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Commitment Day

The U.S. is facing a major problem. It’s us. With obesity, heart disease, juvenile diabetes and countless other ailments quickly killing us, we need to make a serious change. Welcome to Commitment Day. The day a nation rallies together with a single goal in mind: to live healthier once and for all. With the support of an integrated campaign involving everything from print to in-club campaigns, interactive to broadcast, Life Time’s inaugural Commitment Day event drew in over 40,000 participants across 28 cities who committed to taking their first steps at living healthier together. And the movement is getting stronger every day. Learn more or make your commitment at commitmentday.com.

Shift presents Gregory Euclide

3e — The Life Time Agency, and its Shift speaker series, were proud to have visual artist and high school art teacher Gregory Euclide as its first presenter. And he couldn’t have made a better first impression.

Shifting from his early understandings of and approaches to art, Gregory continues to inspire and challenge himself while discovering new techniques along the way — making a conscience effort to depict the relationship between art, man and nature in his imaginative pieces.

Incorporating items like found plastic bags, melted Wisconsin snow, used crates, cut paper, and even the land on which his work often resides, Gregory’s eye for detail and love of nature comes through in profoundly beautifully ways.

Never resting on his known strengths, his curiosity has helped him build a career of impressive pieces that have been shown in art galleries across the nation, on covers for Bon Iver’s Grammy-winning album, and even on whiteboards within the high school art class in which he teaches.

Watch how Gregory Euclide’s makes a simple whiteboard come alive with nothing more than a little water and sumi ink:

Putt-Putt: Golf You Can Play in a Warehouse

Avid golf players beware: your practiced stroke means nothing when putting on a loop-de-loop par 3 covered in Astroturf. At least, that’s what 3e discovered when we all headed to Golf Zone in charming Chaska, Minn., for a few rounds of the sport’s distant, distant cousin, Putt-Putt.

As it turned out, most of us stepped up to the “tee box” with a misshapen putter and a knack for guessing angles. Our beginner’s luck was found in the split seconds of silence when the peanut gallery was too busy drinking their three-two beers to jeer us on. Hit the ball, they say. Just shoot, they say. Sorry, this club’s fluorescent pink grip is distracting us from putting the lime green ball into that hole blocked by a faux-boulder. Oh, what’s that? A hole-in-one? That’s right. And the closest most of us have been to a green in the past year was that time we accidently flipped to ESPN during The Masters.

In reality, we weren’t all that lucky. Instead, the majority of us were forced to thoroughly enjoy ourselves regardless of the game — which turned out to be much easier than trying to shoot well on holes that looked more suited for remote control cars than golf balls.

It was a good time.

Life Time Rides into Big D

For the third straight year, Life Time members in Dallas, Texas cycled their hearts out to 2-hour, rock-n-roll spin bike workout at the Dallas Ride of a Lifetime. The event was on Saturday, March 17, 2012, outdoors at the AT&T Plaza at American Airlines Center. Now held in three cities across the country, Ride of a Lifetime is both the kickoff to the cycling season, as well as the official release of the 2012 Life Time Cycle cycling jersey, designed by 3e – the Life Time Agency.

As in the past, this year 3e designed a full “kit” of cycling gear including jerseys, shorts, jackets, arm and leg warmers and more. Membership to any Life Time location includes free membership to the Life Time Cycle club, which offers free group rides and organized events nationwide. More cyclists are part of Life Time Cycle than any other cycle club in the nation. Life Time Cycle kits are worn by thousands of riders across the country, and are seen in competition events throughout the race season.

Ride of a Lifetime was led by Life Time CEO Bahram Akradi and backed by world renowned DJ Roberto Costa, Emerald City Band, the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks cheerleaders and mascot, the event was a huge hit. At several points throughout the night our CEO had all participants simultaneously waving their towels, singing 80’s rock songs at the top of their lungs and doing “the wave.” At the end of the 120-minute workout, you could feel the real sense of pride and accomplishment radiating from the plaza. What a PARTY! What a RIDE! And best of all, our efforts raised $10,000 for the Life Time Foundation and it’s focus of creating healthy school lunch programs. Great looking jerseys, great looking people and a really fun, sweaty time!

