one of Holland’s greatest assets—The Eighth Street Market Place. At 11:30 on Wednesdays it’s nearly impossible to find anyone at their desk, because it’s then that we meander down 8th Street to hit up the Holland Farmer’s Market!

It is awesome.

And here is why:

(for reasons beyond the obvious—amazingly fresh, high-quality food and the opportunity to contribute to the local economy.)

1. Lunch with coworkers at Ray’s (The Tamale King)
2. Crane Dance Farm’s heirloom eggs
3. You can spy on local chef’s purchasing produce for the evening special
4. Love Buzz organic coffee from Lemonjello’s
5. Run into friends
6. Free Good Life Granola samples
7. A single stem Dhalia that instantly cures any sign of a bad day
8. A lovely street bustling with happy people
9. The Great Bread Company’s no-preservatives, multi-grain bread
10. Beautiful food stuff that’s straight from the earth
11. Carrots that will blow your mind
12. An opportunity to meet your farmers—some very kind, knowledgeable and important people.

A big thank you to the City of Holland and all those who contribute to make the Holland Farmer’s Market such a success. It’s an incredibly high-quality market that substantially increases quality of life for the city’s residents and workers!

TheImageGroup had the opportunity to spend four days on the campus of Grace College last week. Our mission was lofty — acquire photos of, academic information for and a short testimonial from every student on campus. At the end of our trip, we walked away with 407 individual student images, a database full of information and enough video b-roll to get us through this video and the next few. It was an amazing team effort! But that wasn’t the best part. The best part was who we met at Grace…

Nancy

Nancy works in the advancement office and, we would say, is the heartbeat of the College. Her helpful sprit, energy, passion for Grace and love for every student on the campus, carried us all week long.

Fredrick

Fredrick is an aspiring filmmaker who took one look at us and wanted to watch, to learn and to help in any way he could. He carried equipment, offered suggestions, and even convinced Scott to let him use his brand new camera to capture some b-roll. His thirst for information and passion were inspiring. And, at then end of a long week, his passion helped fuel ours.

Clown Kid

For the photo shoot, we first asked the students for a regular, smile-at-the-camera pose. For second one, we wanted the students to be creative. For the record, there is creative and then there is creative. That was John. Students like John, who love life and love their college, fill us with insights into what Grace is all about.

So thanks, Nancy, Fredrick, John, and the 400+ faculty, staff and students we spent four great days with. For working alongside us, smiling for the camera and teaching us everything we needed to know about Grace.

Ambrose takes place every Thursday afternoon during the regular school year where local students gather at the Holland Area Arts Council. What does a normal Ambrose gathering look like? “Every week is different,” says founder Adam Weiler. While at The Image Group, the students will tour the space and view portfolio pieces. They’ll also learn about project management, the different roles within the agency, and discuss what it means for communication to impact culture – worldwide.

Weiler explains “These youth are discussing personal and generational issues while developing creative projects on a weekly basis.” Topics covered while the students brainstorm are meant to challenge them to think critically about the world around them. The students encounter “compassion, love, self expression, and acceptance,” says Weiler, and it’s compassion and moral discovery that Ambrose hopes to elucidate to its youth through the medium of art.

Nic Phent, a Senior at West Ottawa High School, says that even though he wants to study music after school, the lessons learned in these cooperative artistic undertakings will allow him to think critically about the creative process. “When we all collaborated to paint an art mural for a local business,” said Phent, “it was like the visual form of jamming with a band. You begin to feel the rhythm and everything just comes together.”

Ultimately, Weiler says the experience at Ambrose will allow these students to pursue their own creative passions. By exposing them to technical, business, money management, and communication skills, Weiler hopes the students will succeed no matter what they choose to do.

See up-to-date information on their website or follow them on twitter.

The conference will feature keynote speakers James Bradford from James Bradford Research and Don Seymour from Don Seymour & Associates. Bradford will be addressing “The Slow March to Healthcare Reform” while Seymour will discuss “How Fundamental Economics, Clinical Innovation and IT will Reshape the Healthcare Delivery Model.” There will also be two breakout sessions held in the afternoon.

If you’d like to attend the conference, please visit http://www.mshpm.org/index.php to sign-up. Or, you can follow us on our Twitter feeds to read about the conference while it’s happening.

• Dayna Beal: @daynabeal
• Lyndsie Post: @Adia815
• Steve DePuys: @stevefromtig

The Grand Dance. Nessie. The Sharing Tree (also known as “Woody”).

The Grand Dance is a kinetic sculpture in the middle of the Grand River. Nessie is a giant Loch Ness Monster that’s anchored to the Blue Bridge just feet away from The Grand Dance. The Sharing Tree, located in Cathedral Square, is a 20-foot high steel and cement sculpture of a tree holding a giant kaleidoscope.

These art pieces, plus over a thousand more, decorate the streets and buildings of downtown Grand Rapids, MI. Thousands of people are flocking downtown to see, explore, discuss and imagine. And, last Wednesday, 9/23, The Image Group took the afternoon off and made our own pilgrimage to downtown GR to check out the sights and sounds.

We were in awe. From the giant whale made of clay at WMCAT to the bricolage mural at the Children’s Museum to the moose sculpture made entirely of welded steel nails at the B.O.B. We could see and feel the energy that ArtPrize brought to Grand Rapids. It was tangible. And electric.

