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Happy Holidays, everyone!

A few people here at Creature put in some extra hours outside of work to make sure we spread some holiday cheer. Enjoy!   

 

http://singingchristmassandwich.com

Cholula and Tapatio. Competitors or…lovers?

I’m a fan of Mexican food. And of course, the hot sauce that often accompanies it. So, it shouldn’t be a surprise that I keep a few bottles of the stuff around. Most often my favorites Tapatio and Cholula are stocked. I really have no preference one way or the other. Both are delicious. However, both are competing for our valuable taco space. In a sense, these are the two giants of the Mexican hot sauce wars.

A couple years ago however I made an interesting discovery. With Bart’s recent random Tapatio gift pack shipment to the agency, it’s been on my mind. I opened up my pantry to find Tapatio and Cholula staring at each other. You could see it in their eyes. I had exposed a dark secret of the hot sauce world. It seems to me as if Cholula and Tapatio are lovers. Put them next to each other and you can see it in their ridiculous stares. That is the only excuse I can muster up for why Mr. Tapitio looks so ridiculous. Either that or he’s a chronic mouth breather. I personally would like to believe the former. So, the good news is we need not take sides in this so-called Mexican hot sauce war. And both I might add go well with a cold Pacifico.

The Mattress Wallet – Financial Comfort.

As the economy continues to landslide into the capitalist abyss that is our current financial system, we’ve discovered that the solution to all of our money woes was lying just beneath slumbering heads the entire time.

More reliable than the stock market, yet more mobile than your mattress at home, the Mattress Wallet keeps your money safely non-vesting with zero reward and zero risk!

You may have, at some point in the past, mocked old people and their antiquated methods of hoarding money, fueled by an unwavering distrust in banks and the government. These methods have included such financial strategies as filling trashcans with pennies, stashing gold bars in their freezers, and most popularly, stuffing mattresses full of cash money.

But, as it turns out, old people are deceptively savvy with their finances. They continue earning the money they already have.

Celebrity endorsements, info, and more @ www.themattresswallet.com

Start feeling comfortable about your financial future, and buy yours today.

One Club Unconference

  

A couple weeks ago Matt and I were invited by the One Club to participate in the One Club Creative Unconference. This two day event was essentially a group of loosely guided discussions that people could join and participate in. We realized that while Matt and I occasionally get called upon to do these things, we rarely share our topic internally. So, we decided to blog about it.

Matt spoke first on Thursday with the topic of the $6 Million Dollar Creative. Better, faster stronger. Here is an except.

"Steve Austin, creative. A man barely alive. Ladies and Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability to build the world's first bionic creative. Steve Austin will be that man. Better than he was before. Better, stronger, faster.

Better at logistics, faster at concepting, stronger at engineering a plan. Add in more entrepreneurial, digital master, social genius... What else is expected of the re-built creative of today and the future? And how do you do this and allow them to have lives?

This of course lead to a lively discussion. And Matt of course revealed what we look for in Creatives.

-Planning strategies – Can you identify a real business problem? Your concepts may be fake, but the business problem you choose to solve should be very real. Good creatives don’t sit and wait for the planner to bring it to them on a plate, they help inform the approach. Finding the right problem to solve is half the battle.
-Executional vision – Are the executions believable from a production standpoint, respective to the client? And do they show some thought on engineering them for the real world.
-Use and understanding of digital/social media. – It’s easy to check boxes here. But is there some understanding of the nuance it takes to truly get picked up in the conversation of social media? Is there a specific program or piece created that is an engaging and shareable expression of your bigger idea?
-Overall presentation and packaging of ideas – Being simple with ever increasingly complex ideas is the great challenge of the day. Can you layout and flow your integrated ideas in a way that has lots of parts, but just enough detail as to not overwhelm. Invite people into an idea first, resist the temptation to over explain too early. When we see care taken in the full presentation of a campaign, we can guess that will carry over into a professional idea that is something we can be proud to sell.
-Sources of inspiration and guiding forces. – This is about your style. What type of humor or visual appeal is reflected throughout your work? Range is good, but showing your prospective on the world is what agencies need. We need a collection of different thinkers.
-Personal projects – This shows a person’s entrepreneurial spirit, and reveals passion points. We want people who dare to create culture, not just curate it.
-And of course, really smart ideas. – Original solutions. Insightful angles at problems. Wacky and weird only works if the central motivation is smart.

