Alec Brownstein Speaks at CPS

Last night Alec Brownstein (http://www.alecbrownstein.com) , creator of the google job experiment and winner of about every award known to man came to speak at CPS. Honestly the guy is a genius. His whole speech really focuses on the fact that you really don't need much beyond a good idea and a group of friends with some know how to produce some great work. Its all about understanding the free resources around you, and more or less having the drive to just get shit done. Alec showed us a number of examples of videos and short clips of very simple and well executed ideas that have gone viral. The common message with the majority of our speakers is that you need to get off your ass and get things done, which I really couldn't agree with more. I am in a rare situation where every day I get to go to a place surrounded by student who just wanna make shit and get noticed, and who have the skills to do so.

On another note, the first week of the quarter is finished and a lot has gone down. First of all the first round of the Royal Rumble is complete. My partners and I got some decent feedback on our idea and how to push forward. We went with a concept of "Personal Comfort" and had an app, some print and bunch of social media in our campaign. The next round of judging is Thursday the 14th so we have a lot of work to do before then.

Also I have a whole new lineup of professors and to be honest they kick some serious ass. Natalie Taylor is my concepts teacher, she is a copywriter at Ogilvy and she literally just refuses to suck. Natalie addressed us at the beginning of class that her job is to make other students and teacher jealous they aren't in our class and that if our best campaign doesn't come from this class than she hasn't done her job. I have Joel Wheat tuesday nights in art direction, Joel has held about every job in the industry and what I like about his class is we are really getting to learn a lot about famous people in pop culture as well as work on producing some past work that we have done. Next wednesday I have David Sieren for typography who has picked up right were last semesters type class ended and seems to have a real passion and knowledge for design in general. Lastly Thursday nights I have Tony Marin who integrated campaigns, Tony is the first teacher I have had that actually went to CPS which is cool to see someone who is very successful and has come from the school. He has allowed us to pair up with one person for the entire semester and I wound up going with copywriter Justin Florio who I have worked with now on a couple different projects, and am definitely looking forward to working with more.

Other than that all thats new is that the One Show nominations have been pushed back to Monday the 11th so fingers are still crossed hoping Marta and I get nominated. This week we have to work on projects for Amazon Kindle, a household cleaner that is enviromentally friendly, and I am just continuing to update my website and work on my resume.. oh ya just going out and "getting shit done."

Switching Gears...Da Bulls

How bout them bulls! 20 years ago Mike, Scottie and a cast of characters landed Chicago their first championship, beating Magic Johnsons Lakers in a 5 game route. The way this season is shaping up I would be shocked to see a re-peat of that same final. The Bulls are hitting full stride right at the right time which in my experience is more important than anything. Look at teams in all sports who have hit it hot at the end of the season, the Rangers last year in the MLB, the Giants and Packers in recent memory in the NFL, the Blackhawks in the NHL, its all about getting hot at the right time and Chicago is on fire. To me the Celtics still pose the biggest test to the Bulls in the Eastern Conference, although Miami is going to be a tough out for anyone in the playoffs I think they are one year and one more piece away from being a true title contender. Boston on the other team has something you can never underestimate according to ex Rockets coach Rudy Tomjanovich, "the heart of a champion." They have the vets who have been there and know how to get it done, but they do lack a big man. My prediction is that the Celtics will meet the Bulls in the conference finals and there lack of size and increasing lack of depth will start to take a toll on the aging veterans, making way and passing the torch if you will to the Bulls. If I am the Lakers I do not want to meet Chicago in the finals, the Bulls have the ability to matchup size on size with Boozer and Noah on Gasol and Bynum. Loul Deng's length makes him a huge to guard Kobe and I would suggest starting Taj on Artest. The biggest factor in this game would be that the Bulls biggest strength is LA's biggest weakness, the point gaurd. Derrick Fischer would stand no chance against soon to be MVP D Rose. We won't have to wait much longer to see how it all plays out but it should be an explosive post season!

One Quarter down 3 to go!

So it is official, I have finished my first quarter in Portfolio School. It went by way to fast but I learned a lot and I'm really looking forward to the following quarters. My quarter review with Directors Jeff Epstein and Maria Scileppi is Thursday and I am interested to hear what they have to say about my production in the quarter as well as the advice they can give me moving forward. My resume is very close to completion which means that my website is getting even closer to going live. I have also gone ahead and uploaded some of the better marker comps that Justin and I came up with for our shoe ads. To remind you we did APL's Concept 1, the first shoe proven to increase your vertical leap. We decided to make an app as well as a number of print ads some of which are interactive. I will update again after my review with Jeff and Maria and will hopefully have some good news to report.

