Toni Segarra presenta el Master Communication Design Lab from IED Madrid on Vimeo.
1. Do Good work –2. Make it Simple and Concise –
3. Include Case Studies -
4. Give your Portfolio a Human side –
5. Killer design -
Noteboek from Evelien Lohbeck on Vimeo.
I’d rather see one brief, pushed out into every possible media opportunity, than 8 or 10 convenient couplets of poster and TV scripts.On business partnership:
But passion is what keeps up the energy in a start-up. All of us expect the same level of commitment and honesty from each other. That sense of balance is a real key.On direct mail and digital:
most people in adland dismissed what we did as “junk mail”, but at its very heart, the methodology was not dissimilar to the eulogy you hear from so-called digital gurus today: The science of accountability; The journey to a response; The sense of brand-utility. Attention/Interest/Desire/Conviction/Action.On being a creative leader:
Sound familiar? Twenty years ago, it was the rudiments of every successful mailpack, but today it’s just as current to the connectivity of the web. Sure, digital and mobile are a much more exciting palette to paint ideas with, but the basic challenge is the same: take people on a journey that’s based on them interacting, connecting and responding.
Winning awards is easy compared to building a team of creative people who truly believe in you and your mission.And about the present (not the future, refreshingly)
These are scary times for many. But for those of us who are comfortable with the currency of ideas, it’s also the most exciting period in our history.agency team.And finally:
What is the WORD, which you think would reside and reverberate in the creative world for the next 10 years?
David Nobay>>Momentum.
1. Tell other people your dreams.
People would laugh and they would point and they would say “There go those guys that wanted to be great!” FAIL! But to succeed you have to risk failure. So eventually decided to tell the whole agency what we wanted to become. Our mission statement. We had a friend who was at Fallon in the early days and he had been a part of creating there’s and I don’t know if I remember it exactly but it was very simple and basically said that they wanted to be, “The most awarded agency in America.” We thought about what we liked about the ad biz and it wasn’t awards it was the culture jamming. So our mission became, “To create the most talked about and written about advertising in the world.” Within weeks the stalemate between the status quo and something new had been broken and the agency began to clearly move toward this new shared goal. Out of the thousands of little decisions that shaped our future you could feel that more than half were suddenly talking us someplace we wanted to go. I wish we had had the courage to do it sooner.
2. The clients you currently have are your true new business machine.
I see so many people overlook this. “If I only had a client like this or a client like that.” It’s key to have a clear idea in your head of the new ground you hope to break and the new case history you hope to prove with each new client before you start work. What is going to be different about the agency six months after the arrival of your new account? How is this new revenue and this new campaign going to make your agency smarter and more capable than it was prior?
3. Find some real passion in the building for the business or take a pass on it.
We have a rule that says we can’t pitch a piece of business unless at least one of the partners is passionate about that business. In the end you will be defined by your clients. There are no two ways about that. Such is the lot of the parasites of the business world. Agencies.
4. Don’t model yourself after other agencies.Great points, all of them. My favorite is the importance of a mission that' s easy to embraced by people.
It's not that we don't get talent, we just don't get the volume of talent that we need. We need to think about what we are doing to attract people.
We need (Google quality people) to come to our agency, but they are not interested.
What we value in this people is their entrepreneur spirit, they invention abilities, but the agency is not making and attractive pitch.
People want to make things that matter, but big advertising agencies are not perceived as the ideal place to the nurture entrepreneur personality.
The one question I ask during my interviews is: what's the last thing you invented? because I want to know that people can think and deliver ideas, passionate about making things that have not been made before, because it's a big part fo the interactive future.Great points made by Jeff, that compliment perfectly with this post "the time is now" about how fear is killing creativity in advertising agencies.
Finding a decent story takes more time than producing the story. Anybody in the creative field should spend enough time looking for stories.
Failure is a big part of success. You need to be on a schedule to produce things every week and before you know it, you will have something special, something people are going to want.
