You may have noticed a flurry of social media posts, videos, and our new website in the past two weeks. Or, at least, we hope you did.
In case you missed it, we merged the two sides of our company—3rd & Lamar and 3rd & Lamar Media—into one unified brand, 3rd + Lamar.
Originally, we segmented the business to distinguish between our own content and the client work that we produced. 3rd & Lamar was our content wing, and 3rd & Lamar Media was our agency and production house.
But in truth, that only confused people, and all of us work across both sides of the business as one team.
We also felt that as the business had grown and expanded, our branding no longer represented who we were. In the summer of 2021, we decided to make a change.
Reimagining THE 3rd + LAMAR Brand
First up, we hired our friend Matt Schoen, VICE Media’s former executive design director, to develop updated brand guidelines and a new way of thinking about our brand.
“You guys had already built a brand,” Schoen said on our podcast. “I didn’t want to fuck with that too much for you guys, but just figure out a way to better streamline it, you know?”
Over the course of the following months, we pored over fonts, colors, messaging, and typography.
Our design isn’t just pretty; it’s really intentional.”
-Brand + Advertising Coordinator Frankie Pike
“We have something we’re calling cornering, which is when the text goes at a 90-degree angle,” Pike said. “And that’s because we’re 3rd + Lamar, we’re at the intersection of arts and business districts in Austin, and so that intersection you can see in our design… Our red is like all the neon lights you see driving through Austin.”
Once we decided on our new guidelines, we got to work on a new website. We enlisted the help of Michelle McGinnis to create a custom website theme and import our 3rd & Lamar Media content.
We wanted our website to clearly reflect our mission: To make the best work of our lives with good people and give back along the way.
Making The best work of our lives
In addition to leveling up our branding, we’re leveling up our work.
“Every video just feels like we did this one better, and we did this one better and just constantly setting the bar higher, expanding our crews, getting more regulars, getting more people that we really like, having more clients that really like working with us,” said Post Supervisor Michael Zumaya. “The word of mouth is spreading.”
We also recently finished building out our studio, which allows us to achieve a caliber of work we previously couldn’t.
Studio Director Ari Morales led the buildout, constructing a 40-foot by 25-foot matte black wall and installing power and a 20-foot by 20-foot light grid.
“I want people to know that we do all sorts of different types of work,” Morales said. “We’re not just production; we’re not just agency. We don’t just shoot music. We don’t just shoot branded content…We’ll do almost anything in the sense that, any kind of project that we think has a good foundation to it, or even just a good story to tell, we want to help to create that story, tell that story and then really make the client really happy about it.”
WORKING With good people
Our vision is to become Austin’s leading media agency and a leading source for news and coverage of the Austin creative community. We take inspiration and pride from our hometown, and we aim to shine a light on all the amazing work done here and the people behind it.
“I think there’s a lot that’s underserved in terms of the production world,” said Co-Founder + Head of Production Tony Stolfa. “There’s a lot of great undiscovered talent in the music world. Obviously, it’s a Mecca for music. So, we try to always, when we can, devote our time and our sweat equity into enriching the culture of Austin, the fabric of Austin, the art scene.”
Our new website and branding allow us to better showcase this talent.
“As a production company and working with the brands, you guys are sort of a container and gallerist for that as well, too,” Schoen said. “So I wanted to make sure it was bold and strong, but it wasn’t overshadowing your partners, obviously.”
giving back TO AUSTIN along the way
We don’t just get our name from Austin—we get our ethos as well.
“I think 3rd + Lamar represents Austin in a few different ways,” Co-Founder + CEO Nick Schenck said. “Austin is very casual. There’s not a lot of pretension here. There’s not a lot of formality. That’s our culture at 3rd + Lamar. We’re pretty casual. We don’t take ourselves too seriously, but we take our work very seriously. We feel like we’re a reflection of the parts of Austin that we like best. And we just want to support that.”
We support the city by hiring local talent on our production crews, hosting concerts, and covering local creators. It’s important to us to give back to the city we get so much from.
Just looking at 3rd + Lamar’s coverage over local artists, local creators, and the Rooftop Lives, it just really was evident to me that they also shared that love of Austin that I did.”
-Digital Marketing Specialist Keila Martinez.
Looking ahead, we don’t know exactly what’s to come, and that excites us.
“I’ve been in jobs before where I knew exactly what I was going to be doing in six months, like on a Monday at 10:00 a.m., what meeting I had, and what we were going to talk about,” Schenck said. “And the cool thing about 3rd + Lamar is the company could go in so many different directions.
“As long as we stay true to our mission and keep trying to level up in terms of the quality of work that we produce, we’re always working with really good people, and we find a way to give back along the way, I think that we’ll be true to ourselves.”
A year ago, we couldn’t have predicted that we would land here. But here we are, and we can’t wait to continue to improve upon what we’ve created.
“The model still works,” Stolfa said. “We’re still a production house ad agency, and we happen to make our own original content as well. So that won’t change. The change will just be unifying that into one cohesive site.”
