Treystar
Whether you're looking for a beautiful, spacious office, or an office that just happens to be the size of a closet, Treystar can make it happen!
Treystar is a commercial real estate company who's presence in the Kalmazoo community has been around for some time. Bob Brown started the company back in 1969 with a 50% stake in a mobile home community and over 50 years later, the company now owns close 20 commercial and retail properties, and has been involved in hundreds of real estate deals across Southwest Michigan.
The company was looking for a Digital Marketing Manager to help increase the companies online presence, and when given the opportunity, I jumped at the chance to get some real life marketing experience. I was excited to learn more about digital marketing, but also be able to bring my creativity and artistic talent to the role to create some truly spectacular marketing materials.
Establishing a Design System
When I first arrived at Treystar, the company had the basics of a brand built, but it was lacking some of the finer points and the consistency of the brand was just not there yet. This was a new role within the company, so there had not been a person who's sole job was dedicated to establishing these branding guidelines before. I knew I had to start small and gradually build the brand from the ground up before we could really start doing full blown promotions across all our social media channels.
When working to establish any sort of cohesive brand system, you have to start from square one first. And when talking about the commercial real estate industry, square one is printed brochures that you can read and hold with your hands. Realtors have been handing those out to potential clients for years.
Office Leasing Brochure
Retail Leasing Brochure
The brochures were a great starting project to get familiar with the current staples of the brand, and they also got the rest of the team excited as they were "the prettiest brochures they had ever had before". It was definitely a collaboration process between the realtors, brokers, and myself as they would be the ones who would ultimately be handing these out to potential customers. It was important to include the vital information for all the properties, as well as capture the spaces in their best light (literally).
In order to do that, I was constantly on the move taking photos of all our properties and editing them to make them stand out even more. I love taking photos so this was one of my favorite parts about the job. Once the photos were gathered and all the property information was acquired, the brochures started to come into place, and final designs were decided on for both office and retail brochures. Soon each retail center and available office space had its very own brochure. I was excited to see how some of the brand standards we came up with transferred over to the digital space.
The Digital Realm
Once we got our brochures looking the way we wanted, it was time to carry that into the digital world. The first area we wanted to experiment with was on our social media channels (particularly Instagram which was a new platform for the company).
I had a lot of fun getting to direct the photoshoots, although most of it was just me throwing a beachball at my friends and trying to get them to laugh for Sarah.
One of the areas I thought Treystar's brand worked really well was that they kept their designs clean and simple. I wanted to carry that aspect over to their social media graphics, as well as any photography that would end up being used for social media. I also thought an area they could improve on was making their posts across their social media channels slightly more playful and engaging. It's a very tough line to walk in commercial real estate because you have to maintain an image of looking somewhat professional and knowledgable, but I also felt like the partners at Treystar really reflected a more fun and playful vibe.
For the designs, I used bold colors and typography, and photos and patterns were generally subtle to not divert attention away from the typography on posts. The Treystar pinwheel was also incorporated into a lot of designs as it often created interesting spacial relationships within the design. I also enjoyed what I called "vantage point" shots of our downtown locations because they made our properties appear larger than life.
Another tactic was to try and encourage people to follow our other socials on LinkedIn. Treystar's LinkedIn page would often see the most engagement from users. That made sense considering their connections and industry, but we knew there was a key demographic of business owners between the ages of 20-40 that we were potentially missing. We knew other channels such as Facebook and Instagram would be the place to reach them, so we tried to promote those channels on our LinkedIn and encourage visitors to follow.
Animation and videos was also something I tried to incorporate more of. Videos have the ability to connect with users and grasp their attention much quicker than just images or posts could. As someone who loves to animate videos, I was happy to work on whatever animations they wanted. This video is an example of how we influenced our viewers to check out and follow our Instagram page.
Probably the most important lession we learned. If all else fails, any picture with Bob is pure social media gold!
There's Always Time For Some Web Design
Upon doing some Google Analytics research, it was brought to our attention that our website was not performing as well as we had hoped. There had also been some internal complaints about the site as well, so the company decided perhaps it was time to invest in a new website altogether. I was not anticipating having to use my web design skills much at this job, but I was thrilled to find out I would get the opportunity after all.
While the actual design of the website was not its biggest issue, I was determined to bring a more clean and exciting approach to it. I wanted users to be captivated when visiting, but I also didn't want to sacrifice usability or accidentally complicate anything that currently wasn't. I ended up creating some wireframe variations that explored different grid solutions, with the idea of motion being an interactive tool on the site.
Homepage Version 1 Wireframe
Homepage Version 2 Wireframe
Properties Page Wireframe
After reviewing the wireframes, the feedback suggested I combine elements from the different variations, so I went ahead and created a slightly altered mockup. Both utilize a loose grid structure, and encourage some level of engagement above the fold. Both rely pretty heavily on well taken photographs (which I did take most of these myself).
The feedback from the designs was overwhelmingly positive and the team was excited to move forward. Shortly after these were approved though, I ended up accepting another job offer elsewhere, so the new website never came to be. It was a very exciting project to be a part of and hopefully it's possible this site will still get to exist with my designs one day.
Homepage Mockup
Properties Page mockup
Overall I am really thankful for the time I had at Treystar. While it was more of a marketing focused role, I still managed to use my design degree quite a bit, and it was awesome getting to know the city of Kalamazoo, the people, and it's history a lot better!
ryansartori.us
[email protected] | (734) 780 - 4795 | Kalamazoo, MI
Design by Ryan Sartorius, circa 2022. All rights reserved.