And finally enough superbowl. 4 days is enough. But I thought I would end with a post about the ones I would like to have had a hand in based on script, concept, or art direction. Enjoy.
Concept: Modesty goes a long way.
Script: Conan is always funny.
Art Direction: Beautiful. Simply beautiful.
Ahhh the winners. The risk takers, the inside tracks, the little men. Oh wait you paid 3 mm for your spot? Well congrats you titans of industry! Enjoy.
The big winner. Thank you Cash for gold. It goes to show that a company willing to make a splash and a cool commercial can make a splash. If I had any gold, I would give it to you, if I hadn't swallowed it out of fear of hobos coming for my family savings!
Crispin, you got it, damn you. You got it. What great branding for HULU. Once again an ad requiring knowledge of the porn machine known as the internet. This is great. I love HULU and 30 Rock, you make me want more, big balls for NBC as well. Alec Baldwin should be the face of GE as well, who wouldn't like that. People older than 32 you say? Oh ok.
CRISPIN!!! DAMN YOU!!! A classic commercial twisted. Tough ground but damn you, you did it. I applaud you and your lond haired god of a founder. I am your Kirk to your Kahn.
BOOOOOOGGGGGGUUUUSKKKKKKYYYY!!!!
Oh congrats TBWA. You got me. If you aren't on the internets or the tubes that connect to it, you probably won't get the SNL/Pepsi spots. But what's interesting to me is that agencies and clients are willing to try spots, high costs spots, that are targeted at me and younger, the guards are changing. MacPepSuber!!
Ok so these might be a little slanted toward my generation. They require an internet presence, pop culture knowledge and the ability to handle hard fast edits. Sorry grandma! The Superbowl is a place to roll out new cool ads, and this year was better than I hoped. You could feel a change between generations and styles, this could be the end of your JG Wentworths. SEE YOU IN HELL!
So im going to be one of 6,543,332 million blogs posting about the ads they saw during the Superbowl. So what am I going to offer that no one has? Sarcastic remarks. Today, worst of the day.
Oh man I wanted to love this. I loved the commercial. It was written well, shot well, paced right, made people stop. Until the end. Cars.com. So this accomplished man is retarded about finding a car? You mean he rode the bus until 30? Or he had a helicopter made of gold? But the real problem is you could have dropped anything, ANYTHING, into the end and it would have worked. As we sat there listening, GEICO would have been better. I mean compared to all that, what's simpler than finding car insurance?
Tela flora. Ok big buy for a small brand in a recession. I love the ambition but the message gets lost. Most people are drunk/high/crying because their team is at home (Put me in the third) to notice the difference. They try to say our flowers are better because they're hand delivered, flowers in a box are usually half dead. What I heard: Flowers are a bad present: Send Tela Flowers. This was top level execution.
Sigh. America please. Pretty please. Pretty pretty please, stop. Taking a shitty chick flick that lasts 95.5 minutes and replace Brad/Leo/Ruttiger with horses does not make me want beer. It makes the opposite, the repulsion of beer. Three cheers for Nattie Lite for not advertising again!
Once again these are my worst. I understand that being in school allows you not to have clients, budgets, revisions, roadblocks, and the countless things that come between you and a young advertising man in Virginia. I commend all that took this challenge, there is no worst in the superbowl. You all beat 96% of everything out there.
Unfortunately it's true. No one really cares. Consumers don't care. Creative directors don't care. Client's don't care. Writers don't care. Hell art directors probably don't give a shit from time to time. The only time people care: When it's piss poor.
I've come to realize the words on the page are the most important part, reluctantly I've discovered this. The words are what the client want and the consumer. They are the set in stone, legal binding contract between a consumer and a client. I admit that 50% off is more important to me than the stock photo of a lady twirling in a field of sunflowers, or the fact that that block legal copy is kerned properly makes it no more legal.
But if that lady spinning in the field looks like it was shot with a camera you give to your five year old, or god forbid they use Papyrus or Myraid pro as the font, then you can probably start preparing for a few angry emails. A lot of art directors are out there trying to make work that won't get noticed, because it lets them keep their jobs and keeps clients coming back.
The same is true for design, no one cares that people spend months trying to get their mouse to feel and look great, or that someone stared at lumps of clay for hours trying to make their phone look like a nuclear submarine. It only matters when your mouse feels like a brick, and your phone is closer to those paddle wheel boats in Central Park.
Thankfully there are not many of those that I have run into yet, but they're out there. But this same principle applies to work and book reviews. I've had my work looked through by some pretty talented eyes, who know how to spin circles around me, and I've heard comments about my art direction, drum role please......twice.
1. Your art direction is clean.
2. I like your art direction.
Ok well there's two ways to take these:
1. It's good keep doing what your doing.
2. You're not doing enough, and I'm being kind.
Its probably not one or the other. It's a hybrid between the two because if I was making work that blinded people I wouldn't be at school and if it was terrible I wouldn't be at school. I should be shooting for number 2 because as profitable as it can be to make spinning sunflower field work, no self respecting art director smiles at seeing their half off coupons on a bus seat in Detroit.
No one cares about art direction. Until it's amazing.
75% there. This was a good semester. Tough trying and at sometimes fruitless but in the end it was a good semester. I saw lots of progress ended on a great note and am ready for a month off of informational interviews, sleeping and some intermittent work.
This was supposed to be the semester where you're supposed to put it all together, start to gain traction and get ready for June. It didn't start that way. I was working hard but wasn't getting anything out of it. It was a lot of art direction for very little good ideas. The professors said relax and simplify and it will come, but it didn't, until a couple weeks ago.
