Taos is lately experiencing an artistic and cultural Renaissance thanks to a few locals who have their fingers on the town’s pulse.

Both Ana Karina Armijo and Alyson Hyder have been profiled here on taoStyle.

For the first time, MarkeTaos and the Town of Taos are working in tandem in a collaboration that is certain to benefit us all. Over the past year, since Karina took on the position of Marketing Director of Taos and Alyson was appointed Director of MarkeTaos, it became clear that united they (MarkeTaos and the Town) were much stronger than acting as separate entities, which was often confusing to visitors and locals alike.

MarkeTaos had long held the monopoly over Taos’ online presence and Karina (whose background in Web Design combined with her Marketing skills) was especially concerned about rebranding the Town in a cohesive and unified manner. Alyson and Karina have worked together for many years on a myriad of projects, so it didn’t take too long for them to put their heads together and come up with a solution to the problem at hand.

Now these two remarkable women have joined forces to create the new, very much improved website for Taos.org, branding it with the brilliant slogan I’ve used as the title for this post; “Far Away from the Every Day”, a phrase coined by perhaps the first Brander of Taos, Mabel Doge Lujan. Making sure you have an effective website and slogan are just two of the most important branding methods that are out there, alongside more traditional methods of improving brand awareness, such as having brochures and business cards printed with your slogans and logos on (find help at third-angle.com when it comes to this) and handing them out to the public. There are many other things that new businesses or blogs need to consider when starting up. Some even decide to try and find celebrities who can help increase their brand awareness as there is no doubting the power of celebrity to catapult awareness of a brand. It could now be easier than ever to use a celebrity endorsement as you can contact companies such as Lunar Talent to help you get in touch with them. Just think about how this could help the success of your business in the long run?

“Karina and I started working together in 2007, when she become the Taos Ski Valley Chamber of Commerce Graphic Designer for all print products, Web Design and Branding,” explains Alyson. “At that time she assisted me in putting Taos Ski Valley Chamber of Commerce on the map as the third top visited website in Taos.”

“In 2009 we worked together on the First Annual Taos Mountain Music Festival,” (which was coordinated by Alyson with the Taos Ski Valley Chamber of Commerce and Alejandro Blake). “It was hugely successful.” She tells me.

Karina volunteered her help with the Taos Ski Valley Up and Over event, and was largely instrumental in growing the event. She organized the Paint for Peaks fundraiser and K2 Bumps challenge raising over $30,000 per year for Breast Cancer Awareness. She then produced the first Taos Ski Valley Visitors guide which this year morphed into a joint guide between Taos Ski Valley Chamber of Commerce and the Town of Taos – Taos/Taos Ski Valley Visitors Guide.