Creative vision can be a powerful tool in the business world; on our visit to Grey Matter Group, we had the chance to see it in action.  GMG has done fantastic creative work, it’s been the soul of what drives the company. Rick Devon, the creative partner and founder of Grey Matter, played the role of guest adviser for the week. Without Rick’s creative vision, there would definitely be less award winning creative work in West Michigan. Check out GMG’s site: here.

A familiar friend stopped by for the nightly topic: keeping creative simple. It’s not the first time our group has heard this before, and there’s a reason. Simple, yet clever creative, wins Addy’s. Consumers are seeing more and more ads, let alone communicated messages. It adds up to there being too many choices and not enough time or brain power to choose.

Perhaps the best advice that Rick gave our group: “play to your strengths”. If you’re a better writer: write. If you’re a better creative: make logo’s. Young Creatives need to know where they want to fit in an ad agency.

The question becomes: do you know where you want to be? If yes, does your portfolio reflect that?

Here’s some photo’s from GMG. Possibly more to come soon also. Don’t forget Feb 23rd there’s a chance to see some of the largest ad agencies in West Michigan with the Creative Crawl. Get the full scoop on the Facebook Page here. It’s the only place you’ll see the creative from Julia and Shelly that was deemed unfit for publication. Controversy’s in. Go be a fan on Facebook!

Lastly, a group shot from the night!

Post contributed by: Andrew Rushmore

It’s been a busy few weeks for this session of the Polishing Center; this week we wrapped up the creative for the Ad Fairs: Creative Crawl, tackled more concepts for the GR Hopper and had a Saturday morning meeting with a new client. We’re proud to start working on both branding work for Soundpost as well as a project with CP+B out of Boulder, CO.

Geoff Shirley, the creative director at the Highland group gave great insight into concepting and logo design as well as choosing the final campaign.

Take a look at some of the insight we’ve gotten for logo design:

• Ditch the computer, start with a sketchpad and produce concept after concept: this lets you free yourself from the bounds of editing and over thinking.
• Look for inspiration online, Google terms for sites and images that will help you find inspiration. Don’t stop there though, get out and look for things that may inspire you.
• You’re making more than a logo; you’re making a ‘route to a brand’s identity’.
• Creatives should look at whether the logo concept can translate to Twitter, Facebook, YouTube as well as the traditional tests such as ‘the copy test’.

(The copy test refers to gray-scaling an image to make sure it can be photocopied and maintain the same message)

Julia Roser and Shelley Migliore produced the final concept that is moving to production, congratulations Shelly and Julia! Take a look at their work below.

Thanks to Green Frog Photography and Jeff Hage for photography -(Click for the larger image) You’ll be seeing the billboard versions courtesy of Lamar Digital soon.

More updates to come; the next session is held at Hannon McKendry, with the gracious host Bill McKendry!

Post contributed by: Andrew Rushmore

Back already, and our second week carried the same great energy as before, with this session hosted at Green Frog Photo! Jeff Hage and Mark Stegeman honored us as guest advisors for the night, and we met our next client as well (more to come on that soon). Jeff is one of the owners of Green Frog, a multi-disciplined and highly talented photography studio located in the off of 131 near Ann St.  Mark Stegeman is the ‘solo-preneur’ of Stegeman creative; Mark is ‘slightly fanatical’ about his work and driven to produce some of the best creative for his clients.

We had the opportunity to hear Jeff and Mark’s stories, and understand how they leveraged their careers to be where they are today. Young creative would be amazed at the stories that Mark had to tell, he went to Kendall College of Art and Design when computers weren’t used day to day in the classroom; as a result he started with the true fundamentals. Imagine designing a concept with markers, not Creative Suite! Imagine having to order a type-set overnight, and assembling it with scissors and patience instead of InDesign…

Jeff shared a few “Do’s and Don’ts” with our group. Here are some of my favorites:

(Do) Think!: Have the answers to the questions I’m going to ask. You know I will ask them. If I don’t ask them, find out why I didn’t. You’re in charge.

(DO) Have a plan: Know what you want (to get out of the shoot). Not having a plan will waste the time we could use (to shoot or try variations on the idea). The plan can be “let’s try a few things.”

(DON’T) Be Lazy: We all want to take the short-cuts and do less work. It will bite you when you can least afford it.

(DON’T) Sell a Ferrari like a Yugo: Remember what quality is and where your client or your own product fits in the quality scale. Good enough is never ‘good enough’. Don’t use crappy images or let people that aren’t qualified work on your projects. It hurts your reputation and your clients.

There was actually a lot more on his list, and all of it was golden. These are elements that transcend just the photo-shoot side of the list. Think about how you can put these into your daily routine. Have a plan, don’t be lazy, and when you’re working on a concept in class truly understand the brand that you’re working with. Jeff’s right, a Ferrari isn’t a Yugo; in fact those companies spend millions of dollars to make sure you know that!

These pictures were taken low light on an iPhone, so excuse the quality (in no way do they stand up to the work of Green Frog Photo!) but take a look at snapshots of our night! Creatives, if you’re interested in the portfolio’s of Mark and Jeff’s companies they are Here and Here respectfully.

(Look at 1/3 of all the great concepts we had for the Creative Crawl!)

(Intent reflecting on our concepts, we’re here to learn!)

Contributed by: Andrew Rushmore