I stopped freaking out. Starting sleeping and working less, and the work got better. The more I lived a relaxed life the better the work got. I finally found some traction. And now I'm a little worried that I found some traction, will I be able to keep it with a month off.
Theres actually too much to work on to worry about that though. I've been busy reaching out and asking for time with former Adcenter/Brandcenter students in San Francisco, working on the One Show, D&ADs and, refining the work I already have.
My last semster will be full of the big boys. I have Charles Hall for International Brand Campaigns and Mark Fenske for Portfolio. It will be an interesting last few months. I've heard and seen the recent grads work, but I'm excited. The light at the end of the tunnel is slowly filling the screen and soon enough it will be May and this will all be over.
Slow down there big boy, one day at a time.
I took my spot at a desk on the 19th floor.
The first couple weeks turned out to be quite a bore.
After 51 one layouts and not one OK.
My Airborne layout was approved, not a single more Nay.
I learned about agencies the way that they work,
I regretfully learned undergrads can be jerks.
Everyone was a creative, a writer, a pro,
Until I asked for help and was met with the familiar no.
But I loved my time living, in the city that never sleeps.
And now I'm moving back to the city that barely peeps.
The best lesson i learned from my 8 weeks as a pro,
Is my skills as an art director have a long way to grow.
But that is the challenge of this industry of ads,
To always get better, build an army of comrades.
I look forward to my time when I'll be back and on top.
Walk back with a book, that will make jaws from ocean to ocean drop.
So goodbye New York, you treated me so well,
But Richmond is calling, so god speed, and farewell.
After nearly a month I have returned. A month was a long time to wait and I have to admit Im ready to get started. We have a new building to live in now and a new name. I am no longer a Adcenter student but am now a Brandcenter student.
I don't think I will ever call myself a Brandcenter student so I count myself as the last class to do so, but I do understand the change behind it. We are training people to be brand stewards instead of simply ad monkeys. The name will gain more respect from the industry but internally I doubt it makes much change.
This semester will be lighter in class load but now I understand that classload is mostly outside class time while class time is reviewed for criticism and review instead of learning. After a semester here Ive realized that grades and class time are less important that time in groups and one on one meetings with teachers.
This semester will be hectic. Internships are around the corner. Im undecided whether to use VCU as my medium to that or find my own through merit alone instead of the Brandcenter name. Either way I will be working somewhere come May. The class load might be lighter but the time spent outside will be more intense, and to be honest hopefully without Don Just I'll have some time to go and explore the East Coast before I graduate. Sorry Donny.
I did well the last semester but the saying here goes:
Brandcenter doesn't start until Semester 2.
Wish me luck. Here we go.
The last 15 weeks were some of the most challenging I have ever had. Mentally physically emotionally and every other lly you can think of. There were all nighters editing video, shooting commercials. There were countless hours spent in front of blank documents on my laptop. I've slept 18 of the last 24 hours, and my cough will not go away, but I sleep so well.
I've never been through anything like that. The feeling though is that if you can survive the first one you can make it through the rest. God i hope so.
Now I'm not complaining that it was too much, well maybe a little, but it was worth it. I have a lot of respect for the people in this program, we are not normal people to be able to put up with this.
I have nothing that will ever make it into my book, or anything that will see the light of day. Thats not a bad thing. The work will get better. I finally feel like an art director though. And I'm beginning to really like this.
The classes the first semester were amazing and tough. They each challenged you differently. And each mind fucked you as well. The teachers know exactly what you're going to do and when. The best days are the ones when you spin it back around on them and show them something they didn't know you could do.
Don Just's business of advertising class was the beast of the first semester. I was not prepared in any way for what he wanted. The clients we presented for were terrible boring and killed you creatively. But now that its done it is probably one of the more important ones.
Visual storytelling was the most difficult class for me. I had no idea that I would struggle so much with concepting a commercial. Im not even close to good yet but Im miles better than where I started. The teachers said that after this class you wouldn't watch movies the same again. They were right. Oh and Final Cut pro is amazing software.
Fenske's class was interesting. He is a fountain of advice, and stories, and sarcasm. We sat for hours dissecting poetry and listening to NPR pieces. Our work was random and didn't feel like it was helping anything. I don't know when the benefits of this class will come into play but I'll appreciate it later.
Visual Executions was my bread and butter art direction class. It was more graphic design than art direction for me. I've gotten much better with my adobe. My concepting is still weak but better. I have solid work that will never see the light of day. The good news is that it can only get better.
Overall that was the toughest Ive ever worked in my life.
I don't ever know if I'll fully drink the cool aid here, but I at least take a sip here and there.
1/8 done. A few thoughts:
I can do this. Im not half bad, but not half good yet. This place changes your standards. It would be nice to talk to someone about something not advertising related. I haven't left Richmond city limits yet. There are some people that piss me off. There are some people that amaze me with their talent. I like Richmond. I won't live in Richmond after I'm done. The more time spent at Adcenter does not equal good work. Im getting better at Ping Pong. I am learning about time management. I can see what the teachers are trying to do, but am too stubborn to act. It only feels like I've been here a week, when its been more like 12. It would be nice to know some people outside of Adcenter. I can't imagine how I'd find these people with my schedule. Writing a blog is addicting, and intimidating, especially when you know your mom is reading. I don't know if this is the life for me, and thats the way I like it. I've become a harsher reviewer of work. I take criticism better. Im still a bit of an asshole, but working on it. Im tired and sick, but not even close enough to quit. I need some of mom's home cooking for Thanksgiving.
Ahhhh.... Week 7 begins.