Needless to say, all the entire creative department here should be proud to be represented and exemplified as the bionic-creatives of the future. Of course, since this was a discussion, we didn’t have all the answers and are still working towards figuring out a few things here.

I spoke on a topic that was different, but again related. There’s never been a better time to be in this industry.

The reasons for my optimism are simple. One, I tend to be optimistic. I believe you always look the direction you want to go. But beyond that, there’s a lot behind this thought.

1. We have more tools than ever. And tools were the things that originally separated us from our friends in the animal kingdom. Some of them are familiar. Print, digital, TV, Twitter, blah blah blah. But the fact is that it seems like every other day we get to add a new one to the mix, and that’s pretty cool. Plus we get to invent a few along the way. Probably even more interesting is the fact that we get to take our familiar tools and use them in ways that are innovative on their own. Think of a TV spot as a hammer. You can use a hammer to pound nails, but what else can you do with it? This is exactly how we all used Twitter for the Current pitch. In a new way.

2. We have clients now that are aware of the possibilities, but might not know how to take advantage of them. This leads to clients asking for our help. And this allows for more fruitful partnerships and relationships where we can execute better ideas.

3. The economy is our friend. When times get tough, people need to re-examine. Clients need to rethink a bit with smaller budgets. This is a time when innovation can happen. And innovation is makes our lives interesting.

What does it take?

Part of our job is the same as it ever was. Coming up with a good idea. Part of our job is different and way more fun. Finding new ways to bring them to life. Keeping up on technology. Not using technology for the sake of it but to further an idea.

The truth is, Matt and I had different topics, but they often intertwined. I guess that’s a good sign. But I have to say, it was fun to use real-world examples from here at Creature to back up what we talked about. So, thanks for making our discussions not just theory.  

The Wall Project

The eastern wall of our agency is hideous. Right now it is nothing more than giant mauve wall.

Mauve is an eyesore.

To remedy this problem, we nabbed a few local artists and have asked them to go nuts on it. They said yes, and came up with a pretty amazing collaborative idea that we are excited to make happen.

These are the guys:

Jeff Jacobson

Shawn Diaz

Sam Wallace

We're really excited to be working with them.

We've been kicking ideas around for a few weeks now, and things are shaping up nicely. We've also been getting some good attention in the local press, which hopefully will help with raising the funds to bring this thing home.

Right now we're still figuring out all the specifics of it, but stay posted for new and exciting developments as they occur.

Cool Dripping Table

Designed by John Nouanesing

Creature History Books

 

Creature History Books are in. There will be one available at the front desk. Feel free to check them out when you have a chance. 

Books in Studio

New Books.

Check them out -literally- Ask Chris and Dave if you can take them and enjoy.

Color by Numbers

CD's to listen. download. and enjoy

We have been receiving crazy amounts of comp CDs from lots of different music publishing houses. They will now be kept on the Art Department shelf in the conference room. Feel free to listen, and download them. Please put them back on the shelf when you are finished with them- so everyone can use them! 

Europe

As you all know, we had a lengthy trip to Europe for the Cannes festival, among other things. We spent a week meeting press from ad publications from around the world, talking to potential partners from Europe, Asia and South America, and had the chance to talk about the future of our business with one of the agency world's founding fathers. The photos are all here...

The trip was definitely a lot of fun, but there was some real work in there too. Click on the thumbnail on the right and you get a little slideshow of our adventures.

Kieron Dwyer- Comics and More

A great illustrator, Kieron Dwyer, (no relation to our Michael) came in to show his work. He has great range and really brings a lot to each style he draws. His background is in Comics and he worked for Marvel and DC comics for quite a while.
His portfolio and a disk with examples can be found on the shelf. Check him out!

