I walk pretty much the same route to and from work each day in downtown Chicago, so I get the privilege of seeing all the new on-the-ground advertising campaigns as they debut. Usually a number of instances per campaign, in fact—instantly fell in love with the newest installment of Ray-Ban’s Never Hide ads for their new Rare Prints, for example.

Last week, the Art Institute of Chicago released a bus shelter ad promoting The Lunch with the Masters Visit, which sounds like a good time! The graphic presence of the poster, however… well, it left much to be desired. My first impression a block away was one part curiosity and one part skepticism. I saw a LOT of white space, a strange backward-S contour, and it felt straight out of the year 2000.

The subtext reads, Now with 100% of your daily recommended culture. Follow the path of photos. Is it a narrative; a sort of ‘day in the life’ setup? Maybe. There is a lunch scene in the middle of the sequence, after all. But my biggest hang up was the very specific look of the piece; a formation of haphazardly-placed rectangular photographs that seem to exist to mimic the Art Institute of Chicago logomark.




Fast forward a few evenings. I’m walking through the local Metra Rail train station, and I am stopped in my tracks (pun!) before a series of ads for Advocate Health Care.

HUH?

Feeling like I’ve seen this ad somewhere before, I think back to that Lunch with the Masters poster. I don’t know about you, but I was blown away by the similarities. And just so you have a point of geographical reference, this train station is ONE BLOCK from that bus shelter displaying the AIC poster. Close enough so, that I briskly marched back to it for suspicion confirmation.




This Advocate Health Care poster series won’t be collecting any awards, but what matters is that same graphic approach of this ’school of fish’ formation of non-gridded photographs. In addition to the formation, the white background and the border-free imagery take on the same minimalist approach that many turn of the century designers applied to their work.

Wether this is a style worth bringing back, I don’t know. Although it sort of works for the AIC Lunch with the Masters poster, it seems to lend nothing to Advocate Health Care. But the fact that both of these campaigns are live at the same time is a design coincidence that definitely caught my eye.

Spent this weekend partying with good friend, Adam Okrasinski, who was in Chicago to support his client, American Express and their Zync Zone. The zone was positioned at the annual Pitchfork Music Festival, encouraging a younger audience to apply for the AmEx Zync card. It was awesome, and from it the above photo was born.

More importantly, I was charmed that day with a very up-close stage performance by the crowd pleasing(?) Major Lazer. What a bizarre little man.

Saturday, July 3
—
BBM Station Takeover (Boston South Station)
At Time of Sketch: 75%
Project Status: 95%

Saturday, June 26
—
BBM Mural (Halsted Street, Chicago)
At Time of Sketch: 55%
Project Status: 75%

Saturday, June 12
—
Blackberry, Real Friends (Times Square, NYC)
At Time of Sketch: 90%
Project Status: 95%

Just today I came across this fascinating and remarkable documentary about the endangered art of the muralist, called Up There. Produced by Mother NY, in association with Stella Artois, the short film takes a look at the men who are responsible for painting large-format advertisements throughout NYC, and the battle to find work while the ease of vinyl, canvas, mesh—and other substrates—exist for quick production. I am working on a large and complex campaign involving a number of sequenced mural paintings in various cities, so this documentary holds a very specific bit of my attention. My team and I are eager to see just how the muralists will approach our artwork, and Up There certainly gave me a much better understanding. Fortunately, there will be a mural painted right here in Chicago to quench my curiosity—anticipate documentation!

Credits:
Concept: Mother NY; Production Co: Mekanism; Director/DP/Editor: Malcolm Murray; Music by The Album Leaf; Painters: Colossal Media/Sky High Murals/Bob Middleton; Presented by Stella Artois.

On my way through the O’Hare airport last week, I found myself taking more than a few curious double-takes at what seems to be a stunning rebranding of IBM. The campaign is called A Smarter Planet and is the company’s current effort to contribute to green business. The campaign is being applied through 21 corporate avenues, including Banking, Cities, Education, Energy, Food, Government, Healthcare, Public Safety… and each department receives its own custom ’smarter icon’ so to speak. The collection overall is very compelling; bold, colorful, minimal, charming.

The iconic imagery has influenced the user experience on IBM’s website, reshaping the navigation and providing a really refreshing overall facelift. There’s been skeptical talk about IBM’s efforts as a whole, and what this campaign really stands for, but I’m keeping myself removed from all that. As far as I’m concerned, I think the move is a great one for IBM, and above all I admire the efforts made to maintain the bold, iconic symbolism that Paul Rand set in place for the company, fifty years ago!




Campaign brought to us by Ogilvy & Mather.

I don’t often get the chance to talk about the work I do on a day-to-day basis, due to legalities and corporate issues, but I was excited to find these two recent print projects at Borders this month! The top image is an all-type print spot I put together for Always. It was a lot of fun working on, and there are also French and Spanish translated versions running for both the American and Canadian markets. This particular image is from the inside of the April issue of Real Simple, right next to a tutorial on how to straighten your hair! The ad also ran in an assortment of magazines like Teen Vogue, Martha Stewart Living, and Redbook.

The other image is from a much larger campaign to promote a new Nintendo DSi release, that encourages you to create your own mini games. The idea was to encourage young gamers to turn their imagination into real games to pass around among friends; a very DIY sort of vibe. It was very fun working on a project of this size with such a great team. This was shot from inside this month’s issue of Game Informer magazine.

I think it’s important to note that the work that comes out of a large advertising agency like Leo Burnett is never thanks to a single person. Teams of art directors, copy writers, designers, and knowledgeable account people all contribute to the final result; it’s all incredibly collaborative. Seeing your hard work in print (or web, or tv, or radio) is just very satisfying, and I just thought I’d share my excitement with you!

Ryan Meis, one half of west coast-based Lab Partners, worked recently with Goodby, Silverstein & Partners to produce a really lovely print campaign for HP printers!

Stuff made out of paper… for printers, get it?

(via Grain Edit)

An interview with art directors, Craig Allen and Eric Kallman from advertising agency, Widen+Kennedy about the making of the Old Spice tv spot, The Man Your Man Could Smell Like.

The interviewer—and his dash of industry ignorance—is a little sub par, but listening to Allen and Kallman talk about the 3-day process that went into filming this spot is fascinating.