Celebrating a great year

On a bitter cold night in January our agency got together to celebrate the holidays and the end of a very productive year.

The event was held at Maki Strunc Studios, which gave us ample room to mingle and meet the significant others (and possibly, like the invitation said the “not so significant others”). Chowgirls catered the event, providing delicious apps, pizza and a fish fry. And the bar was fully stocked, with bartenders eager to keep the festivities going by filling glasses. But the main attraction was No Man’s Land, a super group of sorts featuring our own Krae Lausch on guitar, with assistance from Ben Johnson on vocals, and —by the night’s end— a rotating cast of writers and art directors in the lead singer role.

It was the perfect way to ring in the new year while looking back on the previous year and all that we had accomplished. There were prize drawings, a great speech by Jason Reynolds, our Executive Creative Director, and even a surprise appearance by Marc Perlman of the Jayhawks, who joined No Man’s Land for a song to close out the night.

A DOWNTOWN SHOWDOWN

On a cold November night in downtown Minneapolis, 14 of Minneapolis’s greatest Golden Gloves boxers went round to round, fist to fist, blow to blow — competing for nothing more than great pride and respect.

Created exclusively for Life Time Athletic Diamond Members, Diamond Fight Night proved to be an exciting event filled with great fights, great food, and definitely great-looking people — well, besides the ones getting their teeth knocked in.

Prior to this night, and knowing the potential this event had, we wanted to see how far we could push the branding before the client eventually shoved back. Fortunately, they were in our corner the whole time. We managed to turn their request of a single in-club poster into a full-on advertising attack — complete with banners, coasters, screen-printed posters, round cards, and even spit buckets. These tactics and new vision helped the client see that their one-night, one-city event had the potential to be a heavyweight. We’re excited to say that Diamond Fight Night will now be held at 5 locations throughout the US — including New York and Las Vegas. And that’s just the beginning.

Before the event, we also saw the opportunity to gather assets that would help us sell the event to members in other cities — and, most importantly, potential sponsors of the event. We hired Juan Antonio del Rosario to capture footage of the event, that we’d later turn into a video to not only entice future ticket sales, but highlight potential sponsorship opportunities. We also worked closely with Kelly Loverud to photograph the event to help us build an image library we could use in future marketing.

In all, we managed to double our earnings from last year while turning the event into a night to remember. Or in the case of some boxers, one they’d like to soon forget.

Creating an Alpha Brand

It began as an event. We were looking to create a competition like no other. Something that would push people to their mortal limits– combining speed, power, strength and endurance– and drawing on the mental strength and resolve of its competitors almost as much as their brute physical strength.

Alpha Showdown started with regional competitions in 15 different areas. People with diverse backgrounds and unique stories– Life Time members, as well as non-members– faced off for their chance to not only win the regional competition, but to have a shot at the national competition as well.

The national competition was a huge success. Athletes from across the country came together to compete in an event that just a few months prior was an idea. Looking out at the crowd on that day it was incredibly satisfying to see competitors and spectators fully engaged in the event and the brand.

We knew that Alpha Showdown was the beginning of something. But as we watched the competitions build from regional events to the national and started to plan for 2012, we realized that we had created something bigger than a competition. We had created a brand, the Alpha brand.

The Alpha brand will prove to be a brand big enough to contain Alpha Showdown. It’s a brand that incorporates training, events and merchandise, and brings it all together under a single voice. Alpha is a mindset.

Alpha also proves that when an idea is big enough nothing can hold it back.

Capturing a Race Across the Sky

The high desert surrounding Leadville, Colorado in the summer is dusty. And after watching 1800 racers blow past me over our 100-mile mountain bike race course, Leadville gave me a chronic mineral-tainted cough that sounded like the opening to Black Sabbath’s “Sweet Leaf”.

