Chances are, you know what I’m talking about. Here’s an example:

At our trip to Fairly Painless in Holland, Michigan we were exposed to ‘straight’ or ‘bent’. I’ll share this with you, it comes from  the mind of Tim over at FP.

Let’s see how well this translates online:

• Straight = you get it, no big deal
• Bent = wrap your mind around it

With this, you get a combination of:

• Straight – straight = boring
• Bent – bent = confusing

And the winning combo:

• Straight – bent = award winning.

The copy can be ‘straight’ and the visual ‘bent,’ or you can flip them if you’d prefer. The ad I shared with you came from SVR, Novo Hamburgo, Brazil.  You’ll notice that the copy is pretty bland, or in this case: ‘straight’. It fits perfectly with the ‘bent’ image of the smaller chessboard. It’s a perfect example of how this synergy can work.

Thanks to Fairly Painless and Tim and Cheryl for all their time and advice. They have a long history of award winning creative, check them out Here.

So what’s the lesson learned? Teamwork is crucial. Fairly Painless was where the team started to see that one person couldn’t bring everything to the table. If you’ve followed along through this semester, you’ll see how our work gets better and better because of teamwork.

Apologies to Fairly Painless for the team not bringing 100%, our entire group was disappointed with ourselves as well – but we took that important lesson away from the experience, making it worth while.

Post contributed by: Andrew Rushmore

- Date is currently not set to the corresponding week of the semester.

Gregg Palazzolo is well known in the West Michigan area, currently celebrating 30 years of business. You may recognize one of his most notable pieces: the Meijer Gardens logo. Did you know it was inspired by the B-Tree sculpture?

Inspiration can be found anywhere. Keep your eyes open, always be thinking. Gregg talked about getting advice from books, art, writing, Google image searches…anywhere really. But why is this ‘getting inspired’ so important? Most non advertising people think making creative is easy. We know it’s not, but what we need to know is how important being different is.

Safe is risky, says Seth Goden in Purple Cow. It’s a theme Gregg and Frank touched on in the session. They talked about how we (consumers) are  ‘wired to skip’ the usual; but we remember the unusual, we remember what’s different.

Finding out how to identify the core idea  behind the brand you’re working on and translate it into a creative concept that’s fresh and unusual is how you made good creative.

So put all the usual on paper, then move on, and on, and on..until finally you find what’s different. There it is on paper, the idea you’ve been looking for.

Because Gregg did research to understand the concept of the B-Tree, he was able to sell his idea and his art. His knowledge helped drive his creative, and it’s something that he recommends to young creatives. Knowing the concept inside and out will help you find what’s different and unusual.

Check out Gregg’s work here.

Post contributed by: Andrew J. Rushmore

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

Creative Crawl 2010

Campbell Ewald has four offices across the country, but remains headquartered in Warren Michigan. If you’re not aware of their work [Check it out!] you will probably remember the Alltel ads with the jingle “come and get your love”, [paired with the bumbling sales associates. Amy gave us insight into the company, as well as giving us some tips for job searches in general for the advertising field.

Here’s a few:

• Know your agency – It’s important to know their work, and actually have/show a desire to be working there once you arrive at the interview stage.

• Persistence – Show that you earnestly want the job, don’t stalk the company, but find the appropriate people to be persistent too and express your interest correctly.

• Network – Your resume has a better chance of floating to the top if you get a recommendation through a network connection; in addition the industry exists with networking connections, this shows an advantageous ability to work beyond the normal effort of the job search. (Start by exploring your personal networks!)

After learning about Campbell Ewald the team moved to presenting final concepts for the Creative Crawl, and then discussed tag-lines and logo concepts for the G.R Hopper. Next week the ‘final final’ concepts will be presented at the Highland Group, where the final campaign will be decided by our guest advisors and hosts.

A few takeaway’s from our advisor this week based on our work and presentations that may help fellow young creative:

• When presenting to the client, have confidence, sell – sell – sell. Many times ‘competence is lost by lack of confidence’. Even if you’re a creative and not the account executive you will still be selling things to clients: your ideas.

• One way to gain confidence with what you present: work it every way possible so you understand what you’re presenting to a client. ‘Destroying’ your concept, work it backwards, sideways, upside down, anyway possible that allows you see a creative angle you’re missing. This advice can help with media planning, and account direction as well!

• Great insight:  Be able to justify your ‘end’ to the client. If you can, the account team will back you up. If you’re not able to justify why you chose a creative element, (I.E using blue instead of pink), you’re not selling what you created effectively. At that point you’re “on your own”.

Post contributed by: Andrew Rushmore

Stories; they live on our TV, in our hearts and minds, and perhaps define a purpose for humanity. Clayton Boothe was guest adviser this week, and shared his passion for including stories in advertising. Clayton told stories for several companies in his portfolio, one example he shared was his ads for D&W. Imagine telling a story about lobsters, or pineapples. Clayton did it, and he did it so well he made us hungry! You can look at his LinkedIn profile (Here) to get information on his career.

Also present was the client for the Creative Crawl, Steve Laninga. Steve is on the board of AAF West Michigan (link), as well having a well-known presence in the local community of ad professionals. View his LinkedIn (Here) and his company (Here) to get more insight into Steve.

The presentations went very well, with very intuitive feedback from both the client and the guest adviser. Coming this Wednesday our final concepts will be presented again to Steve, as well as a guest from Campbell Ewald. The team is working hard, soon enough there we will be writing about our billboard being put up on digital display!

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

Our group held the first meeting last Wednesday and were honored by the presence of Emily Lautenbach (Meijer), Adam Barr (Fairly Painless) and Zac Boswell (Auxiliary Inc). These area professionals gave us their perspective on the Polishing Center (as Alums) as well as critiquing our initial concepts. It was a great opportunity to understand how our work in the Polishing Center translates into the launch of a career, and we were given great encouragement on how to maximize the learning opportunities presented throughout our time in the program. Thanks again Emily, Adam, and Zac!

Coming next Wednesday, we’ll be meeting at Green Frog Photo to go over more concepts for the Creative Crawl. We have a solid team, carrying great insight as well as artistic talent. Stay tuned to this blog for more information on our campaign, as well as examples of our work in progress. We won’t disappoint!

If you’re looking for more information on the Creative Crawl  2010 (February), their website will be available soon. In the mean time, you can visit the Creative Crawl 2009 if you need an idea of what the event will be like.

Contributed by: Andrew Rushmore