One piece in particular that caught our attention was “The Veiled Narrative” by Armin Mersmann. It is a series of narrative pencil drawings on acid free illustration board. The incredible attention to detail and intricate lines captivate the viewer’s attention and doesn’t let go. Each narrative holds an entire story with the interpretation dependent solely on the viewer.

We encourage everyone to visit ArtPrize if they get a chance. Bring the family and spend the day. It will inspire the imagination and create a dialog with others that may never have occurred before.

ArtPrize is the world’s largest art competition with $450,000 in prizes. To find out more visit www.artprize.org

Photos from our visit to ArtPrize are available on our Flickr feed.

Check out a few more photos of the day >

Last Wednesday, the entire agency took the day off… together.

We started off working at a local Habitat for Humanity house, ate lunch on the patio of Boatwerks overlooking beautiful Lake Macatawa and then spent the afternoon playing games, kayaking and just enjoying the summer sun along the lakeshore. If any of you are from Michigan, you know the sun has been lacking this summer — so we were extremely pumped by the great 75 degree not-a-cloud-in-the-sky weather.

It was a refreshing change of pace to have all 24 of us working on the same project and joining forces for the good of someone else. And, it is always good to talk about things other than work. Sure, client-talk comes up, but for 8 hours it was all about the team and not the work. There were stories, laughter, competition and a lot of paint.

So, in true David Letterman fashion, here is my top ten list from the TIG Team Day 2009:

You know you are at a TIG outing when…

10. Every car has at least one kayak on the roof.
9. You send the pregnant TIG-er on a donut/coffee run and it takes 3 hours because she had to go to the office and finish a project first.
8. “Rain-drops on Roses” plays over and over in your head because Andrea and Matt keep repeating it.
7. Dayna answers emails on his iPhone while holding a paint can and attempting pretending to paint.
6. You spend the first 10 minutes of lunch “fighting” over the pizza only to have them bring gobs of pizza later. (We love leftovers!)
5. Mark and Ed (the artisty-types) beat Kramer and Steve (the athletic-types) in the bean-bag toss game at least 3 times.
4. Schlientz tackles Slack over a shoe (It was a group-bonding game and let’s just say Schlientz always goes big and HAS to win.)
3. There are more photos and video taken of the event than any other work group on this project.
2. You take a picture with everyone “smoking” a candy cigarette and think that it is really funny.
1. Everyone shows up wearing a Michigan Awesome t-shirt.

Photo by Eric Hatch

French Paper Co. makes me proud to be a Michigander. Not only do they have the most attractive promotional pieces, but in addition to that, they also make ridiculously great quality paper—AND they are located a mere 78-some miles away in Niles, Michigan.

Recently, the TIG print creative team, had the privilege of spending an afternoon with sixth generation French-man, Brian French, and toured the mill.

The experience was both educational and inspiring. Some things I learned:

• All paper is manufactured with 100% hydroelectric energy (from the St. Joe River)
• Big machines=big rolls of paper.
• The first to produce a recycled content sheet with flecks.
• The first to create an animal-friendly parchment paper
• On days they make black paper, they literally sweep the mill floor into the vat that holds the pulp/recycled content.
• Love custom orders—have made papers from golf course grass, orange peel shavings, wood chips and human hair.
• The mill is very dark and loud—I am very appreciative of the dedicated men and women who work in the mill.
• Just kidding about the human hair ;)

For a much more interesting report from our French Paper Co. tour, check out the photos our copywriter/resident actor, Eric Hatch, posted on Flickr.

For over 10 days now, our intrepid Creative Director, Ed Van Poolen, has been traveling through northern India and parts of Pakistan with cameraman, Sarorn Ron Sim. A photographer for Dow Corp. and a freelance shooter, Ron has seen and filmed incredible sights and sounds from locations around the world, including Afghanistan, Vietnam and Cambodia. The two had previously worked together filming clean water efforts in the rural villages of Honduras and are now together again to capture the stories of families surviving in the rural outskirts of Lahore, Pakistan.

Of course, traveling to different parts of the world is not without its trials and tribulations and traveling to India and Pakistan is certainly no exception. Late international flights, extended layovers in Munich, lost luggage in northern India and border crossings into war torn Pakistan, have all been elements of Ed and Ron’s amazing experience. The incredible landscapes, people and cultures of these remote regions of the world are all evident in the imagery that Ed has been sending back our way via his iPhone. Their progress, so far, can be seen on the Image Group’s Flickr feed.

We can’t wait to see what kinds of stories our man in India (and Pakistan) is going to bring back with him. Stay tuned for Ed’s trip recap in the next few weeks.

Again!?!?

We’re a little late acknowledging ourselves, but there’s a reason.

The Image Group can be a hectic place. The beat of fervent foot steps frequently echo off the creaking wood floors, meetings often overlap one another, and the only time to rest is during the carpool ride to the next client meeting. All this in the name of building our client’s brands. So it’s no surprise that, because of this fierce, passionate, and dedicated work ethic, we’ve been named one of West Michigan’s 101 Best and Brightest by our own employees (we like staying busy). It’s also no surprise that we haven’t had a moment to acknowledge the fact that we’ve been named one of West Michigan’s 101 Best and Brightest companies to work at, for the second year in a row! So here’s to our employees who make this idea house such a whimsical, meaningful place of employment.