As a fun way to end the 1st quarter we did a blender challenge. My team was randomly given a character, a prob, and a line of dialogue.
We got: Billy Bob the hillbilly pirate, a spatula, and the line “I said what I meant, I meant what I said, an elephant is faithful 100%. We had some fun and this is what we came up with.
For our final assignment we had to find and take a photo of an assigned letter. Mine was “R”.
First of all, lets start with the big guys. Weiden+Kennedy developed this award winning Old Spice ad that aired during Super Bowl XLIV. That’s an automatic 201 million views. Once it was posted on YouTube it was viewed another 45 million times. Between this and being aired on news shows, Oprah, and the resulting television, interactive and twitter campaigns, it wouldn’t even be a stretch to say that this campaign has been viewed close to half a billion times. Their targeted audience was, strategically, women who buy toiletries for their men.
“That commercial has women everywhere wishing their boyfriends looked and smelled like this”
-Oprah
Through the entire campaign sales went up 107%
Now the little guys who did it just as well. No bullshit, no budget, makes me want to shave my beard off just so I can subscribe. The people in the video work at Dollarshaveclub.com, the presenter is the owner, and this commercial never aired on T.V. It was super cheap, but still drew upwards of 9.1 million views, from an audience who watched it because they wanted to, not because they had to. This ad helped Dollarshaveclub.com enlist 12,000 costumers in their first two days. We could do this, Creative-Academy.
This one is just awesome.
For a class assignment at Seattle Central Community College, teams of two, one photographer and one graphic designer, were sent out to certain areas on Capitol Hill to meet strangers and ask them one question. “What are three to five things that give you hope?”. The recordings and photographes were compiled into a photo essay.
This piece was done by Riley (rileywh.wordpress.com/) and Vickie (vickiemiao.wordpress.com/).
The Black Keys are a recent nationwide phenomenon. Out of Akron, Ohio the band reached nationwide recognition after their album release “Brothers” in 2010 and their popularity continues to increase. I love their music, the nation loves their music, heck the whole world probably loves their music. This isn’t a post about the band though. If you want to know the band’s whole history do the normal thing and wikipedia it. I’m here to show you the band’s gig posters.
I have unfortunately never had the chance to see The Black Keys live in Seattle or see any of their posters in person. I discovered the amazing collection of gig posters on the band’s facebook page. The posters are done in dozens of different styles, from comic book covers to Swedish style knockoffs. For every gig they do someone creates a poster. Down below are just a couple of those posters. You can find more on The Black Key’s facebook page or on Gig Posters. I found these posters ridiculously awesome because its amazing how so many people can interpret and present two people and their music in so many ways. Its really inspirational.
DKNG Studios posted the video of their creation of a Black Keys poster for the band’s Burnaby, BC gig. Its quite cool.
To avoid the annoyingly addictive social media I try my best to check out design websites throughout the day. To learn, be inspired, and sometimes just to be plainly entertained.
CO.DESIGN
My favorite design site is actually the website of Fast Company. I didn’t know this for a while but Fast Company is a design/tech magazine that publishes 10 times a year. Their website is absolutely amazing. Its broken down into 3 main categories Co.Design, Co.Exist, and Co.Create. All 3 are updated constantly every weekday so you’ll practically never run out of articles to read. Co.Design focuses on all forms of design and media- graphic design, UI/UX Design, industrial design, architecture, photography etc. Practically anything that has to do with the creative world. Co.Exist focuses on social topics – the social media, urbanization and sustainability, health etc. Mainly anything that has to do with humans in a creative way. Co.Create sometimes seems a little random to me. I would like to say that it covers a lot of the topics that Co.Design and Co.Create doesn’t, such as special effects, TV shows, commercial campaigns and so on.
Overall Co.Design or I guess Fast Company, is a great way to stay informed withthe creative world. Its definitely worth your morning time when your just eating breakfast or whatnot.
