Other Sources of Inspiration

As creative person in the advertising industry, many individuals have different sources of inspiration that influence their work, mine tend to be in the camps of graphic design, industrial design and package design (a strong sector of industrial design).

While working on Heimie's Haberdashery this morning I stumbled upon some great finds of vintage logo inspiration and package design.

Hermann Oak Leather Logo
Reason: I love the looseness of the typography and the wanky placement drawn together with the aesthetic curly elements.

You Smell Packaging
Reason: Not only a great vintage inspired logo, it also has a very distinct personality in the placement and usage. Found on thedieline blog.

Old World Deli Logo
Reason: Another great vintage inspired logo but with a bit more of a masculine feel to it.

I also came across a great bank of over a hundred 70's logos you can download on Eric Carl's blog.

Sticking To It

After having my site live for just under a week (coupled with an 8-hour campaign), I received an offer for freelancing, over 300 hits on my site, a threat to sue from a major agency and the same agency calling back a few hours later with interest in my work and approach. All-in-all it's been a good week.

I spent the majority of my day generating ideas for the Heimie's Haberdashery campaign, which I mentioned in an earlier post. After spending some time thinking about the specific target consumer I feel we should go after, I tried a number of different approaches in terms of the way the campaign should feel. In the process I dug up some great old pieces of reference that I researched when working on an alcohol pitch earlier in the summer. These two are excellent examples of targeting the same demographic with slightly different personalities.

42 Below Vodka's "Map of the World"
Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi
Reason: It pulls off an extremely dry sense of humor very well. A perfect approach for an affluent single male around 21-30.

Ketel One's "Table"
Agency: Grey Group
Reason: It pulls of classy cool in a unique way. Great for the affluent single man that thinks of himself as an alpha male.

Look out for some of my process work for this campaign which I will have posted tomorrow.

Heimie's Haberdashery

This marks the first time I'll be partnering with another art director to create a campaign.

I started working on an awesome hypothetical ad piece for my portfolio for Heimie's Haberdashery (a high-end men's only store) and today I went to their first Cabaret show hosted at the store. I had an awesome time with the great female and male singers they had going for about two hours tonight.

I am working with a good friend from MCAD Dan Spillman. The only hitch is, it's the first time I've partnered with another Art Director instead of a Copywriter. We plan to reel in one of our busy Copywriting friend's when the time comes; but, for the time being this will be another interesting experiment into how two art director's partner together to come up with the big idea and the visual concept behind it.

Stay tuned for the work in a week or two.