Pop Art Blog

Last Month, Stephen and I attended Flash Forward. I came back charged up and totally inspired. We have reached a point where the potential of the technology we work with (Flash, PHP, .NET, hammer, nails) has exceeded our ideas, and we need to take advantage of it. What a beautiful place to be in! We get to think bigger, smarter, crazier, more creative... and outside of the desktop. I'll be honest, I can hardly wait to break free. Craig Swan: Imagination+Technology The best reason for me to attend... Read More...

"Hey, we've got this comp due to the client in 30 minutes. Think you could knock out a headline for us?" (If you found this funny, you're a total ad nerd .) Read More...

Revisions: How much is too much? Revisions: How much is too many? Revisions: How many is too many? This many! Revisions: They're not just for cows anymore. Revisions: How to know when to stop. Revisions: How many is too many? Collaborating Collaboratively Here in the marketing world, we creative folk work as part of a team. We interact with account managers, project managers, department directors and contractors as well as the clients and everyone has an opinion. So naturally with more people... Read More...

Today is our 10-Year Anniversary party, and the office is buzzing with last-minute preparations. The beer, wine, and martini fixin's are here. Cocktail tables are being installed, tablecloths unfurled. The new sign is lit (look for another post, forthcoming, or just take a stroll down Broadway in downtown Portland. And, the makings for our special interactive art project are complete. Last night, Ben Fogarty, Justin and myself spent hours laying out a 20 foot wide grid of three-inch squares onto... Read More...

And now, an IM conversation between Dave and myself. Dave Selden: 10:11 very interesting article here: http://www.gladwell.com/2004/2004_09_06_a_ketchup.html Dave Selden: 10:11 I really like the “mind doesn’t know what the tongue wants” part the fact that you can’t design a universal ketchup and please people you have to design several ketchups that sub-groups can rally around Thom Schoenborn: 10:14 reading: “Try my ketchup!” Wigon said, over and over, to anyone who passed. “If you don’t try it,... Read More...

I attended some event in which a group of Wieden+Kennedy dudes talked about a survey they’d done to prove the value of their creative. So they asked a bunch of media buyers and marketing folks what they thought NIKE’s annual media spend was. The average guess was ridiculously higher than it actually was. To translate: advertising experts believed NIKE was spending about twice as much as they actually were because the ads were so memorable and fantastic. The point is that creative executions which... Read More...

A couple of Fridays ago I attended Forward07, an American Marketing Association conference on innovation and sustainability. I’ve attended a few conferences in the past year and none were as inspiring as this one. Huge thanks to all the folks who helped pull this one together. The Challenge Ray Anderson, CEO of Interface, was the first speaker of the day. He told his story in a very simple and authentic way without the aid of any of the usual presentation tools. His pure honesty and passion held... Read More...

I remember taking a corporate identity class my last term of college. Though it was mentioned that branding was a company’s “identity,” it was never explained that branding was more than just a logo. We spent a majority of the class designing a new logo for a company of our choosing and ways to use the logo in the environment. After 11 weeks, the only thing I walked away from that class with was the idea that you have to have a nice enough looking logo to make an impact on your target audience. Also... Read More...

Today, I got a haircut. A big one. My summer chop-off. Buzzville, USA, Population: Me. I also had a very entertaining barber, from the Bay Area. He regaled me with stories of pimped out Buicks, drug dealers, and a special summer drink his cousins used to make with equal parts Mickey’s and Gallo Sangria. Drink half a grenade, fill with sangria, and add ice. Sounds filthy, but he claimed “some very high class girls” loved it after getting over the initial hesitation. He also claimed the physical limit... Read More...

Every once in a while, I see a movie that excites me as a designer. The opening titles for Panic Room, combined with that film’s amazing camera work. Fight Club, with it’s “IKEA catalog” sequences and David Carson-like typography. Last night, I saw another such film, Stranger Than Fiction . The great typography and motion graphics first started my design pulse racing, with a great opening sequence. Harold Crick (Will Farrell) is an IRS agent with a boring life. He has an amazing gift for numbers... Read More...