Like Minds

Like Minds is an immersive digital feature profiling three artisan-entrepreneurs who are balancing innovation and heritage in distinct, time-honored disciplines.

Our drive to discover three entrepreneurs in constant pursuit of their singular craft was buoyed by the notion that like-recognizes-like. Though their work is separated by medium, technique, and geography, our featured craftspeople—a hyper-local chef in New Mexico, a luxury watchmaker in Los Angeles, and a pair of ceramists elevating everyday housewares in the English countryside—are linked by the joyful obsession of doing something extraordinarily well.

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The Story

Crafting Commonalities, Defining Distinctions

What drives certain creators to work almost exclusively by hand, to eschew scale for small-batch masterworks, to uphold and innovate the time-honored techniques of their forebears?

Our process of discovery led us to the high desert of northern New Mexico, foraging alongside chef Johnny Ortiz-Concha, a skate punk at heart whose culinary skills become poetry on a plate. It led us to Los Angeles, where a watchmaker keeps time—in a city obsessed with its passage—by holding strong to the craft of fine horology. And, finally, it took us to Exeter, observing as a husband-wife pair of ceramists obsess over a fingertip-size dimple in a single, handmade mug.

Talent

Character-First Storytelling

It was clear from the beginning that craftspeople—their methods, their rarity, their idiosyncrasies—would be at the center of the story. Chef Johnny Ortiz-Concha, watchmaker Joshua Shapiro, and ceramists Cath and Jeremy Brown were perfectly suited to the task. The grouping delivered a diversity of artistic expertise and a commitment to the experiences and objects that we encounter everyday, making their achievements feel all the more singular. And because their local communities were central to their narrative, they inspired readers to appreciate the craftspeople living amongst them, too.

Reporting

Access Is Everything

Tagging along with Concha as he foraged the wilds of New Mexico for hyper-local ingredients, watching Shapiro as he balanced unassailable precision and artistic vision, and documenting the Browns as they considered their next designs in the English countryside added texture and tension to the profiles. Pursuing like-mindedness between our subjects and our client meant going the distance, putting in the time, waiting for the magic and, crucially, being there when it striked.

Johnny Ortiz foraging mint and wild sorrel at a stream near his home

Joshua Shapiro and the ancient art of engine turning

Design

Signature Visuals

There’s a reason that each chapter in the Like Minds story bears the unique signature of a different photographer. Each artisan was captured by a photographer hand-selected to get the most out of that location, community, and subject. Though working miles apart, our in-house art direction ensured that the individual photographers’ work felt both distinct as well as cohesive and seamless with the entire project.

In the art direction and type choices for the piece, we took cues from the labels of the bottles themselves, including signatures and the location of each story in the setup of each section.

Results

Finding and Connecting
With Like Minds

Beyond featuring like-minded artisan-entrepreneurs, we also sought to attract like-minded connoisseurs to the content, and we achieved that goal. Nine out of every 10 visitors to the feature article identified as a whisky enthusiast, according to user polling. The same study showed a 67% increase in favorable association with The Glenrothes after engaging with the content. And that engagement was extraordinarily high, with users spending a collective 1.3K total hours on the page, navigating between the three artisan profiles and their relationship to the time-tested craft of artisan whisky-making.

181,558 Page views — we exceeded our client guarantee by over forty percent.
+30% We reached over thirty percent above our benchmark for active time on page for a custom article.
67% Readers were more likely to think positively about The Glenrothes after reading the article.

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