In 2011, I worked with Tacklebox Marketing on a trade magazine advertisement for D.A. Davidson & Co., a Kansas City firm that provides financing and underwriting for public projects in municipalities and water districts across Missouri. The firm’s previous ad contained a lot of great information, but it wasn’t very engaging visually. We saw the opportunity to highlight some of the firm’s key selling points by developing a stronger conceptual frame. I really enjoy working on projects like this, where the word count is limited and the challenge is to find a good hook and then choose just the right words. Since this branch of the firm only serves clients in Missouri, that allowed us to work on a Missouri-specific theme, which naturally led to the “Show Me State.” Then the trick was to work with that familiar moniker without sounding clichéd (among other things, this phrase appears on the state’s license plates). I think we struck just the right balance, thanks in large part to great design work by David Tierney. The ad is a two-page spread, and the clean, well-balanced layout  makes the information easy to access and understand. View larger image of ad.