I'm Katie Mullen. I'm the Director of Exhibitions and Programs at the Center for Architecture. And I'm also the Director of Archtober. Archtober is an annual architecture and design festival that happens during the month of October. It brings together over a hundred nonprofit partners around the five boroughs and within the tri-state area, and the festival is meant to celebrate the past, present, and future of architecture and design in New York City.

I'm Meghan Edwards. I'm Director of Digital Content and Strategy for AIA New York and the Center for Architecture. Also working on the Archtober festival. The mission of AIA New York and the Center is both to communicate to the public about the importance and significance of design and architecture, but also to empower the architecture profession to really deliver at the apex of their abilities.

Well, the festival had started in 2011, and through 2015... Pentagram, designed the original logo that we still use today. And when I took over in 2016, I kind of wanted to rethink and break us out of the design matrix that Pentagram had started us off with. And so from 2016 through 2019 we worked with a different designer every year. And I think there were a lot of pros to that. I think having a new set of eyes, a new angle for the festival, a completely different brand, was very good to break out of the existing structure. But I think what we found was that the ramp and lead-up to the festival with a new firm every time was just a big learning curve, and having to explain all of the intricacies of the festival was cumbersome, and it took time, and it felt like it was taking time away from actually executing on the festival and the different parts of it. And so in 2019 we launched an open call, and we interviewed Greater amongst some other folks that we had worked with before. And we decided to go with Greater, I think for a variety of reasons. But I think we really appreciated the fresh take that you guys brought in from the get-go. And I think it was also just a good vibe. I think it makes such a difference when you like working with the people that you're working with. I can't believe that it was seven years ago, that is so shocking to me, it doesn't feel like that.

I'll just add on to what Katie said. I remember at the time being really attracted to the fact that Greater had worked on other projects that weren't just architecture and design focused, and I feel like at the time there were some retail installations that seemed really cool to us. And we felt like you guys would bring some thinking to the table that we hadn't already been getting from the more traditional architecture and design folks that we'd been working with. And I think that really ended up playing out, and is part of the reason that we keep returning to you guys year after year, is that it's more of an exchange of ideas, and you are prompting us and asking us questions that we weren't thinking about already.

Well, I think when we first started working with Greater it was the beginning of the pandemic, and that was not the original scope of work. Originally we had a lot of other items in the scope that we had to really quickly pivot away from. And so I think Alex and Jonathan really worked well with us to figure out where we wanted to redirect the energy of the scope of work. And I think that the real payout for that, for us, was getting the year-round site up and running, because we did that, which is crazy to think about. And so now I can't imagine the festival and interacting with people without that year-round site. And I think it really leveled up our legitimacy, in terms of having a place that wasn't just a placeholder image, or a splash page on the Archtober.org site. It gives us an opportunity to connect with our partners year-round, connect with our audience year-round, and I think it's been incredibly successful, and that only really came about because of the collaboration that we had with you guys, because that really wasn't on our radar.

I remember us being really hesitant in the beginning. We had this inclination that we needed to be really democratic in how we were representing everyone that was participating in the festival. And so there was this sense that we could never really be highlighting any specific thing, which from a marketing perspective was such a challenge in being able to communicate to our audiences the value of the festival. And I think Greater really helped us strategize how to represent the content of what we were doing without jeopardizing the mission of the festival, which was also this collective community that we're communicating about. So I think Greater helped us balance a specificity in how we were communicating, while still encapsulating the mission of the festival.

The beginning of the pandemic was really tough. It was a really dark time for everybody. And I think Alex and Jonathan, the partnership that we've created, has always been infused with such joy, so much tied to the mission of the wonder and joy of architecture and design in the city. I think you all have really encapsulated that in your designs, and also in just the meetings that we have. And you know, those brainstorming sessions are some of our favorite meetings that we have, period, ever, with anybody. And the mood boards that you guys put together, it's just such a fun process to work through. I work with a lot of designers, and a lot of people don't do that. And I think it helps us narrow down what we want to do and see in the design, and it helps you guys understand what we want to see and do with the design. But we're kind of figuring that out together, which I've always really enjoyed, that part of the beginning process of figuring out what the identity is going to be for the year.

I think also, when we first see a rough draft of the illustrations, especially in the early days when we got to the illustration phase, I think we both kind of knew that we were gonna be in a good place. And then for me particularly as well, when we saw the email designs come together. There were a lot of problems that we had been seeing over email, that we were kind of putting up against and not able to solve on our own. And then some of the templates that Greater introduced, and the way the content was structured, really solved a lot of issues that we had been having.

Working with Greater has really pushed us to think differently about the festival. And I think Greater acts as both a graphic design firm and a marketing and strategy firm. And that was never something that we were looking for or thinking about, and I feel so grateful that we have found that in you guys, because we don't have that resource outside of this relationship with you guys. So that has been really helpful, for you all to push us to do certain things, and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I'd say the specific one that I can think of is Greater pushed us to introduce the [festival] theme, and I was very reticent to introduce that theme. I thought it would push people out of the festival. I thought it would be difficult to communicate to our partners about, but I was wrong, and I think it has really helped us. Every time you write a press release for the festival coming up, it helps frame, even if the programs aren't all about that theme, it helps us as a communication device in all of our marketing, and it helps us identify how the design is going to be, even if it's not so one-to-one. It helps all of us be on the same page, on the same footing, and then really think about, okay, what are the ways that we can leave the theme and the design together, both programmatically, partner-wise, and design.

The merch situation also evolved a lot past what we had originally envisioned, I think, because Greater had such a capacity for illustrations, and for really just riffing on the theme each year in a way that we had never imagined, and that translated really easily to merch, and was just kind of a really fun cherry on top to what we had already been doing for the festival.