The most important thing for you to do is to do a lot of work. (my personal favorite)
The first couple years that you’re making stuff, what you’re making isn’t so good — it’s not that great. It’s trying to be good, it has ambition to be good, but it’s not quite that good. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, your taste is still killer and your taste is good enough that you can tell that what you’re making is kind of a disappointment to you. A lot of people never get past that phase and a lot of people at that point quit.
And the thing I would just like say to you with all my heart is that most everybody I know who does interesting creative work, they went through a phase of years where they had really good taste and they could tell what they were making wasn’t as good as they wanted it to be. We knew that it didn’t have the special thing that we wanted it to have and the thing to do is — everybody goes through that. And for you to go through it, if you’re going through it right now, if you’re just getting out of that phase or if you’re just starting off and you’re entering into that phase, you’ve got to know it’s totally normal and the most important possible thing you can do is do a lot of work. Do a huge volume of work.
Two mistakes most people who start make are: we imitate the people who are already doing what we want to do.
But you need to be yourself. There is already a real one of who you want to imitate.
The second problem is that we tend to be interested about ourselves, but in most stories the other person is more interesting.
Make sure to watch all 4 videos on you tube.
The trick is to make those mistakes as quickly as possible and move on, a philosophy Lasseter picked up from colleague and computer science pioneer Ed Catmull
"When you think about science, it's about experimentation, and 99% of the experiments fail, but you learn from the failures and you move on," Lasseter says. "That's the great thing about Ed. He's always wanting people to keep pushing, keep experimenting, keep trying, and we always learn and keep moving forward."For all the technical advances that have impressed audiences about Pixar, Lasseter's greatest innovation has been to extend a principle of positive risk-taking to the creative process.
(1) Embrace constraints. Constraints and limitations are wonderful allies and lead to enhanced creativity and ingenious solutions that without constrains never would have been discovered or created.
(2) Practice restraint. it takes discipline of mind and strength of will to make the hard choices about what to include and what to exclude.
(3) Adopt the beginner's mind. As the old saying goes, in the expert's mind there are few possibilities, but for one with the beginner's mind, the world is wide open.
(4) Check your ego at the door. This is not about you, it's about them (your audience, customer, patient, student, etc.).
(5) Focus on the experience of the design. It's not the thing, it's the experience of the thing.
(6) Become a master storyteller. Often it's not only the design — i.e., the solution to a problem — that is important, but the story of it. This is related to #5 above. What's the meaning of the solution?
(7) Think communication not decoration. Design is about solving problems or making the current situation a little better than before. Design is not art, though there is art in design.
(8) Obsess about ideas not tools. Good advice is to go analog in the beginning with the simplest tools possible.
(9) Clarify your intention. Design is about choices and intentions, it is not accidental. Design is about process.
(10) Sharpen your vision & curiosity and learn from the lessons around you. Design is a "whole brain" process. You are creative, practical, rational, analytic, empathetic, and passionate. Foster these aptitudes.
(11) Learn all the "rules" and know when and why to break them.
Well, of course we work in partnership with them. We don’t just come up with an idea and force it on them. Disruption is a step-by-step process. We work together to unlock the ideas that were lying dormant within their brands. Disruption is about identifying the self-imposed restrictions that can stifle creativity. We call these restrictions “conventions“. The “disruptive idea“ is one that overturns these conventions and allows a company to adopt a unique standpoint, which we call the “vision“. From that, they discover a new truth about their brand, referred to as the “brand belief“. This is a fundamental statement about the brief and should guide all aspects of communication all “brand behavior“.
Joshua Porter from MFA Interaction Design on Vimeo.
A great idea by Liz DanzicoSo you’re thinking about becoming a designer? If I could tell you only one thing about going into the field, my advice would be ___________ .
These are their answers:Consider, for instance, a corn plant. A concrete representation would refer to the shape, color, taste, and smell of the plant, and connect the item to its most common use – a food product. An abstract representation, on the other hand, might refer to the corn plant as a source of energy or as a fast growing plant. These more abstract thoughts might lead us to contemplate other, less common uses for corn, such as a source for ethanol, or to use the plant to create mazes for children. What this example demonstrates is how abstract thinking makes it easier for people to form surprising connections between seemingly unrelated concepts, such as fast growing plants (corn) and fuel for cars (ethanol).
traveling to faraway places (or even just thinking about such places),
thinking about the distant future,
communicating with people who are dissimilar to us, and
considering unlikely alternatives to reality.
