Category Archives: Advertising

Advertising students ride their Trojan horse to an ANDY Award win

In April I traveled to New York with Art Center Film alum Armen Perian, with whom I collaborated on the above spot, TROJAN | Experiments, whose creative team also included cinematographer, Mike Reyes and producer, Greta Kahlitz. The purpose of the trip was to attend the 2014 International ANDY Awards Show and Party at TriBeCa Rooftop. For the past 50 years, ANDY’s have been the gold standard in honoring creative excellence in advertising. So we were incredibly honored to attend the prestigious event, where Chairman David Droga and the jury honored the night’s winners and celebrated the boldest names in advertising, including industry legend David Abbott, Lee Clow, Jeff Goodby, Bob Greenberg, Sir John Hegarty, Rich Silverstein, Mary Wells Lawrence and Dan Wieden.

We had a delightful time, and TROJAN | Experiments received an International ANDY Award in the student category. So how and why did we produce an award-winning spot for condoms, of all things? Read on to find out.

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Agents of boom: Advertising alumni Melissa Thomas and Jack-Anthony Collier

Creative duo Jack-Anthony Collier and Melissa Thomas star in their zine "Birdscouts"

Creative duo Jack-Anthony Collier and Melissa Thomas as featured in their zine Birdscouts.

She’s a copywriter at Deutsch. He’s a copywriter for Mullen. Together, they’ve worked on campaigns for companies like Taco Bell, AT&T, Carls Jr., Kia and JetBlue.

But Art Center Advertising alumni Melissa Thomas (BFA 12) and Jack-Anthony Collier recently put their professional interests aside to tackle one of today’s most pressing issues: the dreaded boom mic mistake. Their solution? CATBOOM.

Okay, on a more serious note, today these creative partners are preparing to channel their creative energy in a different direction. This summer, they’ll be teaching at Art Center’s continuing education program, Art Center at Night, helping students get their advertising portfolios in shape in Advertising Portfolio Workshop.

“We’ll be going through the students’ books, and offering suggestions on how to improve and tighten them up,” says Collier. “We’ll be reviewing their work from an agency’s perspective before they head out into the big wide world.”

And of course, there will be fun.

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Art Center in the News: February-March 2014

Maggie Hendrie on the set of TakePart Live

Maggie Hendrie on the set of TakePart Live

Art Center students, faculty, staff and alumni have been making news while making their mark at on the art and design worlds. For those who may have missed a headline or two, we curated this handy highlight reel of our recent media clips:

Don’t miss two lengthy, live interview segments we arranged for Interaction Design Chair, Maggie Hendrie and ACCD student Alex Cabunoc on the new cable program TakePart Live—a show tailored to Millennials (age 18-34) that reaches 40 million-plus households through Participant Media’s Pivot TV network. (Participant Media is the award-winning, socially and politically progressive production company responsible for An Inconvenient Truth, The Cove, Lincoln, among other enlightening and edifying films and TV shows).

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How to win at advertising…by really winning

one-show-gold-pencil

The importance of winning awards in our business can’t be underestimated.
It’s essential.

As a student, it can be a big factor in separating you from the hundreds of other grads with great books who are fighting for a rare spot at one of the few top places to work. As a junior, it can elevate your status in an agency and set you up for better assignments and promotions, as well as bring your work to the attention of every other agency looking to hire a star to upgrade their own work. As an agency leader, it can help you gain credibility with clients, potential clients and the media, all of which will lead to building your business.

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Building a better Super Bowl spot, Art Center-style

When I think about what it takes to create a great Super Bowl spot, I can’t help but first think of all of the things we had to tell our teams NOT to do to create one.

