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December 07, 2007

Blue Clover Picked from Field by Regional Art Directors - Judges select website, print designs for silver medals

San Antonio, TX – On and Off-line Branding™ firm Blue Clover walked away with three Silver medals at the 2007 Art Directors Club of Houston Annual Houston Show. The prestigious 52nd Annual Houston Show was created to "celebrate the creative exhibitionists who make the ads, annual reports, and interactive product demos that grab eyeballs, rattle brain stems and maybe even warm a few hearts," according to the sponsor, Art Directors Club of Houston. Such creativity requires "a special soul-revealing faculty on the part of these professional artists. It means reaching confidently into the crazy unconscious realm of Freudian insecurity and fishing around for a special idea to pull out and put on display to thousands or millions of people."

Blue Clover’s work on the Vistana website at thevistana.com, received a Silver medal in Interactive Design. The Vistana is a 14-story timeless, art deco apartment building located in downtown San Antonio, featuring 246 market-rate rental apartment homes with vistas of the city, first floor retail and a four-level parking garage. The project’s website allows prospective residents to browse each floor in the complex to see 3-D animation of the apartments, download PDFs of the floor plans, and access an interactive map with nearby restaurants, hotels and attractions, including the infamous River Walk, surrounding the complex. As construction continues, prospective residents can also view progress on the complex through a web camera whose images automatically refresh every three minutes.

The firm also earned Silver medals in Graphic Design for its Las Vegas poster series and a wedding invitation for its creative director. For 2007, Blue Clover has a Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) of grossing $3 million in 18 months. To encourage staff to work toward this goal, the firm will reward them with an all-expenses-paid trip to Las Vegas if the goal is met, so the BHAG campaign took on a Vegas theme, including posters with illustrations of the firm’s values using Vegas-style characters.

Blue Clover’s creative director, Juan Barrera, was recently married, and designed his own, unique wedding invitation. The concept was based on creating an instruction manual that walks someone through the typical steps of getting married complete with characters for the engaged couple and bride and groom. Everything was created in Spanish, since the wedding took place in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico.

"We are honored that the judges selected our work for such a prestigious regional competition," said Juan Barrera, creative director of Blue Clover. "The winning projects represent our drive for creative excellence, a commitment to each of our clients. Whether it is a large downtown apartment complex or a wedding invitation, we are passionate about creating memorable and effective communication experiences."

Blue Clover focuses on merging traditional and interactive disciplines to maximize the brand relationship between the company and the customer. The pioneering design firm was established in 2003 by marketing experts and partners Sena, Juan Barrera and Chris Gilbert. The growing staff now includes five partners, with Ryan Kelly and Jody Tidwell, and 17 full-time creative, technology and management professionals with extensive traditional and multicultural marketing, public relations and web-based communication experience from throughout the world. In July 2007, the firm opened a new office in Atlanta to serve its southeast customers, hiring Tidwell and Jason Lewis as president and vice president of the southeast division.

This innovative talent and relentless drive has distinguished Blue Clover as an award-winning firm, including a place in PRINT Magazine’s Regional Design Annual (the most comprehensive competition annual in the design profession), San Antonio Business Journal’s Best Places to Work, San Antonio Business Journal’s Fast Track list for two years in a row; the Emerging Business Award from the San Antonio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce; and the San Antonio Business Journal’s prestigious "40 Under 40" award for Sena, the company’s CEO and president.

Blue Clover's past and present client list boasts more than 120 active local and national clients, including Arquitectonica (international architecture, interior design and planning firm); Jefferson Bank (the third largest San Antonio-based bank with $610 million in assets and 11 retail offices across north and central San Antonio, Boerne and New Braunfels); Terramark (leading Houston-based commercial and residential real estate development and home building, including Espada community near proposed Texas A&M campus in south San Antonio); Time Warner Cable; Goodwill Industries; San Antonio Economic Development Foundation; Workforce Solutions (a workforce development network for employers and job seekers in the Rio Grande Valley); Oberthur Gaming Technologies (one of the world’s leading providers of lottery scratch off games; now known as MDI); Yantis Company ($100 million construction company; listed as one of the "Top 50 Private Companies" in San Antonio); The University of Texas at San Antonio; and USAA (largest private insurance and banking company in the nation.

More information on Blue Clover is available at (210) 223-5409, http://www.blueclover.com/ or info@blueclover.com.