The Mario Blog

“Congratulations on 25 years of Garcia Media,” the messages read, some, from former clients, reminiscing about the time we had worked together.

Indeed, as I checked, this past weekend Garcia Media turned 25, a wonderful age in human terms.  Garcia Media is now a fully certified millennial, whatever that means for a small firm that began when my son Mario Jr. and I decided to give some formality to all the work that we were doing globally as independent consultants. “There are now two Garcias, of two different generations,” I remember telling my son Mario Jr.  He agreed and, presto, Garcia Media was born, and we made things more visible when we opened our first office on Cypress Street in Tampa.  Two women who are no longer with us played key roles at the start of Garcia Media: my late wife, Maria, who was supportive and encouraging, and my unforgettable secretary and personal assistant, Martha Daughtry, who kept us all in line and helped made those early years better because of her efficiency and wisdom.  After Martha died, Toni Lewis, took over and, upon her retirement, my own daughter, Ana Garcia Barravecchio assumed the role of keeper of the keys and my personal assistant, guaranteeing that at Garcia Media, it’s all in the family.

Eventually, as we expanded, there was a need for a Garcia Media Europe office, with talented art directors Jan Kny (now at Die Zeit), and the late Teresa Kral,  as well as one in Buenos Aires, which became Garcia Media Latinoamerica.  The latter is still going strong, headed by Rodrigo Fino and Paula Ripoll, while we decided that there was no need for a European office physically speaking, while we continue to do much work in Europe.  Talented designers, such as Christian Fortanet, Ron Reason, Foster Barnes, Javier Devilat, Jeff Goertzen, Pegie Stark, Nuri Ducassi, Ana Lense Larrauri,  Kelly Frankeny, Constantin Eberle, Reed Reibstein, Maria Pia de Azcuanaga,  Jennifer George Palilonis, Remigio Badano, Nadine Chahine, Nai Lee Lum, David Ok,  and others,  joined us at various locations and for a variety of projects, and some continue to work with us, while all have connected this week to let me know that they were glad to be a part of Garcia Media.

 While 25 years may not be a long time for an organization, it is more like a couple of centuries for our industry.

Garcia Media was founded as an editorial design consultancy firm.

We quickly gained a reputation for our work redesigning newspapers such as The Wall Street Journal, Die Zeit, El Tiempo, The Washington Post and hundreds of others.

Eventually, I knew that we we more than a design firm as such. We were offering workshops to help transform newsrooms into the digital age. While design continues to be an important part of what we do, I believe that our experience in turning newsrooms around, creating awareness of visual storytelling and concentrating on mobile platforms, has shifted our focus and how we are perceived.

Garcia Media in 2017 is a global consulting firm where the emphasis is on training, transformation, the management of disruption and, of course, the visual aspects of telling stories, which is, in my view, the new definition of design.

We bring to the table my own four decades of experience with over 700 projects in now 122 countries with a deep sense of awareness and involvement in the mobile and digital world, and the way we present news and information today.  While design, in the traditional sense, is still an important part of what we do, it is now a component in the type of collaborative consulting and teaching that we offer our clients worldwide.

Our team continues to include Mario Garcia Jr., as well as Andy Rossback.

Along the way, we have learned valuable lessons:

As we now begin a series of about 7 new projects, all digital in nature, we bring the vast experience of the past 25 years, and we hope that we will be around for many years to come, always learning, always providing our clients with the latest information, and with open minds for needed change and positive disruption.

All of us at Garcia Media thank you for your good wishes, and, to our clients, for trusting your publication to us. We appreciate you. We are honored to be part of your projects!

Speaking Engagements Coming Up

SIPConnect 2017, to be held in Miami June 21-23, is a program of the Inter American Press Association, IAPA, or SIP (Sociedad Interamericana de Prensa).  The venue will be the Hilton Miami Downtown Hotel.

Details:

Join us at the SIPConnect Hemispheric Conference 2017. Organized by the IAPA, SIPConnect is a gathering of media and digital businesses to encourage more audiences and higher revenues. It’s a laboratory for new ideas and successful experiences for the digital transformation. As in the 2016 successful meeting that was attended by media from the US, Latin America and the Caribbean, experts in digital businesses and representatives of innovative companies will participate in this event.

For more information: http://www.sipiapa.org/notas/1211078-llamado-sipconnect-2017

 TheMarioBlog post #2640