Most business meetings don’t involve hunting rifles and dead deer, but this particular meeting between Insight co-founder Brian Rasmussen and A2Z Design President Jeff Amstutz was not one of those meetings.
It was the fall of 2007 and Insight Publications was just an idea. Amstutz and Rasmussen were meeting to discuss design concepts for this new business-to-business magazine, but Rasmussen arrived late because he had been out hunting with his son, who had just bagged his first deer.
“I grew up on a farm in Indiana,” Amstutz says with a laugh. “It didn’t freak me out too much.”
The Ball State University alum found himself at this unorthodox meeting in Appleton after relocating to the area for his husband’s job. While this was a meeting to conceptualize the design of Insight, it was also laying the foundation for A2Z, which Amstutz had just launched that year.
“A2Z really cut its teeth here because of Insight and being able to expand what we do creatively across all mediums,” Amstutz says.
Amstutz led the brand and design development of Insight, which debuted in April 2008. This included creation of the nameplate and logo, advertising specifications and pacing of editorial content. In the publication’s early days, A2Z designed the magazine cover to cover each month, which was a big enough job for Amstutz to hire his first employee: former colleague Michael Miller.
With Insight as one of his earliest clients, Amstutz says the publication became an unofficial calling card.
“Doing Insight was a great opportunity to put ourselves out there each month,” he says. “We had a lot of creative freedom, and it was a great way to meet people. It was like immediate validation for us.”
Today Insight’s in-house designers handle much of the magazine’s layout, but A2Z still handles the design and art direction of every cover and cover story.
Since its founding, A2Z has expanded to seven employees and grown its offerings to include not only graphic design, but marketing strategy services, social media management and, most recently, public relations. The company saw 40% overall growth in 2022.
A2Z continues to be recognized as an industry leader in the region. The agency was the Fox Cities Chamber’s Company Innovation Award winner in 2021 and has received dozens of American Advertising Federation ADDY Awards, many for its work on Insight.
With clients like AriensCo Hospitality, Community Foundation for the Fox Valley Region, Fox Cities Convention and Visitors Bureau, and Ahlstrom, Amstutz says the Northeast Wisconsin business community inspires him and the stories A2Z tells through compelling design and marketing.
“We have a lot to be proud of here,” he says. “Partnering with Insight was a way for us to quickly get to know this region and the depth of what we have going. It’s a great story.”
