Advertise this...

So last night I had my first critique for advertising. Last quarter I just had one design critique, so starting now in my second quarter, I have one critique for my advertising projects and then another critique for my design pieces. The critique went really well. I pitched 3 campaigns. One for VSA arts, a non-profit organization for the purpose to educate those with disabilities in the arts. We did a series of 3-ads, a viral video concept and a guerrilla campaign. The concept behind the ads was to portray signs in the world of art with the disability symbols, to show people that even those with disabilities can have active careers in the arts. The second campaign was a business-to-business campaign advertising the idea of Bringing Starbucks to Your Office. They offer a service where different Starbucks coffee can be delivered to the office to brew in your coffee pot, or you can have an actual Starbucks brewer set up in the office. The concept behind this campaign was getting Starbucks involved in the everyday workflow. It was my panel's favorite campaign I did not to mention, which I felt was my weakest. The last campaign was a Viagra campaign. We wanted to get away from the "pussyesque" theme of most Viagra advertising which is the guy sitting on the beach rubbing his wife's back, or salsa dancing, or something like that. No wonder he can't get it up. Too much estrogen flowing in his system. So we wanted to get it back to the basics. The tagline being "Get the job done." The idea was that men work hard all day and need to get the job done then and in the bedroom. We wanted to get away from the uncomfort men feel for the need of this product and laugh with them and make them feel more comfortable that Ed has attacked them and Viagra has the solution for getting the job done. Over all it was a lot of fun doing these campaigns this quarter. I will be excited to see what happens next quarter with my classes and definitely more to come following my design critique, which I have way more stuff to explain.

Cheers

Competing in Design

Hey guys. Its been a little while but I have just been hella busy with school. Quarter is about to come to a close in 2 weeks, as I am now preparing to get all my pieces sharpened and printed to take to critique. I have 2-20 minute critiques this time. One is my advertising critique, which will be probably Tuesday night, and then my design critique on Thursday night. We'll see if this year's critique will go half as good as last quarters.

I also wanted to update you on a recent competition that some of my work went into. We designed 2 magazine spreads (4 pages) based on a certain subject guideline given by the hosts of the competion (SPD, Society of Publication Designers). I chose to do mine on Williamsburg, Brooklyn, which is a part of New York that is total hipster. Graffiti covering each wall and the place where young people making the move to the city may find their first home. Even though the part of town is now changing for the worse due to money, and things getting to expensive, I still wanted to design the pieces based on what WillyB was originally known as. We sent out the finished pieces this past Monday to SPD, which is in New York City. They began judging on Tuesday at noon and we will find out results Friday, March 13. So the prizes are really what perked me up to the competition. They have 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and then 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Honorable Mention. First place wins $2500, the Adobe Creative Suite, which is the software I design on, and work gets published in the SPD annual at the end of the year.

Now the biggest part of this is that the first 4 winners (1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 1st Honorable Mention) receive fully paid(living expenses covered) summer internship with a major magazine in New York City this summer. Now, those of you who know me well enough know that this is right up my alley. I worked my ass off for these pieces and spent many weeks on it. I hope to be chosen and feel really good about my work. However, if I don't, I will keep my head up and keep on working as hard as I have been. In time I know that doors will open where they need to and I will be packed and ready for those opportunities. I will keep you guys posted on any news I hear. 

I will now enjoy the rest of the weekend outside, since the weather is gorgeous. 

Kinko's Blows

Headline says it all. Kinko's is the worst establishment in existence, at least the Atlanta locations are.

Its a good show...Trust Me!

Hey guys. So, I don't get much time to do anything other than homework, but I do make it a point on Monday nights (while working on my laptop as well) to sit and watch the great new show, "Trust Me." It comes on at 10 pm my time and it is a drama series about the world of advertising. The plot focuses on the struggles and stresses of agency life with the main characters being a creative director and a writer, and how their relationship as best friends reroutes once their partnership is split due to a promotion. It is based in Chicago and really will give you a good idea of what agency life is like, however, they ad a bit of drama to make it an entertaining show. So if you are sitting around on Monday nights looking for something on, definitely give it a try. It is only an hour but a very cool show. 

Here is the link too: http://www.tnt.tv/series/trustme/

Feeling like death warmed over...

So, another day of a 12 hour class, I am exhausted. I will be, with my class, doing a presentation on illustration and caricatures in the morning before seminar. Should be pretty interesting and hopefully alot of fun for what we have planned. Maybe some pictures will come about from it. We are closing in to the end of the quarter though. I just hope I can survive to the end without dying.

Superbowl Favs

Hey guys. So the superbowl was a bit disappointing, but I was able to catch some pretty funny commercials. Being in art school our eyes are naturally drawn to this stuff so in case you missed any, here are some of my favorite spots from this year's super bowl!

Denny's - Call Me Nannerpuss | Viral | SPIKE.com

Another weekend day...another class

So, Sunday morning, 7am, and I am sitting in Hank's class...again. I feel like we are spiraling up toward to the completion of the first project, which is our magazine spread that will be entered into a competition once we are finished. I am doing a City/Regional magazine based on Williamsburg Brooklyn, and about the lifestyle there. It has been pretty interesting and challenging all at the same time. My class got together yesterday after a long day of preparing my work to present to them and it was a really helpful meeting. So I hope everyone has gotten enough sleep and enjoyed the weekend, because mine has been a bit of a blur. Thanks again for everyone who supports me in what I am doing because I am working my ass off to get to where I want to be, and understanding from everyone of the work load I have on my plate always makes my life just that much easier. More to come soon!