At 10,200 ft. above sea level, Leadville is not for the faint of heart – or asthmatics. But a lingering cough was a small price to pay to experience the “Race Across the Sky” – The World’s Highest Mountain Bike Race. That’s why I was in Leadville, working with our team of five photographers and a video crew to capture the speed, grit, determination and beauty of this iconic race. For 5 days, our team worked pre-race, in-race and post-race crisscrossing the course trying to “get the shot” over and over again.

Mornings started before dawn with a 45-minute drive on mountain roads you clearly needed to drive a few times in the sunshine in order to feel even remotely comfortable on. This was a luxury we never enjoyed, as the drive back to our hotel was always after nightfall. But for a race that takes an average of 12 hours to complete – we had our work cut out for us. Add to that the fact that we personally worked with or knew dozens of competitors, and we knew we couldn’t complain for a minute about fatigue.

At the 6:00am start of the race, Leadville Trail 100 creator Ken Chlouber fires up the crowd with the ceremonial “shotgun start”- with an actual shotgun! I was in the photographer’s vehicle (an old pickup, naturally) and we took off at over 40 MPH to stay ahead of the riders. Ken had been waving a flag prior to the race, and stuck it into one of the truck’s side panels. Imagine all our terrified looks as, just after we got up to speed, the flag dislodged and flew through the air and hit the lead rider.

Miraculously, it glanced off his helmet and fell harmlessly between the following riders.  Although it probably didn’t send the intended message of national unity as the entire field either ran over the flag or closely avoided it.

The race continued throughout one of the most beautiful days I have ever seen. Blue skies, the tallest peak of Colorado’s Rocky Mountains and the world’s greatest mountain bike riders pushing past pain, past logic and burning fuel derived from pure determination. At the finish line, we saw stories unfold with every rider. Dads crossing the finish line with their kids. A rider with a completely mechanical arm, another who crossed the finish line and briefly started to convulse (the medics attended to him immediately).

The winners, Todd Wells and Rebecca Raush, are both long-time Leadville racers. Todd won his first race and Rebecca took home her third title. The crazy thing about this 100-mile race? These two got nothing more than belt buckles and medals – just like the other 1,200 riders who finished in under 12 hours. No cash, no prizes. Just the satisfaction of being the very best at one of the very hardest races on Earth.

But for me, the best part of the race was seeing some of my very closest friends and co-workers cross that finish line and have a medal draped around their neck. The race materials we created, including the finish line structure, medals and dozens of apparel items made the weekend almost surreal. Seeing what had been files on a computer screen come to life, framing this amazing event in a really tight, cohesive brand, was something we all were very proud of. 22 hours after the alarm went off, I switched off the lights on one of the most amazing days of my life.

And coughed.

3e // Winner of 4 national awards!

3e // The Life Time Agency has been selected as a winner in the American Graphic Design(ACD) Awards. The winning work includes The Life Time Master Brand, MyHealthCheck Branding, LifePower Branding, and our own 3e branding. This years awards attracted over 8000+ entries with a very select 15% recognized with inclusion into the show and awards publication.

Since 1963, The American Graphic Design USA has presented national design competitions that honor creative excellence, and the American Graphic Design Awards is the original awards show focused exclusively on excellence in the field of graphic design. The show is open to everyone in the community: advertising agencies, graphic design firms, corporations, institutions, publishers and artists of all kinds. It honors outstanding work across all media: print and collateral, advertising and sales promotions, corporate identity, logos, interactive, POP and packaging, broadcast and motion.

Congratulations to our clients, teams and colleagues who contributed to this work!

Lawn Bowling

Forget the Big Lebowski or Laverne and Shirley.  This was British-style lawn bowling, where teams stand on opposite sides of an open field and roll large balls towards a smaller ball in an effort to see who can get their balls the closest– or at least that was the understanding.  Rules were explained to us by the softest of spoken men, a guy who probably wouldn’t raise his voice if he were being chased by a cheetah.  So rules were kind of lost on some of us.  But it didn’t matter much. Most people weren’t that rule-minded and used it as an excuse to get out in the sun, drink a few drinks and talk a little more loosely than we do back at the office.  The sky was clear.  The humidity was down.  And it was hard to think of a better way to spend a summer afternoon.