Senior Designer Andrew O. Ellis loves Pittsburgh. Read why.

I may have been one of the only kids in Michigan to have this card on purpose.

If you don’t mind, I’m going to spend the next few paragraphs patting myself on the back.

Why? Because I’m part of a small and exclusive group. I’m a young person who moved TO Pittsburgh and stuck around. And more than that, I did it before it was cool.

You see, I grew up in the suburbs of Detroit. One Christmas during the early 1990s, we came to Pittsburgh to visit relatives who at that time lived in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood. I don’t know if it was the rivers or the hills or the dinosaurs or what, but something about this town captured my imagination for the rest of my childhood. Pictures of the skyline adorned my bedroom walls. Bridges became more fascinating to me than cars and trucks, and the Pittsburgh Penguins became my hockey team – a move, in Red Wings territory, that was about as popular as being, say, a Cleveland Browns fan in Steeler Nation.

In Detroit, most of the art and design schools were rumored to be straight recruitment lines to the now-crumbling automotive industry – a path I wasn’t eager to follow. It seemed almost too perfect that I’d end up attending the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. I still had friends questioning the move as my high school graduation loomed, but I was feeling the sort of satisfaction that you feel when things start falling into place. (more…)

All eyes will be on Pittsburgh the week of the G-20 Summit in September, and local government officials, community leaders and the media are talking about what an opportunity this is to elevate the perception of Pittsburgh to something more than a dirty old steel town. Pittsburgh is not the market leader when we think of US cities. It’s definitely not the biggest. It’s not top-of-mind. And it certainly has never been thought of as the most prestigious. These characteristics make Pittsburgh a Challenger Brand city, and they’re why we must break the rules to take our rightful place in the market — as the most innovative and marketable city in the US. (Dream Big! Brand Spanking® Cardinal Rule #4*). (more…)