In the Summer of 2003 I went to Hong Kong and main land China to oversee the production of ABSOLUT WONDER. ABSOLUT WONDER was a printed insert that ABSOLUT made and distributed through the Sunday New York Times. We created over 1 Million.
BEYOND DISRUPTION
I designed the book cover, which maps the stages of disruption, Conventions, Disruption, and Vision. Published in 2002, copies are still floating around. BUY ON AMAZON
While at TBWA, I was asked to develop the visual identity of Disruption. Under the supervision of Jean Marie Dru, and the global marketing group. Myself and a small team executed a book launch at Cannes, a website, internal learning tools, and an intranet. These tools were distributed globally to inform the global planning practice. Below are screenshots of the website for Beyond Disruption, a book with chapters from the global leadership of TBWA\.
As part of the initiative, I was charged with creating a symbol for disruption. Disruption was meant to be the journey to the idea itself. I created a haptic line that resulted in a final move up and to the right, which in most business settings is a positive direction.
“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
At TBWA\C\D I brought on a team to help conceive and build a website to launchBeyond Disruption. The theme of the website was based on the Einstein quote. The website used flash to deliver pages as if off of a copier machine from the left side of the screen. The pages would push onto and overlap the previous page. At the time it was pretty brave to make a website for a book, and we had a lot of fun making it.
ABSOLUT PROTECTION
ABSOLUT GIFT
ABSOLUT had a rich tradition of creating holiday spectaculars. Because the holidays are a time when people get together, we continued this rich tradition online with ABSOLUT GIFT. The ad teased the used wit a loose ribbon, and would unravel as the user moused over the ad revealing more paper below. One the unwrapping was done, the user would be invited to print limited edition Cynthia Rowley wrapping paper.
Through the Ad we made it possible for users to download 4 different gift wrap designs that were created by based on designs by Cynthia Rowley, that we created by designer Meghan Williams. Because this was a user action, it could be tracked, and inform the brand of the advertisements performance.
ABSOLUT COZY. Was a collaboration between ABSOLUT and Cynthia Rowley. They Distributed 1 Million in the Sunday Edition of the New York Times in December of 2001.
Doctor's without Borders
Print/Poster campaign, by my colleagues Marc Klein, Toby Barlow, and Michelle Williams. Lourdes Banez at TBWA\Chiat\Day, Photo by Chip Forelli.
Leveraging the strengths of the animated gif and the common language of street signs.
When I was at TBWA\Chiat\Day the agency made a point of working on projects that would help the world around them at no cost to the client, in exchange for the opportunity to make great creative work. When I was invited by a creative director, Marc Klein, to help him on a project for Doctors without Borders, I jumped at the chance. The doctors needed a way to communicate how hard their job was and how harsh the conditions were where they were needed most.
Marc and his team created a campaign that would support two camps, one in New York and one in Los Angeles that would demonstrate the conditions in the third world, in two major American cities. Marc made an incredibly bold, yet simple campaign to support the initiative, and my team created an digital media campaign with looping animated GIF89As. The digital campaign earned recognition at international award shows. Hat tip to Lawrence Levene, who animated the running man.
The 'Mines' banner was particularly difficult, because of the level of animation required, and the need to keep the file size low so that It could be served on the most sites. By restricting the color pallet, and the animation area, we were able to keep the file size low, while keeping the visual/aesthetic quality very high.
Awards
One Show – Silver Pencil Interactive ( 2001 )
Cannes – Gold Cyber Lion ( 2001 )
ABSOLUT INVESTIGATION
This was the first ad that we created for the paid media campaign for ABSOLUT. It was designed to run on NYTIMES, Wired, and CNET. One of the main challenges was to get the imagery to look good, while living under the 60k file load limit. This ad ran in 2001, when file sizes for ads were between 10-15k, and rich-media ads were around 30k. At the time we worked with ad caching technology that would allow for the ads to load into the cache on the computer an play once it has been loaded. I felt strongly that the ad needed to have a prescribed button to take you to the absolut.com site, in order to build trust with users.
Orbitz – Website Design
In 2001, I was part of a small team at TBWA\Chiat\Day that was responsible for the graphical user interface for Orbitz.com at launch. The agency already had the advertising business, and it was the management's goal to coarse correct the product design, and have my team develop the visual design for the website, including the then famous "Matrix Display".
Most of the design was done to convince the clients, and the team at BCG in Chicago that this was the way to go. In the end we ended up doing a design shootout in conference rooms on the same floor in Chicago vs. the incumbent digital agency. The designs were then discussed in focus groups. Our designs were the crown favorite, and we were awarded the business. We followed through and created digital style guides as well. In 2003 Orbtiz went public!
Featured
ABSOLUT LIMITATION
I created this 468x60 ad for ABSOLUT VODKA in early 2001 that was designed to run on WIRED.com. The Advertisement was designed to provoke the industry before we ran a series of global ads that used rich media to deliver interactive ads in premium placements.
