Evil Creative Director Says

Logo Creative Review

More messing around with the fun art of North Korean propaganda.

In this installment, the client plays the role he plays best, Supreme Dictator and Arbiter of All Things Creative. (click)

Train of Thought Derailed

You know how it is, or maybe you don't. You're looking for something to spark an idea. Or rather, you've got an idea, but it's vague, and so you're looking for something that will spark it. Flesh it out. Complete it. But the Internet has given us short attention spans. I can't sit through a video that's over a few minutes. Got to move on. Find new stuff. Get nagging questions answered, like, "Is Tim Brando from CBS Sports related to Marlon Brando, because he sure has the fat head like Brando did?" And your team loses badly and so you want to make a cartoon of a father and son and the father will say something to the son like, "Ya know, now that the Gators suck, I expect them to lose and I don't have to beat you and Mommy so badly anymore. C'mon, let's play Black Ops." Or something. As I said, it was a vague idea. You know how it is. Or maybe you don't. And that's when I came upon this page and I loved how the words were almost poetry. And so now Stock Vector is a fictitious band and their new project "Running Black Silhouettes" is getting good press and they're adding dates to their North American tour and pretty soon some telecom will buy the rights to one of their catchy hits for a commercial and then backlash will hit fast and the hipsters who liked them early on will abandon them and before you know it even the middle schoolers think they're stupid. Then they break up and get jobs in retail and people sometimes recognize them and say, "Hey! Weren't you in Stock Vector?" And they're like, "Yeah, but that was a long time ago. Are you finding everything you need?" And then as the one-time fan walks away, finding everything she needs, the former member of Stock Vector hears the kid humming a few bars from the big hit that got them fame and money but also destroyed them. "You know how it is" was catchy as hell, and they caught hell for it.

Presenting: "Where's My Jetpack?" The Song and The Video

Or: Unemployment Will Make a Man do Weird Things, Part III.

I've put together a song - and a video to go along with it, and I really like how they both turned out. (You're free not to.) It's called, not surprisingly, "Where's My Jetpack?" I went ahead and created a jetpack of sorts for this video. Don't try this at home. Or do. It was a load of fun.

Much thanks go to the phenomenally talented Professor Fred Leo, musician extraordinaire, for his expert advice during the creation of the audio track.


Enjoy...or don't.

Where's My Jetpack? from Radio Free Babylon on Vimeo.

Using the Facebook Vimeo embed here since the sound quality of YouTube leaves much to be desired.

Also, any perceived homage to ancient rockers from Boston is entirely intentional. Best to turn it up loud.  

Everyone's a Creative

No, I mean it. Everyone really is. In some way or another, everyone is a creative. But in this business, it'd sure be nice if there was a way to keep everyone's opinion out of every job. Production by committee...you know the result...a watered-down and usually ineffective piece. Client's always right? Rarely.

Bigger is Better

And I thought I recognized that multicultural group from somewhere.

Text Appeal - HA! Get it?

One of AT&T's current banner ads, modified to get down to what their stupid headline is implying.

As approved by the daring client:What the creative team passed amongst themselves:

Steady as She Goes

What was to have been a fairly short gig is now going on its 7th month as I continue to freelance in the giant corporation’s creative resources department. It’s not as awful as when I first arrived, but it took me forever to get used to the idea of wearing real clothes, like shoes, socks, belts, long pants and the other necessary business-casual attire. Also, not having the ability to hop on my bike and pedal a few miles in search of inspiration was a tough one to get used to. I also miss showering at noon, not spending money on gas, the occasional swim and the view from the home-office window, which included grass and trees and other real-life things. Attending meetings by mobile from wherever I happened to be was another luxury I never fully appreciated.

And while that world was cool, it's a memory for now, not to return until some other projects in the works line themselves up. CubeWorld™ is better these days. Can't bitch. Shouldn't bitch. Trying not to bitch. I’ve been fortunate enough to work on some actual creative projects lately, so the copying and pasting gets a break once in a while. It helps that my fellow crewmembers are all decent people—and we're all in this boat together. (Inspirational poster, anyone?) But don't worry, if some inane and mockable Office Space moment happens (and they do frequently) I'll be mocking it here.

And since I’m a near lifer, I finally brought in some “art” to make my drab cube more tolerable. Here’s one of my favorite “sculptures.” It’s a cardboard Shatner head to which I have affixed a pair of real aviator sunglasses. The Shat hangs on the cube wall behind me, taunting me to, "Adjust your attitude, Mister."

