Neltner Small Batch focuses on "true stories" behind branding work

 
Consumer and brand marketing is pretty big in Cincinnati, where big firms work with big clients to reach a big audience. Neltner Small Batch, as the name says, is doing things a little differently.
 
Keith Neltner established his design firm in 2012 on his family’s farm in Camp Springs, Ky. with a small staff and key collaborators such as photographer and cinematographer Brian Steege and editor and colorist Tate Webb. Their most recent project, a promotional film for Braxton Brewing called Born in a Garage, exemplifies what makes this team unique.
 
“We started working with Braxton in January of last year,” Neltner says. “Way back in the beginning, we established the whole garage sensibility, because they already had that story: They started as father and son brewing in a garage and turned it into a really cool brewery. When they started to actually build out the space, we recognized that there were going to be some unscripted moments that we wanted to capture.”
 
Neltner had worked with Steege on music videos and documentaries and realized they both loved telling stories. As the Braxton space was developed in Covington, featuring a mural designed by Neltner, Steege documented the process and turned the raw footage over to Webb, who put the story together.
 
“People talk about authentic stories and they’re really talking about a style of storytelling,” Webb says. “I think what Keith does, and the reason that he connected with Brian and me, is that we have strong feelings about telling true stories and showing true things.”
 
The team behind Born in the Garage takes a hands-on approach to its work, focusing on the story behind each brand.
 
“This is not design for design’s sake,” Neltner says. “We’re always digging for that story that’s going to mean something to people. Our writer, Jeff Chambers, connects with people on a fundamental level in the conversational way he writes copy.
 
“Hopefully we’re creating artifacts that will live on. Ten years from now someone might pick up a vinyl record that we had the opportunity to work on and it’s an artifact, it’s not disposable. That said, we’re not artisans with little lamps in workshops toiling away on woodcarvings. We have that sensibility when we tell a story, but we’re connected and definitely use technology to our advantage.”
 
Neltner, Stegge and Webb are each running their own businesses in addition to collaborating on projects. Their informal style and honest admiration for each other clearly feeds the success of their partnership.
 
“Everything Keith has ever designed has been influenced by growing up out in a farming community and coming to a sense of design and art by the life that he lived,” Webb says. “His work truly is as authentic as you can get. Keith is not trying to conjure an image or a look that is popular because of the back to the roots movement — it’s an outpouring of what is natural to him. I think that is what makes his work resonate with people, because in the end authenticity just means truth.”
 
Webb says the collaborations border on a “mystical experience” when the three start working together on a project.
 
“The three of us all have separate worlds that don’t cross over at all,” he says, “but occasionally a special project comes along and we know we have to work together.”