I mean, I think I would probably say the marketing and strategy thing again. We really were not looking for a firm to do both of those things, both marketing and strategy and design. And I think it really has surprised me that you all continue to push us in both spheres. And I'm very grateful for that, because we wouldn't be where we are today without Greater.

I agree, and I think Greater has also brought a business thinking to each of the design solutions that we wouldn't have necessarily expected. And that has brought a lot of value to the festival that expresses itself in unforeseen ways sometimes, you know, it could be as simple as just a higher click-through, or the increase in traffic on our website. But I think there's also just sort of this leveling up, an inherent sense of value that has grown throughout every year that we've worked with you guys. Especially now that the festival is 16 years old, which is crazy.

Greater built us a new vertical on the Archtober website a couple years ago, called Stories. And I was reticent to introduce a blog onto the website. I didn't know if we would use it, and I didn't know how we were gonna use it. And it's actually become such a great place for us to make announcements, to have additional partner content, weaving partners together has been really successful in that Stories platform. It's been a place where we could put our festival itineraries, so it really has housed a lot of different types of pieces of content for us, and I think that's been really successful. The Archtober Stories platform has really enabled us to have one place where sort of all the most important pieces of Archtober are represented, which has been really helpful for me when communicating with media partners, and just people in general who may not be as familiar with the festival. It's not always as intuitive for people to just look at a landing page with a bunch of events and understand the mission and the core of the festival. But having our Stories platform where we can really just show everything, from announcements about what's happening with the festival, and spotlight our partners as well as their programming, has really made communicating about the festival a lot more seamless.

Greater introduced a partner portal landing page for us several years ago, and that has really helped streamline our communication with the partners. We used to send everything via email, it would get lost in people's inboxes. And now there's a one-stop shop for all of the partner forms, information, the sign-ups for things that we have, the Instagram takeovers. Everything is in one place. And I know that especially as staff turnover happens at different partners, it's very helpful for there to be one place that everybody can turn to and return to, to know what's coming up and what deadlines they have to be aware of.

Also, the automation of the event submission for Archtober was a game changer, and having that not be something that we have to manually do has just really improved the workflow of the festival as a whole.

I think the biggest value that we've gained from working with Greater is bridging this gap between the architecture and design community and the rest of the world, the general public. I think a lot of the designers that we worked with before created very niche designs that didn't really have a broader appeal. And I think what Greater does really well is balance that, something that feels really accessible, and something that has joy and whimsy, but also is very easy to look at. And I really appreciate the emphasis that Greater has on accessibility as a whole. I think Greater is the only firm that I have heard repeatedly reference the contrast tests, for making sure something, depending on the color, is easily legible. And I think that is so important as we navigate the world in the future, is making things as accessible as possible. And that is very much in line with the mission of Archtober as well.

I think that prior to working with Greater, we really just had a website. We had Archtober.org. We had "Archtober, the monthly architecture and design festival." We had a tagline. So we had a website, a title, sort of a tagline. But Greater really helped us flesh out the mission and the identity of the festival, and that usually starts with copy, with copywriting. And I really feel that the creative work, the copywriting surrounding the mission of the festival and the identity of the festival, has sort of laid the foundation for all of the other assets, and allowed us to grow the festival beyond what we had originally intended.

Archtober has evolved and changed over the past seven years while working with Greater in a really interesting way, because in the beginning, in 2020, we contracted so much. But within that contraction, we also opened our doors virtually, in a way that was really surprising, and I think really amazing. And a lot of the partners that we signed on in 2020 have actually stayed with us. Not everybody does virtual programs anymore, but some still do, and some still offer them via the platform.

Prior to working with Greater, we really thought of Archtober as a festival, and it was really constrained to the month of October. And working with Greater, we really opened that up, to reconceive Archtober as a platform that serves our audiences year-round. And so now we have the year-round website that enables us to do that. We have monthly emails that we send out that we never had before. We've become a lot more active on social media, we have new designs and templates that we're able to use on socials. And all of that has contributed to, as Katie said, an opening up of the festival.

I think working with Greater is really different than working with some of the other designers that we've worked with, because it feels so much more like a two-way conversation, and it always feels like Greater is bringing up questions that we haven't already thought about, and prompting us to ask for things that we wouldn't, that we weren't already asking for.

I think what's different is the combination of business background and marketing and strategy. I think they really consider how the end user is going to experience it, and I think that's really good for us, because we're so in it, and in the festival, and in what we're trying to get across, that sometimes we forget how a person is going to experience it, that isn't so steeped in it. And so I really appreciate that perspective.

I would tell a peer that was on the fence about working with Greater, that you should do it, because you're going to have a lot of fun. The meetings and the conversations that we have, we always push the conversations forward, and we always push the project forward. But I think it's also just great collaboration, and I never come away from meetings with Greater tired, I'm always invigorated and excited to work on whatever we're working on, and meet again the following week. And that is unusual.

I would say that if they walk away, they're going to be missing out on a lot of fun, and a ton of new ideas that you wouldn't have expected from the relationship.

If I had to define Greater in just a few words, I would say collaboration, joyfulness, and strategy, because all of the ideas that have come to us have been so smart and really, really thoughtful, as well as just stemming from a really fun collaboration.

I would say that they are some of the most flexible designers I've worked with ever, and they're always game to try whatever it is out. And if you come to them with the spaghetti idea for the wall, they are down to chat through it. And I think the openness of Alex and Jonathan really helps us feel comfortable to bring those ideas to them, and see what might be possible.