Perhaps the modern environment, with its increased access to people, sights, music, and food from faraway places, helps us become more creative not only by exposing us to a variety of styles and ideas, but also by allowing us to think more abstractly.
So the next time you’re stuck on a problem that seems impossible don’t give up. Instead, try to gain a little psychological distance, and pretend the problem came from somewhere very far away.
when you don’t take breaks and allow yourself to recover, you’re less than 50% there. 50% you = 50% work.Hopefully, next time we are pressured with a deadline we will remember to stop and take a break so we can deliver on time.It’s obvious that taking short, rejuvenating breaks is the more effective way to work. So what are some examples of these types of breaks?
- Change channels. Most of us do a lot of work on the computer, so doing some kind of physical activity for 10 or 15 minutes can be a great way to change our state. Bodyweight exercises, a brisk walk, or yoga can be a great way to get your body moving and put yourself in a different state.
- Breathe. Do 10 or 15 minutes of meditation, focused on your breathing.
- 30 second headstand. Support your feet and legs against a sturdy wall (or tree).
- Juice it. Stop by your local health food store and get a wheat grass shot or vegetable juice.
- Refuel. Eating some kind of snack or small meal every 90 minutes is a great way to keep your glucose and energy levels steady. Go for fresh, organic fruit or a salad to get a quick pick-me-up.
- Power nap. A 20 minute nap in the afternoon feels awesome and rejuvenating.
- Motivate. Take a time out and listen to a Paraliminal session, guided meditation or personal development video on YouTube.
- Flood your body with consciousness. This is something I’ve been doing lately that’s been really working for me. Take 10 minutes out to lie on your bed and flood your body with consciousness. Focus your awareness first on your toes and feet, then gradually move your focus up through your body, into your legs, pelvis, torso, chest, back, shoulders, arms, hands and fingers. Then back up through your arms into your neck, up your throat and into your face and your head. Really focus on feeling the energy in your body and only move your conscious awareness up your body after you’ve really felt it in the last part.
- Total relaxation. This is a follow up to flooding your body with consciousness. After you’ve completely immersed your body in awareness, focus on relaxing each muscle in your body. In the same way previously, start with your toes and work your way upward through your body. Really let go and relax.
These are just a few ideas for ways that you can really relax, recover, and rejuvenate your body. Once you do that, you’ll be re-focused, recharged, and ready to work at 100% capacity.
"Customer service is a series of activities designed to enhance the level of customer satisfaction – that is, the feeling that a product or service has met the customer expectation."Dealing with the customers expectations is complicated because our expectations tend to be higher and even unrealistic.
I really like that Ryan has decided to put his thoughts available to us for immediate and reliable access to his mind and expertise.So, if innovation is in part about bringing new things into the world, this is where I come out:
I want reliable people posing provocative questions and processing more immediate inputs.
"Reliable people" are those that have learned to spot patterns through experience and many cycles of learning. Such people exhibit a relentless curiosity that drives them to learn and challenge their patterns frequently. Ultimately, I want such people working close to the questions and looking to be surprised and contradicted by what they find as quickly as possible.
1. ”It’s not about advertising, it’s about engagement.”
2. ”Print’s days are numbered.”
3. ”You don’t want to advertise, you want to have a conversation.”
4. ”It’s about having a great narrative, a great story.”
5. ”Advertising is no longer a one-way process. The consumer can now talk back to you.”
6. ”You have to let go when it comes to the controls for your brand online. Consumers will take it anyway.”
7. ”Online banner and display advertising is a broken model.”
8. ”The next big breakthrough will be centered around mobile devices.”
9. ”Social media is not a fad, it’s here to stay.”
10. ”Consumers are ’always on’.”
Noah Brier, head of planning and strategy, the Barbarian Group, on ideas: "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough."