Jim Becomes $5 closer to his dream

We all know of Jim's ongoing dream to return the Kingdome to Seattle. Well several weeks ago a five dollar bill appeared in our Bring Back the Kingdome revival fund. Yes seriously $5.00! After a year of nickels, pennies, and Canadian currency a five dollar bill ups the odds that Jim's dream can happen. We only hope that someone can top five dollars.  So dig deep in those pockets, sell some clothes to crossroads, borrow money from your mom or just simply don't drink coffee tomorrow. The Kingdome needs us and it's revival is depending on you!

OVERCONSUMPTION

Huxley Chin is a talented Artist/Designer from New York. Specializing in T-shirt Graphics he designed T-shirts for Echo Red for several of years. He recently took a job with the clothing company Akademiks. His work uses witty sarcastic street humor to get his point across.

Overconsumption

Meat Locker Adventures - Part 1

Hangin’ in the Meat Locker. “Booze Locker Edition”.
Who: Meat (Jenn, Jodi, Adam & Peter) + Jim
Where: Pike Street Beer and Wine

In our first adventure we decided to invite along one of the persons
responsible for creating the meat locker by opting to keep the back room 30
degrees colder than the rest of the agency: Jim Haven.

Finding it odd that we have a beer client but no beer in the agency we
needed to get our fix of the fun sauce on the outside. This led us to a free
beer at a new liquor store on pike. (Every Friday between 5-7 tell your
friends).

This booze locker was a shining beacon of purity in the crack den that Pike
becomes as you head downtown. Safety wasn’t a concern, we had Jenn's kind
eyes to mitigate any issues from the rambling homeless and if the any
transients got past her, then we felt safe with Jim’s fists on our side
which are registered deadly weapons in several states.

So we bundled up and ventured through the freak April hail storm that
reminds us that god hates Seattle and headed out to get tasty.

We walked into a clean and orderly store that offered beer
and wine from many regions of our globe (With prices so good they’re
stupid!!! That's Pike Street Beer & Wine at 518 East Pike Street )

The featured tasting of the night was Rogue brewery. With flavors like
Chipotle Ale, American Amber and Hazelnut Brown Nectar we really couldn't go
wrong.

We left the tasting feeling quite good about ourselves. So good, in fact,
that we hardly noticed the crazy crack head yelling up to the apartment
above for "hey Gene"…Gene was never found.

Wacky things like this happen in the Meat Locker all the time. And after the
construction we will be accepting applications for a transfer back into the
funzone. Good luck and god speed.

Jim in Italy.... Part 1

Here is the brief update for Creative Social Florence.

I arrived yesterday and stayed up for 30 hours straight. One of my missions
here is to disprove the common theory that Italian food is "delicious." You
will find several experiments to follow.

For those who aren't familiar. Florence is very similar to an Italian
restaurant. While little is known about it's history, this is what I've been
able to surmise.

Florence was founded a number of years ago by college students. To this day
you can still see many of them around. There are nearly as many statues as
there are pigeons here. Statues in Florence rarely wear pants. In addition
to the pigeons, there evening air is filled with swallows and they look cool
and athletic in the setting sunlight.

About 9 PM Mark Chalmers and I commandeered a large wooden table at a
restaurant reccomended by fellow "Social" and heir to the Frescobaldi wine
empire, Piero Frescobaldi. As the even went along, "Socials" began to arrive
from parts of the world such as Stockholm, London and Paris.

It should be noted that in addition to my pizza appetizer, (very nice) I
ordered the suckling pig. It seemed weird and appropriate as it was
described as a small pig that is skinned. The skin is cooked and then they
return the meat to the skin and they cook the whole thing. Highly
recommended.

It looked as though Damien Hirst was the chef and as a fan of weird meats
tasted horrible. More like liver than bacon.

Italian food score. Pig: Minus three. Add pizza and wine: Plus Three.
Cumulative food score: even.

Here is the first speaker today.

Florence born and bred, Filippo Innocenti is a passionate
architect at Zaha Hadid Architects, arguably the worlds most
progressive practice. Having joined in 2002 he’s lead various
projects including the Guangzhou Opera House in China and
presently Italy’s high speed train station in Napoli-Afragola.
In 1999 Filippo founded Spin+, an open research group in the
fields of architecture and digital design where he’s published and
exhibited, namely in Venice Architecture Biennium and Orleans
Archilab.
In a humbler context, we deal with architecture and we navigate
space. Lets see where we meet with Filippo.

