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Creativity Punches COVID-19 in the Face — TWIST's NEW Line of Products Funds Local COVID-19 Relief Efforts

The Design for Good Shop – by TWIST

Cleveland branding agency, TWIST Creative, Inc. is no stranger to adversity after muscling the business through two recessions with vital lessons learned, such as always having a hedge strategy in place.  That’s what enabled the leadership team to pivot when the COVID-19 pandemic broke. Instead of launching its planned 20^th Anniversary rebranding initiative, the agency quickly dedicated a portion of its resources to build a Cleveland-focused public service and public health campaign that translates vital information into something that’s easy to understand and remember at a glance. And as a result of the popular campaign, there’s now a cool product line that will help fund local COVID-19 relief efforts.

Today, you’ll see the line “Love & Big Ideas for Cleveland Brands & Causes” on the social media campaign that resulted. “We don’t make vaccines but we do have the antidote for bad information. We as communications experts know when under pressure facts don’t stick, but visual stories do. Our entire team believed that the best way for us to contribute is to do what we do best and on behalf of the place that matters most to us, Cleveland.” Mike Ozan, CEO and Chief Creative Officer

In addition to helpful and clinical messages delivered in fun, unique, local and interesting ways, the tributes to public health campaigns of the past, with its vintage illustration series and to Ohio Heroes like Dr. Amy Acton and national figures like Dr. Anthony Fauci created not only a lot of engagement they lead to requests for merchandise.

“Our team works with many nonprofit organizations and foundations, and we are seeing firsthand the impact that COVID-19 has had on organizations who work to serve Clevelanders, said Charlene Coughlin, Managing Director at TWIST. “As a nonprofit board member, I know that small, individual donors are critical to the livelihood of organizations as they provide an opportunity to cultivate their donor of tomorrow” said Coughlin.

TWIST selected Society6 to produce the products and host the store. The agency has been converting its StayCLE campaign into products to raise funds for the Cleveland Foundation, which has created the Greater Cleveland COVID-19 Relief Fund.

“Society 6 has such a fun variety of gallery quality prints, home goods like throw pillows and rugs and top quality shirts, bags and other well designed accessories,” said Connie Ozan, Founder & Chief Design Officer at TWIST. “It met our vision for the line of reasonable quality and very accessible prices. Every bit of the proceeds is going to charity so we want people to love it, share it and buy it. I personally oversaw the design and execution of every piece of the campaign to ensure it honored not only the TWIST standard, but that it would be something that Cleveland and Ohio could be proud of,” added Ozan.

The number of products in the line is now approaching 30 as the design team at TWIST works to balance production of the line, while supporting the agency’s 30 active accounts. “It’s a little extra work, but at the same time we’re happy to do our part – plus it gives us the freedom to explore some new ideas. There’s a little bit of each of us in every product,” said Michael Ozan.

The entire campaign can be seen at StayCLE.com. Products can be viewed at
The Design for Good Shop – by TWIST

Please help Cleveland service and hospitality workers by dropping what you can in the CLE virtual tip jar.