Steering a digital vision
BRAINSTORMING: Carlos Toro and his team at Steer LLC in Providence brainstorm in their studio space. Foreground from left, Ryan Sherwood, project manager; Ed Eacueo, team lead; and Carlos Toro, founder and team lead. Background from left, Xander Monge, videographer/editor; and Povilas Mecys, front-end developer and designer. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO
Carlos Toro, director and owner of digital media company Steer LLC, prides himself on the fact that he hasn’t had an “office job” since 2007.
Eleven years ago, Toro had just graduated from New York University with a master’s degree in graphic-communications management. He was working “off Wall Street” for a financial printing firm producing legal documents companies need to launch on the stock exchange.
It was that period, he said, when he realized he wanted his professional life to mesh more with his personal goals.
“I’m going to do the things that really speak to me,” he said, and joined then-candidate Barack Obama’s campaign for president in 2008 as a deputy field organizer in Ohio. In that role, he helped identify voters, manage groups that canvassed for the campaign and joined in on the door-knocking himself.
“We had to cover thousands of doors; Ohio is a big operation,” he said.
A native of the Smith Hill neighborhood in Providence, Toro said when he returned to the Ocean State in 2012, he wanted to branch out on his own.
“I felt like I had something unique to offer when it came to digital media,” he said. “Digital media can be more than the mundane, vanilla … [it can be] experimental, forward-looking projects.”
The Steer LLC umbrella is made up of three brands – Steer PVD, Steer Films and Steer Digital.
Steer PVD, he explained, makes up half the incoming business for the company and represents the local contracts among corporations and nonprofits in Rhode Island. Web design, web development, social media management, film and video production are offered through this brand.
Steer Films and Steer Digital are focused on projects that are impactful nationally and internationally, said Toro.
One recently commissioned project will help mark a major scientific milestone. Next year is the 20th anniversary of the launch of NASA’s Chandra Observatory. Toro and the Steer team have been contracted by NASA to produce and tour a video commemorating the machine’s history.
Previous Steer Digital work includes a 20-foot, multimedia display for New England Aquarium’s “Science of Sharks” exhibit. The interactive display included animation, interviews and multimedia platforms for audience members to learn about the underwater species.
“As a director,” said Toro, “I’m interested in art, technology and science – the convergence of that is where I want to be.”
While Providence has been branded the Creative Capital, Toro said he doesn’t find it difficult to operate in such a design- and media-heavy town. The reason, he said, is because the studio’s “aim is to compete on the global stage.
“We think of Providence as our base. If there is a healthy design community [here], we can only be helped by that because we’re drawing from here to go out and work,” he said.
Toro’s goal is, within the next three years, to elevate Steer to be one of the “most impactful” studios in the country. The company, he said, will pursue and examine “projects that … have a lot of courage.”
