Why Hello
Posted by Call Me Amaesing | Posted in | Posted on 9:04 PM
Valentine's Cards
Posted by Call Me Amaesing | Posted in cards , valentine's day | Posted on 7:18 PM
Every year I make homemade V-day cards for my staff. Here are the ones from this year..
This is What Happens at the Craft Store..
Posted by Call Me Amaesing | Posted in | Posted on 7:12 PM
(above) Picking out my fabrics for my stuffed Owls..
(below) some of the beads I bought to make earrings. I'm selling a bunch of them so if you're interested, let me know! .. or you can find them on Etsy
10 Interesting Pictures of the week
Posted by Call Me Amaesing | Posted in photography | Posted on 10:48 PM
How to Be Interesting
Posted by Call Me Amaesing | Posted in | Posted on 10:34 PM
1. Take at least one picture everyday. Post it to Flickr. You should carry a camera with you. A phonecam will do. The act of carrying a camera and always keeping an eye out for a picture to take changes the way you look at the world. It makes you notice more things. It keeps you tuned in.
2. Start a blog. Write at least one sentence every week. It's easy to knock blogging as a kind of journalism of the banal, but in some ways that's its strength. Bloggers don't go out and investigate things (mostly): they're not in exciting or glamorous places: they're not given a story but have to build one out of the everyday lives they lead. And this makes them good at noticing things; things that others might have not seen. Being a blogger and feeling the need to write about stuff makes you pay attention to more things, makes you go out and see more stuff, makes you carry a notebook, keeps you tuned in to the world.
3. Keep a scrapbook. I've talked about this before. It's good. Do it.
4. Every week, read a magazine you've never read before. Interesting people are interested in all sorts of things. That means they explore all kinds of worlds: they go places they wouldn't expect to like and work out what's good an interesting there. An easy way to do this is with magazines. Specialist magazines let you explore the solar system of human activities from your armchair. Try it; it's fantastic.
5. Once a month interview someone for 20 minutes. Work out how to make them interesting. Podcast it. Again, being interesting is about being interested. Interviewing is about making the other person the star and finding out what they know or think that's interesting. Could be anyone: a friend, a colleague, a stranger, anyone.
6. Collect something. It would be anything. It could be pictures of things. But become an expert in something unexpected and unregarded. Develop a passion. Learn how to communicate that to other people without scaring them off. Find the other few people who share your interest. Learn how to be useful in that community.
7. Once a week sit in a coffee-shop or cafe for an hour and listen to other people's conversations. Take notes. Blog about it. (Carefully). Take little dips in other people's lives. Listen to their speech patterns and their concerns. Try and get them down on paper. (Don't let them see. Try not to get beaten up.) Don't force it; don't hop from table to table in search of better eavesdropping, just bask in the conversation that come your way.
8. Every month write 50 words about one piece of visual art, one piece of writing, one piece of music, and one piece of film or TV. Do other art forms if you can. Blog about it.
9. Make something. Do something with your hands. Create something from nothing. It could be knots; it could be whittling, Lego, cake or knitting. Take some time to get outside your head. Ideally, make something you have no idea how to do. People love people who can make things. Making's the new thinking. Share your things on your blog, or, if you're brilliant, maybe you can share them on etsy.
10. Read. Great places to start:
Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud
The Mezzanine by Nicholson Baker
The Visual Display of Quantitative Information by Edward Tufte.
All these books are good for their own reasons, but they're also good examples of people who are really interested in stuff that others think of as banal and who explain it in a way that makes you share their passion. That's good.
D'OH
Posted by Call Me Amaesing | Posted in | Posted on 9:35 PM
I was doing my reading today for my ADV 450 class. (Yes, Peter gives us a lot to read). But anywho, this book, which was recently published, interviews many many many famous and well known Art Directors/Copywriters/Art Executives/Account Managers... etc. And talks about the do's and don'ts and how-to's of how to be a good creative. It helps you think of how to think outside the box, what to expect in the Creative field of advertising, and much much more. It's like a .. Advertising Bible for Creatives, if you must.