My Memory's a Little Cloudy

As advertisers, we are supposed to evoke moods, stir feelings and create scenes. If it were possible, I’d be happy to do that without ever having to include a call to action.

The weather reminds me of other places and times. This morning before dawn, the street was wet, the air was mild, and there was a steady wind high in the trees. The cloud ceiling was high but dark, a night storm drifting away. I was transported to Northern Virginia, where I delivered The Washington Post as a kid. I remembered having to hold a paper in front of my face in the summer months to cut through the spider webs that had gathered overnight under the trees in the yards.
Earlier this month, the air was brisk and clean, with no trace of humidity. There was just enough sun to keep me from feeling cold. If I closed my eyes, I was in the mountains of Southern California, high above the smog of the city, on the winding road that cuts through the Cuyamacas on the way to Julian.

A certain degree of sun mixed with a chill in the air will take me to Southern New York, where on the lush lawns of the parks of West Point, I’d watch the barges and small sailboats move up and down the Hudson.

Sunny, breezy and warm is springtime in West Texas. Cloudy, windy and cold is a Southern Missouri autumn.

My memories of these places appear in my mind as Photoshop documents, layered, saturated and brilliantly contrasted. The backgrounds are as clear as the foregrounds, with every green vivid and every blue deep, some sort of postcard from the past. In these documents, all is well with the world, be the image rainy and cold or balmy and bright. Any remembrance of personal trouble or world upheaval at the time is erased. It’s the weather that always opens the document, memory triggered by some subtle change in atmosphere.

It's not a real world; just a pleasant place to visit with eyes closed and a deep breath. Much like the worlds we create as advertisers.

You Know You Need a New Job When...

...when at any time of day you can spot about 10 people outside the company buildings talking quietly on their cellphones. It's either their headhunter, a potential employer, or a family member calling to console them during their break. You can't make any sort of private call in this cube farm. I can hear the lady in the cube next door to mine eating a tuna sandwich. And tuna sandwiches don't make much noise. It's a very quiet and oppressed place. Managers have doors and windows on their cubes. But no roofs. Their cubes are still connected to the rest of the maze, they're just bigger and have the illusion of privacy.

My current gig is with an in-house creative department for a large corporation. To make sure the employees aren't wasting time on non-company things, this corporation has contracted with a firm known as Websense. "Websense is a global leader in internet filtering and web security solutions to help companies productively use the internet."

Websense sucks.

Most blogs I can't see from work, especially Wordpress blogs, where I am met with:
Category "Social Networking and Personal Sites" is filtered.

Some blogs I can get to, but following a link about a "ghostly cup of coffee," I am met with this message:
Category "Non-Traditional Religions and Occult and Folklore" is filtered.

The Best Page in The Universe is blocked with this message:
Category "Tasteless" is filtered.

Anything on YouTube gets you this:
Category "Illegal or Questionable" is filtered.

The website Something Awful, where the Your Band Sucks feature is pretty fun, is a serious non-no:
Category "Adult Content" is filtered.

I understand corporate America's desire to squeeze the last ounce of productivity out of their employees, but when you prevent them from having any fun whatsoever, particularly when their department is called "Creative Services," you're kind of screwing yourself.

I can understand blocking porn, maybe hate groups and sites that teach you how to make bombs, but when you call Maddox "tasteless," that's clearly just a matter of opinion.

Got Your Back

Thanks to Bill of Make the Logo Bigger for the suggestion for this installment of "Where's My Jetpack?" the royalty-free clipart comic strip.

Getting Down to Business

The Munsingwear Creative Brief (zing!) is handed to the art director and copywriter:

AD: They want us to highlight the "stretchy seat" of these underwear.
CW: So I guess it gives you lots of comfort and room?
AD: Yeah, not constricting. Let's you move without binding or hindering daily activity.
CW: How about a man riding a horse in his underwear?
AD: What? Are you gay? Please!
CW: Just trying to think here, man. OK, how about a man doing some acrobatics, like tumbling or trapeze?
AD: OK, you're on to something there, but still, too faggy.
CW: Hurdles? Pole vault? Discus?
AD: No, no, no.
CW: OK. Thinking...
AD: I've got it! Wrestling! With another man!
CW: I don't know. That seems sort of...
AD: What?
CW: Oh, I don't know. Queer?
AD: You're such a homophobe. Write the copy. I'm going to scout for models at the Y.


















Previously in questionable underwear ads of yesteryear.

Via.