DESIGN MILK
Design Milk is another great creative website that covers a variety of topics. I’ve never really used the website much. I actually read their posts via Flipboard which I’ll get to in a bit. Design Milk doesn’t come close to the variety that Fast Company offers but what they do post about is really cool. Design Milk mainly focuses on architecture, interior design, industrial design and art. They do post about apps, typography, logos and such every once in a while but not as frequently as the other topics. Design Milk is a site definitely a site worth checking out.
DESIGNSPIRATION
Designspiration is just a great site to get inspired. You can find thousands of different designs that people have created. All you do is just type in a keyword or search for designs done in a certain color. I can’t say much more about it you just got to go check it out yourself.
A COUPLE MORE..
You might have noticed a couple other logos on the thumbnail picture to this post. There all great resources to learn or get inspired. The most best one in my opinion being Flipboard.
Flipboard is a amazing app for IOS devices as well as Androids. All it does is organize all your feeds in a elegant simplistic way that you can “flip” through. You can create one feed using sources that share a common topic. For example the 3 main feeds I have are design, technology, and The New York Times. Both my design and technology feeds are the ones that came with the app when I installed it onto my iPhone. I didn’t have any reason to change them because it was already pulling feeds from the sites I followed – Fast Company and Design Milk for example. They also added dozens of other great sources that I hadn’t heard of before. I “flip” through Flipboard all the time. If you have one of those damn smartphone or tablet things download this app now.
The other sites,
Swissted – Really cool swiss posters created by Mike Joyce, owner of Sterotype Design
Pentagram – One of, if not the best design firms.
Dribbble – There are 3 “b”s in the name, not 2. Thats the only thing I don’t like about this site. Besides that its a cool site to see what people are working on.
On September 28, I sat down with Gabriel Lopez, a fellow first year designer at Seattle Central’s Creative Academy, and had the opportunity to discuss besides many other things, his life before coming to Seattle Central as well as his goals for the future.
Gabriel Lopez has always been creative. Brought up in a low income household in the Central Valley of California he didn’t have any toys as a child. While the other kids went and bought the newest action figure, Gabriel made his own out of anything he could find at home. Right out of high school he had his mind set on going to an art school.
Unfortunately, his life took a little bit of a twist and he became a clinical microbiologist. After 7 years he was told by his supervisor that he should be excited for the rest of his lifelong career in science. Scared out of his wits, he went home that night and decided to quit science and pursue his passion for art and design. On a whim, and by whim, I mean he took out a map and randomly pointed to a city. That city happened to be Seattle. So, having no prior knowledge of the city or anybody in it, he moved to the great Emerald City. Gabriel doesn’t travel much but he looks back on his trip to Seattle as one of the most interesting and daring things he’s ever done.
He had only intended to stay in Seattle for two years but he quickly fell in love with the city and the weather. Believe it or not, Gabriel is a Californian that doesn’t miss the sun. So after 6 years in Seattle he found his calling and enrolled in Seattle Central’s Creative Academy as a graphic designer. The work of the Creative Academy’s students drew him to the program. “I would come up to the 5th floor and couldn’t help myself be inspired by the amazing work the students created!”. The students at Central were not the only influences in his decision of becoming a designer. He was extremely inspired by the older minimalist designers, especially the vintage comics and work done in the 1960s. While designing, he tries to bring that influence as well as his childhood and Latin American heritage into his design.
Gabriel lives a busy life in Seattle. Despite his attempt to escape his science background he currently works at the University of Washington’s Medical Center. Although he doesn’t love the work, he states it’s enjoyable enough to continue medical work part-time. If Gabriel isn’t at Central designing amazing things or doing science things at the UW you can find him at home writing a collection of short stories or cooking spectacular dishes.
When it came to Gabriel’s bucket list or in other words his goals, he stated immediately that he wanted to travel the world—Spain, in particular. He also hope to one day live in Mexico. As for his professional goals Gabriel wants to start his own design firm as well as learning to become a photographer. Perhaps he will even come back to the Creative Academy for the commercial photography program! And Finally, while he’s not off traveling the world or running his awesome design firm from Mexico, he would like to find the time to learn how to play the guitar.
It was a great pleasure getting to talk and get to know Gabriel. I look forward to working with him and seeing what he creates over the next two years and beyond.
Riley Hollobaugh 