Extra, Extra, read all about it.
Friday afternoon we got a call to do our first newspaper interview. We dropped what we were doing and headed up the street to sit down and tell our hometown what 3thought is all about. And, lucky for us, Old Colony Memorial is being delivered free of charge this week to Plymouth Residents. So, please feel free to read the article and pass along to friends and colleagues.
Big thank you @Kathryn Koch for the interview and write up! Also, another thank you to Laurie Blauber who graciously passed our contact info along to the Old Colony.
Communicating Visually – New local business offers marketing design services.
[Caption: New business partners Matt Ulvila, left, and Shea Baker of 3thought believe in their slogan, “Helping Companies Find A Visual Point of View.“]
Communicating Visually – New local business offers marketing design services. -By Kathyrn Koch kkoch@cnc.com
Plymouth – Two former classmates who years later ended up working for the same design company are striking out on their own. Matt Ulvila and business partner Shea Baker graduated from Marshfield High School the same year but didn’t know each other so well. She attended the Rochester (N.Y.) Institute of Technology, and he attended Keene (N.H.) State College.
Fourteen years ago he started working for Shields Design Studio in downtown Plymouth. Four Years ago Baker started working there. While working on many projects together as lead designers, they found that they worked well together.
“We had good energy working together,” Ulvila said.
Within the last year, both have bought houses, with each qualifying for first time home buyer’s credits. With that as their seed money, they decided to start their own business. They have bee in business full-time as 3thought, a visual communications company, since May 1. They have been preparing to open since the start of the year.
“It’s sort of now or never,” Baker said. “We have to take the chance. It was time.”
In today’s market, Ulvila said, it’s their goal to teach their clients smarter ways to spend their marketing money. He said they offer a high quality of work for more value. Baker said their business philosophy is to lead their clients through the process of getting their names out.
“We want to get involved with our clients on in the process so there can be forethought as to what their marketing plans would be,” she said.
Their company name, 3thought, plays on their philosophy. Before there can be forethought, Baker said, there’s 3thought. The name also reflects their belief that three people with three points of view shape a project. The three people are the client, the designer and the target audience.
Ulvila said they want 3thought to be distinctive because of all that he and Baker have to offer in terms of knowledge and experience. He said they stress the creative process when thinking about design.
“We want distinguish ourselves,” he said. “We want to get paid for using our brains as well as producing.”
Ulvila and Baker continue to work well together, he said, complementing each other’s strengths to create what Ulvila describes as good synergy. Both are trained print designers who emphasize providing top quality graphic design, but Baker focuses on the financial side while Ulvila focuses on the sales and marketing.
“Together we provide a diversity in design to create visual marketing systems of any other form of visual communication,” Baker said.
Ulvila and Baker have been cataloguing their journey as new business owners on their Twitter blog, www.twitter.com/3thought, and their website, www.3thoughtcreative.com, will soon be functional. They don’t have office yet and have the flexibility of being mobile and be able to visit their clients.
They like to be hands-on, Ulvila said. They also want to offer value and a personal touch. “We’re trying to get out with our clients responsive to our clients’ needs,” he said.