Thank goodness for The Deubeners!

Who are The Deubeners you ask? Why are we thanking goodness for them? This is why.

Walter H. Deubener (1887–1980) was a grocer from St. Paul, Minnesota who in 1912 invented the handled paper grocery bag. After watching his invention become such a common use in daily life with no credit to him as the inventor, Deubener spiraled into a near constant drunken state. After his wife took the kids and left him, he died penniless and alone in a cabin in rural Minnesota. Since his passing many large US cities such as San Francisco and Los Angeles have begun to ban the use of plastic and paper shopping bags. As more and more cities follow this trend they are effectively ruining the legacy of this great man. A lone memorial to him stands half lit outside the Los Cerritos Center in Cerritos, CA. (citation: http://www.minnesota-china.com/Education/emSciTech/MN_innovations.htm)

In honor of Walter Deubener, the annual Deubener Award is given out to small businesses by the St. Paul Area Chamber of Commerce. MOD was honored to be one of the finalists for the award in the category of Best Emerging Business, and we were ecstatic when we won! Check out some of the photos from the night!

A Simple Solution for a Fruit Company

We'd like to announce another fruitful project with our friends at Full Tilt Marketing. The geniuses behind Woot Froot and other innovative produce ventures needed to expand their online presence, and we were excited to get on-board.

We jumped at the opportunity to design and develop a solution, and we created a suite of websites that seamlessly connects their three businesses.

A simple and transparent user interface was designed to guide clients through the different aspects of the inter-connected businesses. The new responsive interface allows customers to easily navigate between Fruit Dynamics, a R&D company, Gaarde FoodSource, a logistics & sourcing company, and Pangaea Cultivar, a fruit cultivation company.

We're proud of the results of the lean design and development that simplified the presentation of a complex business structure.

 

St. Paul Open Streets

St. Paul has long awaited her day to shine, and now that construction along the future route of the new Green Line Light Rail is done, last Sunday was the day that happened. St. Paul's first ever Open Streets event took place along University Avenue! 

What is an Open Streets event? Open streets initiatives temporarily close streets to automobile traffic, so that people may use them for walking, bicycling, dancing, playing, and socializing. 

The event gave back to the community in many ways, from giving opportunity for local vendors to display their products and services, to introducing the new Light Rail (scheduled to start running next summer 2014), to allowing local artists and musicians to perform and show off their creative skills and ideas, to bringing awareness to the local businesses along the corridor who have struggled to keep their doors open during the days of construction. It was all around fun to be had. Take a look at some of the photos from the day's festivities!

We also want to thank all of the volunteers that helped out that day, it would not have been possible without you. THANK YOU!

Messages written in chalk from some of the Open Streeters

The Como Avenue Jug Band was a huge hit

This beautiful mural caught more than a fews' attention

More than just people were welcome at St. Paul Open Streets!

This was a first time volunteer, thank you!

Boat building demonstrations were given by Urban Boat Builders

A group of local artists constructed this wayfinding map of St. Paul, look who it is on that peg right there ;) !

Where's Woot Froot?

Woot!

We were so excited to find out that Woot Froot has hit the shelves! Such a delicious and convenient snack was bound to be a hit. Find these yummy fruit slices at a Sam's Club nearest you :) Visit the Woot Froot website to find a convenient location.

Find a Sam's Club near you!

Oh, starry night!

Last Saturday was the 2013 NightOwl Classic bike ride, and it could not have been a more perfect night for a starry-skied bike ride through the beautifully scenic city of St. Paul. Whether it was navigating the infamous NightOwl van along the route, handing out tasty treats at the pit stops, lending photography skills, or cheering the bikers on through their last couple miles - all of us MODsters volunteered and had a blast! Take a look at some of the pictures from the night!

Hooray for Lucè!

This past Saturday was the 10th annual Pizza Lucè Block Party! With an amazing musical lineup, Summit beers aplenty, and delicious tasting pizza - how could you go wrong?! As always, we had a blast working on some of the marketing materials for this event. Check out the poster below :)

Woot! Woot!

We can't contain our excitement for the new launch of Woot Froot - a fun new concept in the produce world. Freshly pre sliced and packaged peaches and nectarines! It can be described as, "the perfect balance of tree-ripened, ready-to-eat peaches and nectarines ... already sliced ... and just as tasty without the sticky finger, chin dripping mess."

Our client came to us asking if we could have the site up by the weekend, which gave us, well, 2 days to finalize the design and have it programmed and live. !!!!!!!! What was first fear and panic, quickly resolved to our dedication to the client and our promise that we will always do whatever is in our power to provide them with solutions. So, while Christina squared away the final details of the design, Seth began crunching away on the development side. After 2 short days, Seth successfully had the site up and running for a very pleased and content client. We're happy, their happy, everybody's happy.

Check out their brand, spankin' new website (keep napkins nearby as drool with surely ensue).

http://wootfroot.com/index.html

Last Tuesday, us MODsters decided to do a team outing. We started at Toby Keith's I Love That Bar & Grill where we shared appetizers and socialized over a round of drinks, and then we were off to the Twins vs. Phillies game! Between the sunflower seed debate (to eat the shell or to not eat the shell), gargantuan sized bratwursts, and a few rounds of Summits, we had a blast. Christina was snapchatting awkward poses and facial expressions of unsuspecting fans to her friends. Seth, a native cheesehead, was cringing every time the Twins scored. Natalie was painting her nails and cheering on BOTH teams. Britt, in between naps, yelled out a hoorah! for the home team. Jana and Luke were caught kissing on the kiss cam (not really) and Mike, from the Shops at West End, was intensively scheming marketing strategies the whole game.

We arrived to and from the game safe and sound courtesy of the KTWIN shuttle that picks up and drops off at The Shops at West End. The ride to the game was filled with extreme amounts of joy, anxiousness, and excitement to cheer on our home team while the ride home was plagued by our confusion over how the arm rests worked and fear that we would be trapped on the shuttle forever, endlessly riding to and from Twins games for the rest of eternity (don't worry, we finally figured it out thanks to a 13 year old fellow rider).

All in all, we had a great time and plan to do it again before the summer sees its end. Maybe we'll see you there!

Flavors of Summer!

Sure it snowed here near the Twin Cities here on May 2^nd, but that just inspires us even more to say: Bring on the Flavors of Summer!

MOD and Full Tilt Marketing are excited to announce the launch of the Vidalia Onion Flavors of Summer website. The site features great summer recipes and entertaining ideas, grilling tips and tricks, special offers and coupons, and a killer contest in which you can win a cash prize of $1,000 for recipes in each of four categories.  The top entries will have the opportunity win the Grand Prize, an Outdoor Entertaining Package from Sears valued at $5,000!

Special thanks to Full Tilt for bringing us on to help with the project! (And special thanks to summer, wherever you are.) 

Wild n’ Wooly!

Last winter the Edina Mayor Jim Hovland said that he’s heard the West End is getting “wild and wooly.” This related specifically to the fun and excitement taking place at and around our client, The Shops at West End. While fun and rather silly, West End and the folks at Discover St. Louis Park were not going to take that without acting just a little wild (we’re still not entirely sure what wooly means). So MOD was asked to create billboards to put at the corner of 50^th and France, the epicenter (although not geographically) of Edina. The billboards stayed up for two months and we’ve not heard no wild nor wooly since!

MOD does Healthy: The Healthy Food Shelves Campaign

Check it out! Some items we did for the Healthy Food Shelves campaign! A campaign that challenges the notion that only non-perishable foods can be donated to food shelves and stresses the importance of donating healthy food items as well.