Since I’ve been in the same apartment for the last 3 years, I am considering moving to a new place in the Royal Oak District of metro Detroit to be closer to my new job. A new place means an overall living space refresh. Looking for inspiration, I stumbled on a story on the Cabin of Mike Shine, an Art Director/Partner at Butler Shine Stern & Partners. Lots of color, lots of light, personalized and crafty…I like!
(Also love’n the skate deck headboard.)
Doner? whats that? Well its pretty rad. You see its going to be the advertising hotshop that saves the Michigan advertising community from being known as an automotive only industry . Rob Strasberg, formally of Crispin Porter, recently took over this medium sized agency located in the Detroit outskirts and brought with him all his experience building revolutionary brands such as Burger King, Schwinn, VW, Mini, and the Truth, the loud anti-smoking campaign. Why am I bringing this up? Number one its exciting to see life brought back into the Michigan Ad scene. Number two I just finished my first week as Art Director at this joint. After building a good knowledge base at BBDO as a junior, it was time to write a new chapter in my life. After meeting with Rob and Creative Directors Bob Veasy and Glen Hilzinger (think i spelled their names right?) I knew Doner would be a great place to grow and do some great stuff.
A week in and so far, so good. The creative floor is open format allowing for more creative interaction and collaboration. The mood is positive and I am finding a lot of the creatives are fresh bodies, coming from some other great shops and ad schools across the country. My main client as of now is Expedia, but I’ve already had the chance to work on Cox Communications and am expecting a brief for the Detroit Zoo monday morning. The future will be lot of work as I figure out the skeme of things but I also see it as a positive venture. It’s time to rock out and push my boundaries. Stay tuned for more Doner action in the ad news.
I keep a checklist of things I want to accomplish in life and recently I was able to check “Seattle Trip” off that list. When I left Michigan I had no expectations but lots of rain and coffee. But soon after arriving I was immediatly swept up in the refreshing Seattle culture which i can only describe as liberal, laid back and genuinely friendly. Between sightseeing the cliche’ hotspots like Pike Street Market and the Space Needle and visiting each of my friends favorite pubs I was able to satisfy my inner advertising nerd by visiting the folks at Publicis Seattle. Luckily I arrived at the right time: Keg Fridays, where i was able to meet a good number of Publicis-ians and talk shop in their relaxed atmosphere. Determined to end the trip strong I attended a LumberJack theme party that consisted of too much flannel and obscene beaver jokes. The next morning I stumbled exhausted onto the plane back to Michigan satisfied I got a full Seattle experience which couldn’t have been so without my friends who let me crash on their couches and give me their version of Seattle. I was sad to leave but I have a feeling I’ll be heading west someday permanently and look forward to possibility of it.
I stumbled on this jem while cruisin’ the design collective: “Graphic-Exchange”. The charming design does a great job softening the brutual honesty of the message. Good work.
“Design & Artsy Shit” is blog/’folio/shop of Designer/Illustrator/Surfer/Skateboarder, Emil Kozak. The title comes off as lackadaisical but his work says otherwise. His work is fresh and simple with few colors and clean lines. You can tell that his childhood imagination is still alive and well. Another story proving…”do what you love, be yourself and you’ll do well”. Keep rockin’ Emil.
Spending the majority of my winters in northern Michigan, where snowmobiles are driven more than cars, I never imagined that these heavy jets-ski’s-on-land would ever become an X-treme sport. This is kickass. I am now addicted.
Featured above are some shots from local photographer Kevin Netz’s website. I had the opportunity to work with Kevin on a couple projects in the past and both instances he captured my exact vision. Check out his site.
This Tuesday the 13th Detroit received a pretty big dump of fresh pow’. Leaving me and fellow BBDOer, Will, a.k.a. “St. Nix” with no other option but to leave from work, grab our sticks and head to the nearest landfill turned ski hill. We endured negative 15 degree windchill and runs with names like “shaboom!” all for the love of the sport. Thank you Ullr (ski god) for the gift.
To celebrate the release of the new Warren Miller Movie, “Children of Winter”, Jeep sponsored a premier tour which just happened to land in Detroit’s finest Royal Oak district. I was able to score some Jeep VIP Tickets (thank you BBDO) and the night started off great. We were escorted to a pre-party hosted in the basement of Bastone, a fancy bistro downtown Royal Oak. We kicked back some free Tanqueray and tonics dabbled in some Absenthe, swapped ski stories and compared equipment. When showtime came around we left the cozy bar and made our way to the music theatre. Jeep had the upper balcony reserved and…our own private open bar. After some more schmoozing the show started. Aside from some big mountain Alaska footage, one road gap sequence before the intermission and the Billy Poole tribute, I think the film fell flat. The calm story-telling voice of Warren Miller that I grew up with never made it into the flick. Johnny Mosely voiced the entire movie and dedicated 15 minutes for segment on his family skiing in Japan. Not exactly the classic Warren Miller movie that we are all fond of but all in all the movie did make me miss the mountains. For now on I am going to stick with TGR for my ski movie fix.
It’s no One Show or D&AD but on December 3rd, Detroit Celebrated its 2nd annual D-Show Advertising Awards. Created by a number of higher-ups in the area it was a great opportunity to honor the local work of Graphic Designers, Advertisers, Producers and other creative types. Considering the economic slump the work is alive and well…and celebration beers aside I felt pretty good walking out when it was all said and done. The shot above is by the “D”. I’m Mr. Smiley on the right.
