As their 25th anniversary approached for In Food Marketing, a go-go food marketing & design agency in Minneapolis, we were very excited to accept their invitation to join the team producing a beautiful calendar they planned to share with clients. Twenty-five years in the advertising biz is most definitely something to celebrate—and our mission to bring Let’s Toast, a 2020 monthly planner, to life was nothing but studio fun. We often work with In Food on real-deal jobs, but this was a chance to play. Creative director Lori Gerdts & art director Alyssa Lillie led the charge, pulling wonderful recipes together that all gave a nod to the word “toast”. We worked closely as a team to choose just the right props and surfaces, and I was grateful for all the shopping & prep work they did to keep the kitchen side of things on track. Dennis brought his creative eye to composing & lighting each month in unexpected ways, while Lisa was given free rein to style the food in a very loose, natural way with flourishes of fresh herbs or little spills of seasonings and crumbs, all inviting the viewer to dive in and eat every shot.

*Wild mushroom fondue marks the arrival of foraging season…*

We really loved how the photos turned out, but what made the promotion all the more impactful was how they chose to print the calendar pages—on large heavy stock, in an exaggerated vertical format. Each month is an independent page, with the entire year held together with a spring clip—then loosely wrapped in a flour-cloth dishtowel. Shipped off to out-of-town clients or hand-delivered to local ones, each delivery was complete with personalized labels and a small bottle of sparkling wine. All in all a lovely way to express thanks to the colleagues we’re all lucky enough to work with year in and year out.

*We can’t leave summer without some kind of ooey-gooey s’more…*

Many thanks to In Food’s founder Anita Nelson, Lori Gerdts, and Alyssa Lillie for letting us be part of a very satisfying project.

celebrating success