  • No animals doing things animals can’t do.
  • No old people doing things old people can’t do.
  • No inanimate objects doing things inanimate objects can’t do.
  • No Martians or other forms of aliens.
  • No cavemen.
  • No deserted islands.
  • Nothing that uses the soundtrack from “2001 Space Odyssey.”
  • Nothing that features a chimpanzee, even if it is doing things chimpanzees can do.
  • No one going to heaven.
  • Nothing that requires you to play me a special effects reel from a company in Finland before telling me the idea.
  • No 70′s hits and site gags.
  • No patriotic attempts to make people cry.
  • And please, no old chestnuts I killed last year.

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Innovate Pasadena: Ayzenberg Group traces its roots to Art Center

Ayzenberg Group lobby

Ayzenberg Group lobby

As Ayzenberg Group celebrates its 20th anniversary, founder and Art Center alum, Eric Ayzenberg, reflects on the dynamics that originally inspired him to plant his professional roots in Pasadena’s Innovation Corridor.

In the early 1990s, we brought a decade of advertising and design experience acquired from both the East and West Coasts to an up-and-coming area of great potential in Pasadena. With a small crew of like-minded souls I had met at Art Center College of Design and beyond, we purchased a spacious 15,000-square-foot studio on Walnut Street, plus an adjacent 5,000-square-foot space next door, and established our agency.

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Fall 2013 Grad Show: A master class in next-level design thinking and doing

Top companies leading the innovation economy swarmed the Hillside campus scouting new talent during Fall 2013 Grad Show. Facebook, BMW, Snapchat and Square, creator of the revolutionary cube device that instantly transforms cell phones in to credit card machines, were all seeking the next wave of their creative workforce.

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Fall 2013 Graduation Week: So many faces going so many places!

This Saturday, following years of all-nighters, critiques, finals, internships and hopefully some fun, 153 Art Center students will graduate. As that day approaches, we take time to celebrate these creative and talented individuals who are about to take on the world and, as is custom at our Fall Graduation, we also honor alumni who have already paved the way. Here’s the lowdown for the week.

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Thursday, December 12: Graduation Show Preview
Industry leaders, employers, corporate partners, donors and alumni get the first look at the Fall term’s graduating artists and designers at the invitation-only Graduation Show Preview. This event, hosted by Alumni Relations to welcome new graduates into the community, gives our graduating students an opportunity to network with potential employers and fellow alumni. The show features student projects from major fields of study at Art Center, including Advertising, Entertainment Design, Environmental Design, Film, Graphic Design, Illustration, Photography and Imaging, Product Design, Transportation Design, Graduate Film and Graduate Industrial Design.

Graduation Show Preview will be held at Hillside Campus from 6 to 9:30 p.m., with a private reception immediately following.

Friday, December 13: MDP Work-In-Progress Show
Media Design Practices is holding a work-in-progress show from 6 to 10 p.m. in the Wind Tunnel Gallery at South Campus (950 South Raymond). The MDP/Lab track will be presenting thesis work in progress from their Ciphertexts & Cryptoblob inquiry and the MDP/Field track with be featuring projects from Kampala, Uganda.

Saturday December 14: Graduation
Join us in the Sculpture Garden at Hillside Campus from 4 to 6 p.m. for our graduation ceremony. At the ceremony, we will honor three of our alumni who will be presented with Alumni Awards. This year, all the awardees received degrees in Product Design. Gordon Bruce will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award, Stan Kong will receive the award for Outstanding Achievement and Spencer Nikosey will receive the Young Alumni Innovator Award.

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Social impact bat mitzvah: Alum’s daughter raises funds for Art Center scholarships

Hannah Megery creates a painting for each bat mitzvah scholarship donor

Hannah Megery creates a painting for each bat mitzvah scholarship donor

This is a story about how even a 13-year-old can, with a little creativity, make a big difference in the lives of others.

Eighth-grader Hannah Megery had yet to choose her mitzvah (Hebrew for worthy deed) project for her upcoming bat mitzvah when her mother decided to take her and her sister Madeline on a tour of Art Center. The girls’ father, John Megery (ADVT ’95), had recently and unexpectedly passed away, and mother, Laurie, wanted them to see the school their father had attended and loved so much.

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