Wit & Craft

Wit and Craft is a branding and design firm that caters to small and mid-sized businesses looking to establish a strong brand presence in their respective industries. The firm is founded on the belief that every business has a unique story to tell, and it's their mission to help businesses discover, define, design, and install a brand that accurately reflects their values, vision, and voice.

Wit and Craft's team of expert brand strategists, designers, and developers work closely with their clients to develop custom branding solutions that resonate with their target audience. They understand that branding is more than just a logo and a color scheme. It's about creating a cohesive message that communicates who you are, what you do, and why you do it better than anyone else.

Their process begins with discovery. They take the time to learn about their clients' business, their competitors, and their industry. This knowledge helps them identify what sets their clients apart and what makes them unique. From there, they define their brand messaging and positioning, developing a brand voice that aligns with their clients' vision and values.

With a solid foundation in place, Wit and Craft's designers bring the brand to life through visual identity design. They create custom logos, typography, color palettes, and imagery that capture the essence of the brand and communicate it effectively to the target audience. Their design approach is rooted in simplicity and clarity, ensuring that the brand identity is easily recognizable and memorable.

By working with Wit and Craft, small and mid-sized businesses can stop competing on price and start winning based on their unique value proposition. They help businesses establish a brand that not only differentiates them from their competitors but also builds trust and credibility with their target audience. With a strong brand in place, businesses can attract the right customers, increase loyalty, and ultimately, drive growth.

Executive Creative Director, Partner

Blue Flame Thinking

Blue Flame Thinking is a business-building agency centered on clients with the courage and tenacity to resist the usual and demand something better from their brand, their industry and themselves.


Responsible for overall agency creative output; develop world-class strategic and award winning creative solutions for leading consumer brands and complex business to business initiatives

• Lead a creative team of writers, art directors and designers in both the Grand Rapids and Chicago locations
• Inspire creative staff to take risks, be strategic and push their ideas beyond the expected or status quo
• Accountable for success of marketing campaigns and initiatives based on pre-determined success metrics and goals
• Form deep knowledge of clients' business in order to proactively develop and present solutions that drive tangible results
• Develop multi-channel campaigns including integrated elements such as: Web design, marketing collateral, direct mail, print, video, custom trade show displays and application design
• Present and clearly communicate creative solutions to internal teams and clients to effectively sell concepts and ideas
 

Active member of Leadership Team; inform and make decisions that affect agency operations, structure and vision

• Successfully merged two separate agency entities into a single operation in 2013/14. 
• Developed new brand positioning, identity and strategic direction. Launched new Blue Flame Thinking brand to internal and external audiences on 1/2/14
• Ensure departmental integration between the creative team and other agency disciplines in order to provide exemplary solutions to clients' marketing challenges while driving accuracy and accountability
• Worked to develop new agency workflow process in 2014, improving efficiency and increasing average project profitability
 

Responsible for ensuring healthy vendor relationships; direct oversight of all production timelines and negotiations

Creative Director

AIGA West Michigan

Develop an ongoing program to educate designers, non-profits, and socially conscious companies on the importance and utilization of design thinking. 

Build on past events to do great work for good-doers by applying design thinking to identify and solve design and communication related problems.

Design for Good Director

Crowe Horwath LLP

Crowe Horwath LLP is one of the top 10 public accounting and consulting firms in the United States. Under its core purpose of “Building Value with Values®,” Crowe assists clients in reaching their goals through audit, tax, risk and consulting services. Crowe professionals provide public and private company clients with thought leadership in many sectors, including financial and diversified financial services, healthcare, government, private equity sponsored, inventory-based, retail, not-for-profit, higher education and food and commodities.

• Led the Tax and Private Equity creative initiatives
• Worked with Market Managers to clearly and strategically define marketing problems
• Created, designed and led digital, traditional and one to one marketing communications
• Managed outside talent and vendors as well as resources within the marketing team
• Optimized teamwork among writers, designers, and other team members to increase efficiency and surpass campaign goals
• Presented and clearly communicated creative solutions to internal teams and clients to effectively sell concepts and ideas

Sr. Art Director / Manager

Jon Czeranna Art Direction + Design

Brand development • Advertising • Design

Creative

Steketee Greiner and Company

Steketee Greiner co. is an insight-driven, information-based communications strategy, facilitation and management firm dedicated to contributing to the global communications renaissance by combining art and science to generate new, sometimes unexplored, avenues to creative thought, communications and business/life challenges.

• Developed visual conceptual solutions for a full range of creative/marketing ideas
• Managed outside talent as well as resources within the firm
• Developed an agency process to help better communicate the clients needs to the creative team
• Presented and clearly communicated creative solutions to internal teams and clients to effectively sell concepts and ideas
• Led the Ecoupled (division of Amway) creative initiatives to help create a market for wireless power

Senior Art Director

Hanon McKendry

Hanon McKendry is a national brand consulting, advertising and marketing firm that excels at helping clients shift perceptions beyond what their brands offer to what their brands mean. Nearly 80 percent of the firm’s annual revenues are derived from major initiatives to launch, re-launch or restage brands.

• Developed visual conceptual solutions for a full range of creative/marketing ideas
• Managed outside talent as well as resources within the agency
• Optimized teamwork among writers, designers, and other team members to obtain exceptional results
• Presented and clearly communicated creative solutions to internal teams and clients to effectively sell concepts and ideas

Art Director

Justice & Monroe

Kendall College of Art and Design

Adjunct Instructor

J. Walter Thompson

JWT is the world’s best-known marketing communications brand. Headquartered in New York, JWT is a true global network with more than 200 offices in over 90 countries employing nearly 10,000 marketing professionals.

• Worked with copywriters to developed visual conceptual solutions for traditional and non-traditonal advertising efforts that include digitally integrated one to one communications
• Supported the more senior Art Directors and Creative Directors.
• Assisted in the development of advertising concepts.
• Presented and clearly communicated creative solutions to internal teams and clients to effectively sell concepts and ideas

A graduate of Kendall College of Art and Design, Jon began his career working on one of the largest accounts in the world: Ford Motor Company. After two years in Detroit, Jon decided to make West Michigan his design hub. In addition to becoming an adjunct professor at his alma mater, Jon was able to ply big idea thinking on behalf of smaller accounts and lesser-known nonprofits. The result was award-winning campaigns and an invitation to join the AIGA West Michigan Board of Directors.

Jon’s agency background includes posts at Blue Flame Thinking, J. Walter Thompson, Hanon McKendry, Justice & Monroe and Crowe Horwath, one of the nation’s leading accounting firms. Jon’s approach to each new engagement is deceptively simple—utilize strong design to overcome inherent marketing challenges.

"My philosophy is simple: Strategy is key and simple smart ideas work. I always look for the story behind a product or service and strive to tell it in new, exciting and relevant ways."

Specialties: Advertising, Marketing and Design

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