Updates

Every so often, either time or the lack of budget will require the use of templates and or components, not everyone can afford custom Actionscript, and I certainly wouldn't be the guy to write it anyway.

I recently started on a project (release date TBD) that fit the bill and set out looking for some Actionscripted liquid goodness, and I just happened to find some worthy of sharing. I'm a huge fan of the sites that allow designers and developers to share their respective wares, but had not used FlashComponents.net before.

Two parts documentary, two parts great advertising, one part creative mojo, and a splash of ego, shaken not stirred, served in a camelot glass.

Art&Copy is the creative world’s celebration of some of it’s most gifted professionals, their work, and a brief historical perspective from a few of the brilliant individuals that shaped modern advertising.

What does an Art Director do when he's too busy to update his blog, or offer his humble opinion on a given topic? He posts pretty pictures and links.

For this entry I'll be posting some new work for Poison Billiards, specifically the new Nitro line ad I art directed and wrote. You see I can't be writing blog entries if I'm working on copy, it just uses up all the words I have for the month. I know its sad, but I'm even experiencing a word recession and I'm on allowance.

With internal teams and agency partners, communications are often on brand only from a technical standpoint. Fonts, palates, templates, and other systems can make work visually compliant, but a well orchestrated layout does not make a brand image.

Over the holiday season I choose to brush up on my Ogilvy. Reading “Ogilvy on Advertising”,”The King of Madison Avenue” and “Confessions of an Advertising Man”…again. For whatever reason, Ogilvy's prose and insights always seem to rekindle my passion for advertising. Below are a few of my favorite Ogilvy-isms.

With Blak 2 launching this month, I thought this would be a great time to write a little something about the similarities between product design and advertising. Much like creating a campaign, product design requires many of the same fundamentals, in particular consistency. In the case of the new Blak2 line, that was materials, the ebony, mincarta, gray pearl, leather wrap, and stainless steel were my brand guide, and the strategy was to create modern elegant designs that exuded an upscale image that were different from the competition.

AOL was an established brand with a recognizable mark, it was recognizable to most american consumers because of their early prominence as an internet service provider and expansive broadcast advertising budget for many years. Now, I understand the brands need for a new image, particularly with the separation from Time Warner and a very different business model than in the 90’s, but when your replacing an established mark, variety may be the spice of life, but it does not make for a consistent captivating brand image."

Hog-isms /hȯg-ˈi-zəm - s/: A collection of recent tweets, online posts, random mumblings, little ditties.

Sally Hogshead created these wonderful sheets and has them posted on her blog, if your looking for a little extra creative mojo, or an entertaining read, have a download of issues 1 and 2. I would anticipate that there will be more to come soon, and whats not to love about lines like "Oh, caffeine, t'tis mental K-Y Jelly for the act of writing" or creating for that matter, and "Avoid fanny packs if only for their name".

In todays new digital landscape, you can connect, re-connect, comment, post, reply, friend, un-friend, become a fan of, and much, much more. So given the digital worlds capabilities and fairly open access, it’s safe to say that for most of the 15-45 year old demographic has some sort of digital presence. As we learn how to manage our digital lives, I think it’s important, and prudent to look at two aspects of personal content.

Prior to 6 months ago, I had a development team that worked through all the trials and tribulations that come with cross email client compatibility issues, A special thanks to those unsung heroes of the code. As XHTML Strict and CSS have finally become standard throughout the digital world, and depreciated tags are being phased out through attrition, at least by most savvy and informed web designers and developers, email clients and there software generating counterparts have taken no steps to develop in standardization for email client support as it pertains to HTML email.