Now, I must find some Gelato. The gelato report will follow and I will also
try and find some more pizza.

-Jim Haven

Erik Kiel Photography

Erik Kiel

Hybrid VS Non-Hybrid

Well the Results are in. Fuel prices are up only one person drives a Hybrid and only six people drive a car that use the kitchen. Me I prefer to walk or bus which makes it harder to get a date and makes it seem like I still live at my parents house...

Here's what Kermit has to say about the Ford Escape

JEFF KLEINSMITH AT SVC Friday April 11th

Jeff Kleinsmith Opening
As art director at the SubPop record label and cofounder of design and printing shop Patent Pending, Jeff Kleinsmith is a major influence on the visual presentation of music and bands on CD covers and concert posters. His work with bands such as the Supersuckers, Sebadoh and Mudhoney in the helped establish SubPop as a predominant indie music label in the heydays of the early ’90s. In the new millennium, Kleinsmith’s covers for Rogue Wave, the Postal Service and the Shins have reflected the inroads indie rock have made into mainstream pop culture. His opening at The School of Visual Concepts will showcase his work of the past two decades. Should be an inspiring event.

 

MODERN DOG

New Modern Dog book came out this past month. Mordern dog is a local Design house that does a variety of work from rock posters to packaging. They have always stuck to their guns and created a special style that has earned them a killer reputation for original work. The art department received a copy of their new book "Twenty Years of Poster Art" so be sure to give it a glance.

www.moderndog.com

Black Diamond Poster

   

OS Mutantes Poster

Logo for Act Theater

Scott Peterson

Great food photographer. (im sure he does beverage too!)

Check out his portfolio here.

Greg Lamarche

Greg Lamarche is one wicked talented graffiti artist and a master collage maker. Growing up in NYC he made a name for him self as a graffiti writer under the name SPOne. In recent years he has turned to making gallery work and painstakingly detailed collages. His collages are all done with hand cut type with paper and and a razor blade.

Check out his work below and his full portfolio online.
Greg Lemarche

Toby Pederson

Good looking product photography. Toby has worked with everyone under the sun it appears, including HP, Virgin Mobile, Callaway, and every automotive maker out there.

Check out his portfolio here.
Toby Pederson

Markku Lahdesmaki

Markku Lahdesmaki is a photographer from Finland with an eye for the surreal and love of mundane imagery. His work ranges from commercial work to extensive personal projects exploring communism, factory workers and abandon amusement parks.

Check out some of his work below and go to his site for a full portfolio. Also there is a flier on the "GOLDEN SHELF" in the back for you to look at too.

Markku Photo

Anthony Georgis

Great raw photographer with a simple but cool style. He as done work for NAU outerwear, Readymade magazine, and our favorite bank; UMPQUA to name a few.

Check out these pics as well as his full portfolio at his website

anthonygeorgis.com/

Parra

Super cool dutch illustrator that has a style all of his own. He as done commercial work for Ben and Jerry's, nike, as well as album art for several different electronic artists. He as also produces tons of pure art prints that are bright bold and simple. He uses tons of hand done type that it really fresh. He is currently featured on the cover of this months copy of Juxtopoz magazine. Check his work out at his website or his myspace.

Home page
Myspace

CLICK ME! FOR ANIMATION!

Creature Bocce Ball Tourney

This your chance for fortune and fame! Grab a team mate, come up with snappy little team name and logo. Bocce based puns welcome. Bad Logos = Good times. Entry Deadline : March 21st with the tournament to follow shortly there after once we figure out how many entries we have.

Alice Tippit

Alison Tippit is an artist currently working out of Seattle doing both oil and watercolor paintings. She says this about her current work:

"My paintings operate in the realm of poetry and the sign, using familiar symbols and phrases in order to discuss issues of identity, the inadequacy of human effort and the general disconnection required in order to function on a day-to-day basis in a world that can often seem overwhelming and impersonal."

She currently has work on display around the corner at the GREY gallery on 11th and pike. Definitely worth walking over at lunch for a look.

Alice Tippit

RABBIT

Douglas Howell Popped in this week for a screening of some of his spots and tell us about his new company called rabbit. Definitely worth a look.

