May this message find you and those you love in good health and good spirits. As Governor Walz of Minnesota has implemented a “stay at home” order, we wanted you to be aware that Soulo has been deemed an "essential service.” While we are taking all of the precautions to keep our community safe and [...]

Given the uncertainty of the COVID-19

Soulo Communications is excited to announce that Chadd Schurr has joined the Soulo team as Vice President of Sales. Schurr has over 12 years of experience in sales and account management, working with clients like Disney Parks and Cruise Lines, Dunkin Brands, Dairy Queen International, Cold Stone Creamery Corporate, Meijer Corporation and SuperValu, to name [...]

Our print production department has received a boost from a new tool:

If you visited this website recently you might have noticed that it looks completely different than it did a few months ago. Here at Soulo we offer our clients a wide range of creative production services, from print runs to technical writing to complete branding overhauls and vehicle wraps, so building one website to cover [...]

Animation helps tell a story differently

Getting noticed can be tough. We’re bombarded everyday by ads. That is why placing your brand in unexpected places can work for you in a BIG WAY! Big images, placed on big spaces, delivering a big impression. There’s no better way to make an impact than to go large. Soulo has the unique ability to [...]

From exterior to interior, small to large, flashy to mundane, we know signs. Whether it’s new signs to support an existing design or a new idea, an ADA way-finding sign or a way to stand out… we know signs. We can help you with the signs you need for your building, whatever they are. Even […]

By Bryan Mann-Entzel, Soulo Communications Creative Director Reaching your customers can be a daunting task... like looking across the Grand Canyon. Where do you start? When we apply the Soulo “Whole Brain Approach” to branding, we look at both creative and analytical perspectives; examining the 4 main focus areas. Marketing across these four areas creates [...]

Your Name is Your Business. How Your Customers Interact With Your Name Is Our Business. It’s important for customers to know your name–it’s the most valuable part of your brand. It can instantly tell customers who you are and what your business represents. But are you taking full advantage of this resource? With the right [...]

A Packaged deal – Inside or out, we’ve got you covered. For a small business, getting printing or creative work done and produced can be a serious task! Find a creative agency. They don’t get you. Do you need someone on your staff to manage the agency? Find another. They don’t have time for you. […]

It began as a class project for a group of University of Minnesota students who loved craft beer and wanted to share that joy with others. The idea was to make a passport-like book that listed Minnesota’s craft breweries and offered Buy One, Get One pints when you visited with your passport. Thus was born […]

In our latest Blog post we are featuring Keith Watkins, and employee here at Soulo. Keith recently shared with us that he had a painting that earned second place in competition at the Maple Grove Art Center’s “Monster Show”. “I haven’t painted much at all, the last few years after getting busy with kids, so […]

by Mitch Granholm, Web Developer at Soulo Communications A website’s bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who leave the website after viewing just one page. This is also known as a single-page session. If Google Analytics is installed on your website, you can see the bounce rate. In the example below, the bounce rate […]

We work with a lot of engineering drawings that come out of CAD programs. The translation of files from these 3D rendering applications into the 2D world of Adobe Illustrator can be… choppy. We usually get either PDFs or DXF/DWG files (those require their own special settings). It seems like if you open a CAD […]

This is just one more in a long line of “marking up PDFs” posts, which we have to update often because Adobe can’t help themselves. They change the markup/comment interface with every new release, it seems. The more comprehensive explainer is here; a shorter one for Acrobat X or XI is here. (That was a […]

Well, you have been found out. Your business is not perfect. You’re human, after all, and nobody’s perfect. I know you wanted to keep that pristine 5 star rating but guess what? This is not the end of the world after all. The surprising fact is that a perfect 5 star rating is not believable […]

Labor is the engine that drives success. Soulo is closed in observance of the Labor Day holiday, and wishes you success in your labors as well. Starting tomorrow.

Soulo has a long history of enjoying the Minnesota State Fair. (It stretches well past these summaries. Our Fair-going predates the blog, and our blog updating is sporadic at best). We hit the Fair again this year (pics to come, etc.) but in another way we’d already made our mark: we were contracted to re-paint […]

by Mitch Granholm, Web Developer at Soulo Communications Not savvy on fly fishing? Here’s a quick run-down. Fly fishing is a sport in which you fish with a fly, a small hook with fur, feathers, or other materials fastened to it. The propulsion of your offering to the fish in the water comes from the weight […]

Looking for something to do today? The Tipsy Timberer is a unique brewery crawl showing off some of the best taprooms in the area. Lumberjacks and Lumberjills from all over will be showing up to crawl for beer and check out the sources of the favorite (and new favorite) local brews. We have been working […]

What Is Branding? The best place to start is to understand what a brand isn’t. Your brand isn’t your logo. Your brand isn’t your visual identity system or your website. It isn’t your color scheme or even your wonderful product (or service). And most importantly, your brand isn’t what you say it is. Your brand [...]

Soulo is pleased to partner with Rise for their special event in July. We donated printing of the promotional postcards and posters their third annual Tapping into Possibilities ‘Friend Raiser.’ Rise is a nonprofit organization that supports people with disabilities and other barriers to employment and housing. The goal is to help people attain safe and affordable housing, achievement in […]

You’ve crossed all the Ts, dotted all the Is, proofread it repeatedly. It is magnificent! You hit publish and you wait. Any minute now, hordes of people will discover the gem you poured your time and knowledge into… Well? We’ve all done it. Checking off that to-do item on your always expanding to-do list and […]

by Mitch Granholm, Web Developer at Soulo Communications Are you an opportunist? Every opportunity you have to promote your business and increase visibility is valuable. Without a strong online presence, your inbound traffic is limited more or less to people already familiar with your brand. A solid online presence campaign will increase brand awareness, increase […]

Creating technical documentation for any piece of hardware almost always requires that we work with AutoCAD or some other computer-aided design file type. We use Adobe Illustrator to manipulate this line art. There was a time when we could get the draftsperson to just send us a DWG or DXF file and we were good to […]

SOULO is closed today for our annual company retreat, which is always held on one business day during the nine days that lead up to Labor Day Weekend. We traditionally convene this mission-critical business event at the state fairgrounds. You can see pictures and thoughts from previous years’ retreats here and here and here. Here’s hoping […]

Great brand/beer launch party for our client – Barley John’s Brewing Company last night at Northbound Smokehouse and Brew Pub. With the beer flowing and the timely arrival of the pilot cans from Crown, it was like Christmas in August. Here are some fun pics from the event. Stay tuned for more from the Soulo […]

Since our July update we’ve extended one more micro loan, to a dairy farmer in Armenia. She lives with her husband, two children, mother-in-law, and sister-in-law. She and her family hope to expand their livestock holdings on their farm. She’s already making repayments, so we’re up to 7 loans actively paying back, with a total of 23, in […]

At the end of July, Bossman Tom and his family went to Washington DC for a vacation (where they rented a townhouse that turned out to be like two doors down from speaker of the house and orange Grimace understudy, John Boehner). Meanwhile, my family was on vacation as well, but sometimes clients need things. […]