Website and Shoe Comps Update

Good News and Bad news guy... Bad news first the website is not up yet, BUT it is all but finished. Everything is loaded onto the site minus my bio and resume. My bio will be done tonight but I am holding off on the resume because in typography we are actually all re-designing our resumes and I want to make sure that I put my best work to date on the site rather than looking to amateur. As far as the shoes go Justin and I did some really great work together and going off of Justin's suggest we decided to shoes Propulsion Labs Concept 1 basketball shoes for our concept. Concept 1 is the first shoe ever to be banned from the NBA because it gives an unfair competitive advantage proving in a number of test to give athletes up to 3.5 extra inches on their vertical. I am sketching all the comps out now and should have them posted either Thursday or Friday. So again if you have been waiting to see the website, it will be up in another week or so I want to make sure the resume is down pat. Check in the next for days for the shoe comps!

One Show Submission and New Ads!

Finally Finally after myself and my amazing copywriter Marta Malko put a good 30-40 hours in brainstorming, sketching and producing our submission for The One Show's student competition WE ARE FINISHED! I have uploaded a video that explains the entire concept of our project but to sum it up we created a video game as a means to promote awareness and boost donations for City Harvest in NYC. City Harvest is an organization that helps to "rescue" food in New York while collecting food and monetary donations from restaurants, corporations and individuals. Marta and I really thought hard on how we could make the game not only something that had the potential to go viral and make people want to come back for more, but how could City Harvest, the participating donating restaurants and the participants themselves all benefit from the game. It is an awesome feeling to finish a project all the way to end and just see how the whole process from your thoughts to pen and paper to the computer and then in this case into a video. All of the finalist for the show will be notified mid April and invited to NYC for the actual award show, so keep your fingers crossed I think we have a great idea that is very well executed, hopefully the judges will feel the same way.

On another note I have loaded some photos from our vodka campaign. I chose to use Nemiroff Honey-Pepper vodka and really focus on the spiciness of it, I went for some literal solutions such as substituting the bottle for a pepper shaker and others were more witty such as suggesting blue cheese and celery as a relief afterwards. They were mostly visually driven mainly because I thought these brand led itself to more of a aesthetically pleasing solution. we actually have the opportunity to continue building these ads out in class for next week along with the gym ads I posted last time. Im excited to really push both of these especially the Powerhouse Gym ads, I have some really great thoughts for ambient advertising for both and think they could become nice finished pieces.

Also up for next week I will be working with copywriter Justin Florio ( twitter.com/iamjflo ) on a shoe company of our choice. We are meeting today to discuss but are both interested in choosing something really unique. I have not yet worked with Justin but I am looking forward to it, in knowing him for the past few months I can tell you that he is about as creative as they come and does a great job at translating shock value and comedy in his ads, so I am sure we will have some good stuff to post.

Should have my new website up by the end of the weekend if not very early next week!Keep your fingers crossed about the One Show for me and check in for some updates

throughout the week.....

Home Depot Marker Comps and Update

I went ahead and uploaded some of my favorite marker comps from the Home Depot assignment. The two main concepts for the comps was one for the website and how helpful it is, the concept is basically "It's like were there with you." The imagery shows someone doing a common household task with what looks like the assistance of a home depot employee. The other is a play on the fact that home depot is fun, it is executed through the use of a toy box/tool box and the line "toys for big boys", really an even bigger concept that I am going to play with is marketing Home Depot as a toy store for adults. On top of those I added some outdoor Plus 10 ads that I think would be very successful for Home Depot. They would allow people to interact with the brand particularly the park bench level, which would encourage people to balance out the bench and get it level, as well as the Public Trans seat belt/tool belt which is using a captive audience to get the message across. Lastly, the in store bag and the buildable gift card were both attempts as quick ways to get across the look and feel of the store and the idea that you should always be building something or that you can "be your own handy man."

Up next for me is still the vodka ads which I will have uploaded next week when they are completed, I have not decided yet which brand to go with. What I am really excited about though is my submission along with copywriter Marta Malko to the One Show's student competition. All I will say for now is that the brief is about a NYC Charity Organization City Harvest and that we went the mobile gaming route in our solution. I am very satisfied with how the work is coming out and think it has a real shot to be a winner.

Power House Gym Comps

This past week I worked on some marker comps for Powerhouse Gym. For those who don't know what Powerhouse is, its basically a gym specifically for bodybuilders and those aspiring to be bodybuilders. Had a few basic concepts during the process, "build your masterpiece", "get bigger", "alpha male" and "the everyday meathead". I like the way that a few of them are going and I am anxious to get to the computer and tighten everything up... ill be posting some Home Depot Marker comps soon and next up is a Vodka company of my choosing.