Project: Circa 1877

When I was working at Him & Her Inc. back in 2017, I got to work on a ton of different projects. I loved the variety of work that I was able to do, and the gratification that the end result brought.

Out of all of the projects I worked on, I was the most proud of Circa 1877 on behalf of HIP Developments. We were given the concept and location of the pending condominium project, and the rest was up to us.

The Deliverables: 

• Name for the building
• Story
• Tagline
• Social channels
• Blog
• Press kit
• Lookbook
• Investor events

The Process: 

After I completed research on the building and presented it to my co-workers, we spent two hours in the conference room with Post-Its and wrote down every name we could think of. Circa 1877 (which was mine) ended up in the top five, and being what the developers went with.

Then, I took some time to come up with the tagline. I couldn’t get the history aspect out of my head, and that took over my thinking. At first, I was going to present, “Be a part of history,” but it seemed too generic. However, I loved the idea of telling a story and showcasing how different of a living experience this would be for those in Waterloo Region. I came up with “Far From Ordinary” and “What Will Your Story Be?” Both were used.

One of my co-workers handled the social media calendar and drafted the copy, but I was responsible for ensuring that the copy was flawless. The three of us on the team were responsible for the blog, and the same woman who handled the social media also planned the events.

The press kit was also a collective effort. My main focus was writing the press release that would fall within that. My co-worker that handled the social media was responsible for outreach, and our other team member was responsible for the visual design of the kit.

My biggest deliverable was copy for the physical lookbook that would be released. It was about 30 pages in total, and obviously quite visual, but I had to think about every single aspect of a living space. I had to write about everything from the faucets to the titles, but it was a fun challenge.

The Outcome: 

After my summer contract ended, everything that we had worked so hard on was now left to stand on its own. As a result of the marketing and events that we put forward, Circa 1877 completely sold out in less than 24 hours. To this day, it’s still my proudest moment, especially because it was the first major professional project I had a hand in.