Helios: innovative, dynamic, cost-effective editorial and commercial design solutions
• corporate • retail • non-profits • education • industry • publishing

Innovative:
We come up with creative and cost-effective solutions to tricky design problems. When Japan's coolest magazine publisher needed a media kit for Gulliver, a travel magazine with too many pages for any paper folders, we made a plastic one that ad reps loved.

Dynamic:
How exciting can a bag of nuts be? After re-designing the iconic Mauna Loa macadamia nuts label, we leveraged the high level of brand awareness by using the jar on the aluminum pack required by 7-11 stores. Sales increased almost immediately, critically securing a spot in the Japanese convenience chain's impulse-buy snack food aisle. Simultaneously, our beautiful display ads for Mauna Loa helped cement their reputation as a premium imported product.

Cost-effective:
When IBM needed English- and Japanese-market versions of their manufacturing controller brochures on a very tight budget, we not only designed, translated and typeset a set of inexpensive-but-distinctive two-color companion pieces, we also made cool illustrations of the complex processes they ran, and even took photographs of their factory installations ourselves. They saved a bundle.
The budget is always a primary part of the design! We're very modestly priced for our local, central Virginia market. Our costs are low and we pass the savings on. In fact, there are many firms in this area with less committment and less experience, who charge more than we do.


Solutions:
The relationship between client and audience is honored and encouraged, first and foremost. And because we've had over a decade of success catering to the most demanding clients and audiences in the world, the Japanese, our standards are high.

Our wide, international experience among so many different kinds of clients, from Canon Camera to the University of Virginia Press, allows us a strong sense of style without obscuring our client's communications goals. We carefully consider the client's brand, target audience, (and budget!) by delivering an integrated message and communicating the benefits.

We're up to the challenge. We offer a particular combination of skills to translate, design and produce work in Japanese and English. For example, we've done companion pieces for IBM in both English and Japanese. Some of our work for Canon was produced in both English and other European languages.
We recently completed a similar project for NHK, "Japan's BBC", We produced a sleek set of brochures introducing their new Ultra High Definition video technology to an international market of museums, NASA engineers, and government agencies around the world.

Clients appreciate our abilities, but they also benefit by working directly with the principals. We don't add lots of account managers to the mix, so you can be assured your intentions reach the people who do the work, unfiltered. So your work gets the highest level of attention and costs are kept low.