Cannes - A - City!

It's that time again. That time when I feel the urge to update my blog on what's been going on in my life lately, design wise.

On June 20th, the Dice team over at Barkley got notified we won a Bronze Lion at this years Cannes Lions Festival. This is such a huge accomplishment for the Dice.com team as well as Barkley too. The project we entered was the Dice "Code Talkers" Outdoor campaign which consisted of billboards, bus posters (both inside and out), and bumper stickers. The concept behind this campaign was to create billboards that tech people understood, geek speak or code talkers. Tech people have their own culture and their own language (well multiple languages), and so we decided to create billboards written in code to speak to those users who can understand them.  Three distinct areas were targeted, Dallas (AT&T), Seattle (Microsoft) and San Francisco (Google).

 

Another recent thing that has happened was the release of a Starbucks tumbler design I created in time for the whole All Star game craze! Basically, Starbucks currently doesn't have any Kansas City pride within their stores. No city mugs, no city tumblers, or even barista bears! Those of you who are avid Starbucks goers are familiar with that of which I am referring to. So, in an attempt to change that, I was asked to design a concept that would run in stores during the All Star game activities. It is said that Kansas City is suppose to be expecting thousands of tourists for this event, and we wanted to take advantage of that. In my attempt to capture Kansas City, I would say there's a little bit of something for everyone. I wanted to illustrate the link between Kansas and Missouri, and also wanted this to be an experience. An I-Spy experience or "Where's Waldo?" kind of experience. I also wanted the design to be seamless between the paper break, so there are many elements that are free flowing around the mug. As for the color palette, I wanted to reflect the warm, inviting, helpful nature of Kansas City that I experienced when I moved here.

I am so thankful for each of these very different experiences. I hope these tumblers do well in sales and that there will be more creative opportunities to come!

summer so far...

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Back in March I applied for the Summer Mentorship Program at Barkley, and after a "simple" interview process, I was chosen! A couple months later and after graduation for sure, I started my journey on June 6. There are 11 interns working at Barkley this summer, but only 3 of them are design interns. I'm actually working on the Blacktop Creative side of Barkley (which is a complicated story all on its own), while the other two interns are on the Barkley and Collective Studio side.

So far the experience has been great! It began a little on the slow side, but once projects starting kicking, I was being asked for all kinds of help. Some of the clients I've been working on are Applebees, Young President's Organization, Staples, and some small projects for Blacktop & Barkley too.

For Applebees, one of my Sizzling Entree Menu Inserts got chosen, so that was really awesome!

Everything I've worked on for the Young President's Organization has gone through print. I created a logo for this years "What's the Story?" theme, and it's getting printed on envelopes, hats, postcards, etc.
I was  chosen to help with a Staples pitch, and it was pretty funny because I randomly got an email to be in the PR room and I was like "I'm an intern....is this email right?" Even if it wasn't right, I would have showed up to that meeting anyway...and what an experience that was. We created this massive brainstorm on this cork board and shot an image of it. We used that image to pitch to Staples our ideas through Prezi, which I learned in a day...though it wasn't hard. The pitch required a lot of mock up work, but I really enjoyed the speed of everything. If anything, I would like to work on more new business pitches.

I had to create custom made Blacktop stickers that would reface Barkley USB drives haha.

I created Barkley's Slimdown challenge logo. (basically the rocket with muscles haha).

On top of all of the work, there has been lots of fun things going on as well. The interns and I recently put on an Intern Talent Show Carnival, which you can see the story here. There was a party one day that started at 3 to celebrate the 7 new clients they picked up. They had a different drink for each client (I only got through 5 of them haha). On the 7th of July we went to the Livestrong Stadium Sporting KC Park for a private tour, which basically consisted of us wandering around freely and drinking afterwards for about 2 hours. This was the start of Barkley's Good Day initiative. Every quarter Barkley is going to have a Good Day, which basically focuses on ideas where doing good has created change.

With less than two weeks left, I've started to switch focus to make sure I get hired after this internship. I've been working hard, staying late, showing up on time and making smart decisions. On Monday, Don, one of the creative directors, asked me to come find him. Well, apparently 4 people have told him that he needs to hire me! 4 people said that about me...wow! I was shocked and very very thankful for those people. Basically, the interview process is about to start for me getting hired on the Barkley side. I'm really looking forward to it as I really have come to enjoy working at Barkley this summer. The internship was a great way for me to ease into a position.

SOME IMAGES OF WORK TO COME!

NBC Action News!

KC STAR!

Our Kauffman Center Mural Painting has made it into the KC STAR! Check out the article HERE!

I'm sitting in a chair in the backroom of my Starbucks on break. I'm sipping on a delicious Passion Iced Tea Apple Juice (because we were out of lemonade), and I'm rummaging through the KC STAR. I remembered the guy who came to "take notes" about a week and a half ago...and have been checking the paper everyday since (just about). Finally, I stumble upon a page with the Kauffman Center of Performing Arts on the front with CEO Jane Chu. I thought to myself, "This has to be the issue! This has to be the issue with our story!" And well it was. Immediately at that moment, my break was over. Sad, I know. My texting skills throughout the past few years have prepared me for a moment like this to happen. I quickly grab my phone, switch it to T9 and all caps and write "GRAB A STAR...WERE IN TODAY'S ISSUE! PASS THE WORD!" I sent it to the 7 mural kids who were on my most recent list. Then, you guessed it...back to work.

Here are a couple more related articles that came out recently also.

Building Relationships
About Glass Panels
Aretha Franklin
Richard Harriman
Letters

Patterns

COMMERICAL JOURNAL

Congratulations Kids!
Here is our first photo which is currently the cover of the Commercial Journal. Hopefully we all grab one soon, and if anyone is interested in a digital copy also. Download the PDF of the Commercial Journal issue here at KCB Central. Just go to Library—Commerical Journal—2010—JUNE/JULY to download. Enjoy!

I'm extremely excited to be a part of this project! The experience, the long process this has been, and the people I have met has all been worth it! By the time I graduate, the Kauffman Center of Performing Arts should be open soon after!

THE MATTER FACTORY

Below are some logo ideas I started working on for Andy. Beginning stages completely still. I think I'm going to meet with him on Monday and we're going to talk a little about progress.

Summer Internship @ The Matter Factory

WOO! Myself along with 3 other graphic design students from KCAI (Dmitir, Bryan, Taylor) recently got swept up underneath the wing of Andy Brayman at The Matter Factory. We will be doing a variety of design projects ranging from a new logo along with some stationary, some video tours of the shop and processes he uses, helping in the "Powder Room" with his project for Greensburg, Kansas, and a couple of other projects. In return, we get to create something of our own that we would like in return. (custom dish sets/decals/posters/3-dimensional objects) I'm really excited for this internship and hope to do/see/hear some crazy things come out of this place. ha.