Nathan Helenie, co-founder-chief creative officer, Crush & Lovely, on process: "Stay young, curious and inspired. Become disciplined and resourceful. Make things. Move. Fail when necessary. Execute with love and precision."I think that mine would be:
Jinal Shah, strategist, Electric Artists, on being fearless: "1. Don't be afraid to break rules. 2. And have a point of view, no matter how provocative or silly you think it is."
1. Prepare to see the work. What am I expecting to see? What are we trying to do? What will impress me?
2. Get in the mood to see the work - read the brief - remember what if feels like to have the problem fresh in your mind.
3. What's my instant emotional reaction - do I like it? Hate it? Am I surprised - why? Is it confusing? (It's not always a good idea to share these thoughts, but note them.)
4. What caused the reaction you had - is it 'what' the work is saying? Or, 'how' it's saying it?
5. Does the work contain a real brand idea that changes perception, as opposed to a nice advertising idea?
6. Never act like Simon Cowell. My job is not to say whether something is good or shit. But to say how right something is, and to find ways of expressing how to make it more right (if that's what it needs).
7. Feedback does not mean criticising. It means trying to understand and articulate why the things that are working are working, and why the things that are not are not. These are equally important.
8. Start macro when feeding back but go micro. As long as feedback is something the agency can action then all comments add to the intelligence around the problem,even the little things.
9. Post-rationalise. If something you didn't think was previously important or salient now looks like it might be. Try and understand why - strategy never ends.
10. Be aware of the self-serving bias and the confirmation bias - interpreting things in a way that confirm preconceptions, or meet your interests.
11. Always say thank you. Creative work is hard work.
Dear Weiden + Kennedy, I am a 19 year old, entrepreneurial/creative mind. I have between 2-3 groundbreaking business or creative ideas every single day, and to say the least, I do NOT have the capability to even keep track or implement them so; I started a business. I decided that If I were to ever become successful and impact the world greatly by undertaking huge and "impossible" projects I would need a very balanced, efficient, and productive degree of discipline. Sometimes discipline and creativity/randomness sit on opposite sides of the lunch hall; however, to combine them would I assume be as earth-shattering as balancing the ying and the yang of business. Behold, my mobile billboard business in Las Vegas, NV. However, I did not have enough money to start it to I decided to sell it first, and with the profits, start it (opposite to the quote "think with your hands, and then talk about it, not in reverse") Well I did it in reverse. I dressed up in a black and gold suite and tie, drove down to the Forum Shops in Las Vegas, NV (very wealthy shops) and started selling my ideas to the managers, converting them to my corporate sales people, and starting the damning corporate marketing man chase. I thought "wouldn't it be awesome if I had some clout, some pull, to just pitch these ideas,". So out of the few dozen I approached, and followed up over weeks and weeks, I ended up with about 4 hot prospective clients. I mean, one that is looking at buying a marketing package from me for $30,000 U.S. and very, very EXCITED to do so. So I have a feeling my ideas are golden, but I promised myself I would stay here until I make my business, my ad agency, my marketing consulting firm, which I named "Unique and Innovative PRO (Personal Relations Officer)"--a success. Well what does this have to do with you? Well I'm a young man, and I "stay stupid, stay foolish (steve jobs)" so I thought I would write this e-mail to someone who has done what I want to do in the advertising/marketing world. I found Weiden + Kennedy from watching everyone of your Nike MVPs videos, and found that you had internships/platform program. This is what is on my mind: Nike Factory in the forum shops needs strip advertising; I concepted a Giant Shoe on a platform truck that will drive up and down the strip with a sign in it promoting a weekly event with the local UNLV Basketball team, celebrity, athlete, or locally famous socialite, that would pull customers to Niketown to HAVE FUN. The place is built like a club and it could very well be a sales monster tool, all while the customer is not cheesed by old ad methods. So To Conclude, If you were to use me for my ideas and implementation and passion... If I were to use you as my clout vessel Your company, Your Ideas, Your advertisements would only progress, and companies that don't keep innovative, fail. (You DO, trust me I've seen your advertising). I would progress, and become the next YOU, to offer more and more people opportunities to create, and jobs for everyone helping them, and in turn bread for families all over the world. This is my calling, I am the global entrepreneur. And I love advertising, Can We Team Up? What do YOU propose?He was hired on the spot.