While on one of my last pages of my 70 page reading, I stumble across an interview with the Creative Manager and VP of Creative Rectuiter of Leo Burnett, Kara Taylor. A Creative Manager is a big deal, and usually only found in larger sized agencies. Her named sounded familiar, and near the bottom of the interview, I realized why her name resonated in my mind so much. I had met her last Spring Break. Face-to-face. It wasn't an interview per say, but more of a question-answer conversation jobber that I struck lucky because a friend's mom worked at Burnett in Chicago and pulled some strings for me to visit the company and talk to someone. But I didn't know who I was going to talk to. Even if I did, I did not know how important she was. She looked very young. Young, but professional; I will give her that. I thought I was talking to some junior art director or copyright, not some big shot like Creative Manager. Needless, my "foot-in-the-door" opportunity was more like a "wide open vault that no one usually can pass through" opportunity that I pretty much blew. What a BIG whoops.
In my defense, I was not even an advertising major at that point. I did not know what a Copyrighter/art director was. (Which of course, she was happy to explain to me the different branches of creatives). I don't know whether I should be embarrassed about my situation or rather brag about my encounter with this higher up Burnett employer (without much detail). Baha.
Leo Burnett building in Chicago. Sorry Kara.
While on one of my last pages of my 70 page reading, I stumble across an interview with the Creative Manager and VP of Creative Rectuiter of Leo Burnett, Kara Taylor. A Creative Manager is a big deal, and usually only found in larger sized agencies. Her named sounded familiar, and near the bottom of the interview, I realized why her name resonated in my mind so much. I had met her last Spring Break. Face-to-face. It wasn't an interview per say, but more of a question-answer conversation jobber that I struck lucky because a friend's mom worked at Burnett in Chicago and pulled some strings for me to visit the company and talk to someone. But I didn't know who I was going to talk to. Even if I did, I did not know how important she was. She looked very young. Young, but professional; I will give her that. I thought I was talking to some junior art director or copyright, not some big shot like Creative Manager. Needless, my "foot-in-the-door" opportunity was more like a "wide open vault that no one usually can pass through" opportunity that I pretty much blew. What a BIG whoops.
In my defense, I was not even an advertising major at that point. I did not know what a Copyrighter/art director was. (Which of course, she was happy to explain to me the different branches of creatives). I don't know whether I should be embarrassed about my situation or rather brag about my encounter with this higher up Burnett employer (without much detail). Baha.
Leo Burnett building in Chicago. Sorry Kara.Creatives: Cold Floor or Bad Blood Circulation?
Posted by Call Me Amaesing | Posted in | Posted on 1:40 AM
My "Think Piece 1" for Peter Sheldon's Advertising 450 class.
Creatives: Cold Floor or Bad Blood Circulation?
I’ve decided to make this “Think Piece” not geared towards the ads I saw (or didn’t see) during the Superbowl tonight, but rather something I keep stumbling upon reading endless advertising articles and books regarding Creatives; they think better with their feet on their desks. I’m not saying that I read this verbatim, but however, many Creatives being quoted on how they pity their friends who crunch numbers all day long while Creatives themselves get paid for showing up in their PJs and play around the office during their entire career. And most of all, they can behave in any manner they wish, including putting their relatively large feet on their workspace. This tidbit is usually accompanied with a picture on the lower left corner of the page of a Copyright with their feet up on their work desk, usually lost in a train of thought (or lack thereof). [Want proof? Flip to page 6 of The Robbs and Morrison reading assigned for this week] I began to wonder being a good Creative would mean that I would need to be proficient in ‘leg lifting’ or ‘ankle crossing’. Was there some unspoken knowledge that missed? Perhaps Directors believe that good copy came from those who thought on their feet.. wait...the opposite of that.
Perhaps being a Creative meant to defy all natural etiquette in a business setting. Creatives shall not wear a suit to work, they shall be fed pizza on a frequent basis, they shall be paid for thinking of taglines for a talking hotdog, and most importantly, they shall never place their feet where they should go; the floor. Maybe once I get that job I can start painting my toenails at work (they dry better in the air).
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