“Sketch Our Pizza. And We Might Put It In Our Ad.”

Click image to view an even larger image.

“Help Papa John find the car he was conceived in contest.”

Click image to view an even larger image.

“Little Caesar is Hot-N-Ready.”

Click image to view an even larger image.

“It’s a Sausagefest.”

Click image to view an even larger image.

Thanks for reading!
design and some copy: stephen jackson

Several local graphic designers, including myself, were asked by the STL AIGA Chapter to submit a poster design to an international poster show titled “Messages To The World” located in Shanghai Korea. Check out my poster submission, and read about the process.

initial steps & concepting:
When I received the call for entry email, my thoughts were as follows: “I’m already really busy”, “I can’t say no to Jen McKnight”, and “Well, at least I can choose whatever subject I want — that shouldn’t be too hard”. That last thought came from the theme of exhibition statement: “You may choose the subject, which you want to give a message to any individual, family, community, society, or/and the world.”

My initial idea, making fun of Reagan’s trickle down economics, in my head was destined straight for the halls of the Graphic Imperative Show. Flash forward three weeks, and I’ve left myself days to finish the poster. It’s getting down to the buzzer, and I search deep for some true expression, a message that means enough to me to slave all night making a poster about. The resulting message ended up being stamped straight for the pages of Post Secret (except it’s not very secret when I go blogging about it). Below the poster you’ll find the title and artist statement.

Click image to view an even larger image.

title: Fooled Again
artist’s statement: With such great American independence often comes a bit of isolation. I’ve chosen to illustrate a personal and nearly daily experience of mine. My cell-phone rings, and for a split second I’m excited and imagining who could be calling me! When I open my phone — I find that it’s merely my bed-time alarm.

process:
I knew from the beginning that I wanted to explore working with very geometric shapes. The first thing I did was to download a free copy of Google Sketchup. Working in a 3D program allowed me to quickly generate simplified shapes (which was crucial, because I did this in 24 hours). In sketchup, I rotated the 3D shapes as desired and saved them as Hi-Rez Jpegs. The next step was to hand cut, fold all the letters, and scan them. This allowed me to have some, but not as much as desired, natural 3D form. Finally, all the letters and 3D shapes were then arranged and shaded in Photoshop.

Thanks for reading!

design and copy: stephen jackson

**Also check out this awesome submission from Dan Zettwoch.**

“How do you create a better future?” Providence Christian Academy knows how. And now they have a brand new video, from yours truly, to tell their story. Watch the video. And read on to learn about some of the process and inspiration that went into it.

process:
I was asked to create a video slideshow for the annual ‘PCA’ fundraising dinner. The major challenge was creating something compelling, using only still images. Being limited to stills tends to be a common problem – that you too may have already encountered. Here were some of the techniques used to add depth to the project.

(1) Create a narrative. My co-worker Matt, who is very familiar with the school’s mission, wrote out a script. That script was later used to record Voice Over (VO). All the images and animations were designed to support the narrative.

(2) Set the mood. I choose a track, from Bibio, that starts off inquisitive & classical. And later builds to finish up-beat. The VO talent also helped convey a youthful spirit.

(3) Utilize visual connotations. For instance, what visuals can you think of that relate to schools? I came up with ideas like yearbook photos, chalkboards, and doodling.

(4) Think about transitions. How can you transition between images in a way that relates to the mood, theme, and pace of your video? I incorporated elements from the chalk board frame as borders. Sliding quickly between images helped to keep an up-beat pace. Varying the direction of the slide helped keep visual interest.

Thanks to Jane, for contributing the chalk writing.

inspiration:
This video from ‘QBF’, sports some very
interesting transitions and rack focusing.



Here are a couple links to block animations
that inspired the first section of my video.

animation: stephen jackson
script: matt bergeson

Chatroulette.com is a new website that randomly pairs you and a stranger via video and text chat. So, what are people doing with it?

Chatroulette has certainly brought out its share of crazies, creeps
and c–k. Seriously. If you haven’t visited yet you will see d–k.
Lots of d–k. But there’s also a lot of creativity. A new social media
application barely out of the box with plenty of people bumbling
around trying to figure out just what to do with it. Even if it’s just
simply being goofy.

So we made a goofy video:

It's no secret that dogs make people happy. Most people anyway.
Especially old dogs with narcoleptic tendencies and silly props.

UPDATE:
We said that Chatroullete was new, and people are still trying to figure out what to do with it. But thankfully, it hasn’t taken long for creative types to get their hands all over it and start doing funny stuff!

example 1: ben folds improvises to chatroullete in front of an audience.

Chatroulette was launched in 2009 by a 17 year old. It gained exposure in
February 2010 after being featured on “Good Morning America”. [source:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chatroulette] We have experienced traffic
of anywhere from 60,000 to 30,000 visitors.

Introducing, the AB curve bottle form (available in Budweiser, Bud Light and Select flavors). It looks sort-of like a bowling pin and fits nicely in hand. But, that isn’t what caught my eye. Check out this sweet header card! (fig. b & c down below)

You would think the header card would boast intriguing benefits like, “Easy Grip!” or “Stirs up the flavor”. But at the Cool Valley Schnucks grocery store (the only place I have seen this product) — nothing says product benefit like a fat bottom girl in tight white pants!

Get your curve on for only $1.19 — I did!

fig. a: Budweiser Curve Appeal Bottle

fig. b: Curve Appeal Header Card

fig. c: Curve Appeal POP Stand

photo credits: stephen jackson

Say hello to Essential Water (EW). Move over Vitamin Water (VW), Sobe Life Water and all the other ‘water’ drinks. I ran across ‘EW’ at a Casey’s General Store and it completely made my day! The packaging is disturbingly similar to ‘VW’. At first sight, I thought that ‘VW’ was producing this for Casey’s. Great job at making a confusingly and shameless generic version! They even included a block of witty lifestyle body copy. The creative brief must have looked something like this:

“Client really likes the look of Vitamin Water. Casey’s logo Mandatory. Time budget is 3 hours.”

And in case you’re wondering — ‘EW’ tastes as good at it looks. I would compare it with the likes of cough syrups.

Close up of essential water next to vitamin water.

I discovered Pure American (PA) several weeks later at Walgreen’s. After seeing ‘EW’ you have to give ‘PA’ some praise, even though its a generic store brand. Although the name is weak, at least it doesn’t have the word ‘water’ in it. They also added their own interpretation to the ’solid color bar on white’ trend.

Line up of pure american, essential water, and vitamin water.

photo credits: stephen jackson