RABBIT

DAVID CLUNGSTON

David Clungston is a local photographer who we just hired this past week to shoot our Creature portfolio. He Specializes in still life photography. David describes his work as making simple objects look sexy.  Check out some sexy objects...

DAVID CLUNGSTON

T-Mobile Sports Skin

NIKE Soccer

Ducati   

MAIJA LOUEKARI

Maija Loukari an Finish based Illustrator. She works in a variety of mediums
Textile, Canvas, and digital design. Her expressive line drawings and large planes of colour combine to create a strong impression of three-dimensionality.

MAIJA LOUKARI

Dress for Sparkling Design Competition

Carpet Design for Forme

Poster for Finatix Finland

ANDY BATT PHOTOGRAPHY

Andy Batt is a Portland Photographer who stopped into a Creature this week to show us his studios portfolio
. Andy Batt Studio specialize in Sports/Motion and Humorous /Lifestyle Photography.

ANDY BATT PHOTOGRAPHY

NIKE: Jordan Look book 2008

How to Dress For a Japanese Monster Movie

Oregon Ballet Theater

Vacuum Sucks

Vacuum Sucks is a multidisciplinary design firm out of BC Canada doing some impressive and strange work. Check out their digital real below.

Watch Reel Here

Sleeve Face

Fun with vinyl records, def worth checking out. Could be great inspiration for any of our creative efforts.

Nick Dewar

Super cool illustrator from Scotland. His work has been featured in The Atlantic Monthly, Bloomberg Personal, Elle DÈcor, Forbes, GQ, Harpers Bazaar, Martha Stewart Living, The National Post, The New York Times, Suddeutsche Zeitung Magazine, Newsweek, Playboy, Time, and The Wall St. Journal to name a few.

Check him out here.

KEXP - Drawing Contest

Here is a really cool idea done by the kids at Publicis for KEXP. Listeners draw literal doodles of their favorite bands names and submit them to the website. The result is a grab bag of talent and crap, as people take on bands like Vampire Weekend, Modest Mouse, the Mountain Goats, Wolf Penis ect. The best illustrations will be featured on the site and the top ones eventually published in a book.

kexp.org/discover/submitart.aspx

Little People - Public Art

No, this is not about people that are sub-average hight. This is about an artist from london who has used train miniatures to create bizarre street scene through out London. He does an excellent job using public space to make ironic yet poignant statements.

Little People

CLEVER ATTENTION GETTERS

Change in C minor.

A FROZEN PREFORMANCE

This is one hell of an idea. Just requires a little organization in a crowded place.

-Enjoy a frozen Grand Central

WHITEBOARD ANIMATION

Kristofer Storm created this white board animation for Minilogue/hitchhikers choice.

Etch a Sketch Online

Hey everyone its Friday and its time to loosen the old blouse straps and get wild. An easy way to start is by playing with a online version of the childhood classic "Etch-A-Sketch"

Goodyear paints a tire tread the full 26.2 miles

It was hard not to miss, whether you were a runner or watching the event from the comfort of a warm living room, a blue line that ran the entire 26.2 miles of the Philadelphia Marathon back on Nov. 18.

The line was put down by Goodyear to promote its Forterera TripleTred tire. The pattern of the line was that of the tire.

As an all-weather tire, it seemed a perfect fit for the course and the day, which was chilly with a nip of wind and rain.

“That’s where you’ll run into lots of different weather,” says Ed Markey, a spokesperson for Goodyear, referring to the demands of marathons. “And we were looking for a big media market. We had to find a marathon partner that was willing. And Philly was.”

Markey says the line was laid with blue painting using a revolving stencil that looked like a giant tire. The rig was connected to a trailer and pulled behind a pickup truck.

To support the campaign Goodyear handed out 15,000 signs with its “Get there” tagline to marathon spectators. Each sign had a list of 56 Goodyear dealers in the three-state area of Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware.

-Kristie Shields

Men at work, flying way up in the sky

Air Canada and its agency Marketel, based in Montreal, created about 40 custom construction cones, 20 to tout flights to Toronto and the others to tout fights to Montreal.