Eggleston’s recent contribution for Pixar was as Production Designer for their cautionary tale Wall-E. Months after the film’s June 27th theatrical release, in October 2008 and January 2009, Eggleston discussed with me how he went about creating the futuristic environments for Wall-E.
The whole interview is worth your time considering he speaks about Pixar, the creative process and Wall•E. But these are some of my favorites.
In many ways Wall-E is a film about contrasts, not only from the point-of-view of its story, but also contrasts and contradictions within some of its design choices. The film opens with a portrait of a ruinous Earth inhabited by a diminutive robot. The second half of the film is contrasted by a high-end space resort full of overly-indulged humans.
As any of the great production designers would tell you, “Start from the character and then everything else will follow;” and it’s so true.
The script provided the most obvious jumping off points. Wall-E is a square whose only limitations beyond his imagination is what he can physically do. Eve was a circle (an oval, actually) who only did what she was programmed to do. Wall-E has a soul; Eve develops one.
Once the major design obstacles are laid out and agreed upon with the design staff and the director, I can jump back into the color script. Because we’ve done so much research and have begun understanding the world we’re creating, I can delegate to my crew a lot of what needs to get done. This allows me to get back in and focus on the emotional core of what we’re trying to say visually with color, value, and lighting, which usually takes me well into production.
Wall-E was the first time I’ve ever did it exclusively in Photoshop, digitally.
My creative process is “method painting.” I put myself in the place of the character and walk through the story. I’m trying to find colors that evoke an emotion based on everything I’ve absorbed up until that date, reading the story, hearing a pitch, research.
For inspiration for the movie we looked at the Mars Rover film and toured a cruise ship. We looked at Sea Lions for the blubber on the humans.
The key things to the design of Wall-E are his -- eyes, and the overall proportions of his body as it relates to his eyes. The first impression we wanted the audience to have is "child-like.” They were about to watch a whole feature starring a bucket of bolts; we needed to grab their hearts as fast as possible. We never wanted this to be a man in a robot outfit. I’ve seen many animated robots that were visually appealing, but I rarely believed in them, because they didn’t seem designed to do anything specific. Not so with Wall-E. He was designed by the Buy'N'Large Corporation to do one thing: crunch trash. Over the centuries of gathering trash, it seems he’s developed a soul and a personality.
Exactly, one of my goals on this film was to bleach out the whites. I wanted the audience to feel like they might need their sunglasses while they were watching the movie.
The three classes of the Axiom were delineated by shape, color, lighting, organization, and texture.
No, I don’t think so. I think it was the idea of the song and the contrast of the world you were seeing, the world of trash. So much of this film deals in contrasts and the song really grabs your attention quite well! Also, the director was in a High School production of Hello Dolly and had a soft spot in his heart for it. If anyone has video of this, I’d love to see it!
Prototyping is problem solving. It's a culture and a language. What counts is moving the ball forward, achieving some part of your goal.
Prototyping is a state of mind.
No matter your business, no matter your experience, odds are the water is rising, you don't have time, and if you don't act soon, the project will be underwater.
If you keep trying on new techniques you'd make dramatic improvements. Childlike curiosity and enthusiasm, a playful iterative approach to problems. Boyle's law: Never go to a meeting without a prototype.
Make mistakes - and discoveries - as soon as possible.
In engineering, if you have more variables than equations you normally have an unsolvable situation. But in the other hand, if you take some good guesses and fill in the blanks on some of them, you'll get some answers.
The birth of Amazon.com was lunched on the run. Prototyping is about acting before you've got the answers, about taking chances, stumbling a little but then making it right.
In 19914 Bezos scratch on a paper a list of things that he could sell online, got on a truck and headed west without a clear destination.
The enxt time you kick off a project, try tackling problems when you don't have the answers.
Once you start drawing or making thing, you open up new possibilities of discovery. Doodling, drawing, modeling, sketch ideas and make things, and you're likely yo encourage accidental discoveries.
A picture is worth a thousand words. And a prototype is worth a thousand pictures.I believe that prototyping is perhaps the single most important concept to embrace to make things happen.