The bright yellow cones had arrows pointing straight up. Below were the words: “People working above.” At the base was the airline's logo and information on daily flights to that city.
The agency placed them around the two cities in November and December, then sent out teams with cameras to capture the reactions of passersby upon seeing them.

“We would leave them out for a few hours at certain times of day, and we’d send a team out to sit back and observe,” says David Yost, Marketel’s creative director. “We were trying to do something a little bit out of the norm.”

-Kristie Shields

Brits put a convicted driver under a huge pint glass

Nothing quite illustrates the wreckage of a car crash as a crash dummy, a mangled body in a mangled car.

Except perhaps a real dummy.

Great idea, thought Britain's safe driving people as Christmas was approaching and they were puzzling over how to get people through the holidays without the usual smashups from drunks behind the wheel.

The message: Don’t let that pint come between you and Christmas.

The messenger: a convicted drunk driver held under a giant pint glass, literally.

There he was, under the glass, telling all comers, including plenty of press, how that extra pint ruined his life by costing him his job, girlfriend, car and a good amount of cash.

“What we did this year was a big change of strategy away from the usual crash advertising,” says Richard Bookey, account director at Leo Burnett London, the agency that executed the campaign.

“So instead of showing a crash, we changed the campaign to highlight the personal consequences of drinking and driving.” After the initial stunt, the display went on the road, and actors filled in as the drunk driver trapped under the pint glass. It made stops in Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham and Leeds, all known for their heavy-drinking soccer fans.

An accompanying backlit sign laid out the various consequences of drinking and driving to passersby. The displays were up during the lunchtime and evening hours in each location, delivering plenty of walk-by gawkers, as well as media coverage. 



Total Red Cup Rip Off – Mobile Messenger/Taxicab from hell

I am sure Publicis & Hal Riney drew inspiration from the Red Cup for this but since it is for the American Red Cross in San Francisco – we’ll give them a break.

The thinking here was the aftermath of the 1989 San Francisco earthquake. How people need to be prepared, knowing that one can strike literally at any time, with little or no warning.

Past elements of the campaign have included a huge earthquake-like crack in San Francisco’s Union Square and large illustrations of how some of the area’s most recognizable landmarks would look after suffering the destruction of a quake.

- Kristie Shields

Soderbergagebtur

"Soderbergagebtur" Ok, so its impossible to say, spell or pronounce.... none the less it is a great resource of photographers, illustrators, stylists and set designers. Check it out.

Soderbergagentur

Bo Lundberg

Bo Lunderberg is a super talented illustrator working out of Stockholm. She has done work for American Express,  Coca-Cola,  Neiman Marcus, Scandinavian Airlines, MTV Europe and Wallpaper magazine. Not only does she have great work, but her website is gorgeous and definitely worth having a look at.

Bo Lundenberg

ORK Posters

Ork Posters have fantastic typographical maps outlining various neighborhoods of several large US cities. Including Chicago, Brooklyn, Manhattan and Boston (Seattle to come soon).

Check them out at ORK Posters

BORN MAGAZINE

Born is an all-volunteer project that brings together writers, artists, and others from diverse fields to create storytelling artworks. Our name reflects the creative process nurtured by collaboration and the bringing together of traditional and new forms of art and literature, diverse media, and emerging technologies. As a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, Born is dedicated to the emergence and continuing evolution of art forms that bring together different creative genres.

Steve Hawley's online magazine Check it out:

BORN MAGAZINE ART AND LITERATURE TOGETHER

C DRAGON

Amazing new software being demonstrated via YouTube video. Watch it and be amazed ... (forgive the geeky delivery and the BMW ad at the start and end)... but this is the spiel that goes with it: Using photos of oft-snapped subjects (like Notre Dame) scraped from around the Web, Photosynth creates breathtaking multidimensional spaces with zoom and navigation features that outstrip all expectation. Its architect, Blaise Aguera y Arcas, shows it off in this standing-ovation demo. Curious about that speck in corner? Dive into a freefall and watch as the speck becomes a gargoyle. With an unpleasant grimace. And an ant-sized chip in its lower left molar. "Perhaps the most amazing demo I've seen this year," wrote Ethan Zuckerman, after TED2007. Indeed, Photosynth might utterly transform the way we manipulate and experience digital images.