If no one misses you, does it matter if you’re back? Well. You didn’t and I am. So there.
Savor the cheese-tastic triangularity.
This year’s One Show student advertising brief was, uhm, interesting. In a nutshell, we were to celebrate the Awesomeness of Doritos. Some folks went triangular with their entries, some went cheesey, some even went crunchy. We went weird. Actually, we went weird three times.
Line extensions- Doritos are so awesome, you need more of them in your life. We’re here to meet your needs. (I can’t figure out why the candle ad won’t link, but the line is “Fill the room with the intoxicating scent of Blazin’ Buffalo.”)
Cooking with Uncle Jody- Uncle Jody is the idiosyncratic host of the cooking show ‘Half in the Bag with Uncle Jody’. He’s always the life of the party and lives by the cocktailing motto “There’s a train coming, and I know the conductor!” We want to take this bad boy 360, including radio, microsite and webisodes of the show.
Tastes lie America- pretty self-explantatory, a veritable cornucopia of awesomeness. The designer refers to this as an “eye-gasm.”
A shower of yeahs and whatevers
OK. I’m not exactly a rainbows and kittens kind of girl.* But this morning I experienced an unexpected convergence of events. Small potatoes, really, but it got me thinking (here come the rainbows) about seeking and appreciating small joys. The little crap that happens everyday. The stuff you miss when you’re all clenched up about something else… like bills, ads, or motor vehicle emission inspections.
So. These are the players.
1. The weather. Today is my perfect day. 40 some-odd degrees. Sunny. Bright blue, cloudless sky. Birds chirping, chipmunks chipping. A truly zip-a-dee-doo-dah day.
2. Ipod adulation. Really. Everything about the thing is a pleasure. I have stronger feelings about my iPod than anyone I’ve ever been in a relationship with.** I’d like to think that says more about my taste in music than my taste in men.
3. Music appreciation phenomenon- facilitated by the item above, but not dependent on it. You know that thing when you hear a song again for the first time in a long while… one of your favorite songs from a beloved band… and it absolutely blows the back of your skull off? You’re just kind of melty and flabbergasted by the sheer magnitude of the kickassery? Well, that’s the thing I’m talking about. That reverential Holy Sh*t moment, when you feel like your ears aren’t big enough and your mind isn’t expansive enough to absorb it all.
I got in my car this morning– perfect day already covered, it’s absolutely lovely out. Blessed iPod selects, unsolicited, (arguably) perfect song (Letter from an Occupant) by (arguably) perfect band (New Pornographers). Brainpan explodes. I listen to the song over and over and over. I sing. Loudly, poorly, and with abandon. (This is one of my favorite things to do. I love this more than found money.) People stare and I sing more. I may have even finger-gunned an adjacent driver at a red light. Maybe it was the weather, maybe it was the surprise of it all, and maybe it was the joy of audacious musical (and lyrical) genius. But it pretty much rocked. It was one of those moments that makes you think transcendence may actually be possible.
And now I’m left wondering how many of these moments I may have overlooked. How many times have I let the detritus of my daily routine obscure something magical? How much more of my life could be spent feeling inspired and appreciative if I could just get out of my own damn way?
*Admittedly, lolcats are my secret shame.
**This may be a slight exaggeration. Or not.
Fact
Ingesting the swankiest spun-sugar edifice that ever tap-danced out of a five-star kitchen can not even remotely begin to compete with leaning over the kitchen sink with someone you love, snarfing down homemade cannoli. 
Rodents are plotting against you.
A great many people cite these ads as evidence that I am not well. You know. Mentally. Small space, newspaper, for a local critter removal company. The research I did for these has scarred me, permanently. Perfectly normal people have hundreds of bats in their attics. Coyotes in their shrubbery. Muskrats in their koi ponds. It’s horrifying. Go check your basement now. I’ll wait. Small furries are cute when they’re sitting on a log, holding an acorn in their weetle paws, and batting their teeny-weeny eyelashes. Pooping in your kitchen cabinets? Not so much. Illustrated by yours truly. I’m a menace with a sharpie.
These are my people. I shall not forsake them.
For anyone who doesn’t know, DragonCon is the country’s largest SciFi, Fantasy, Comic, Gaming, Anime, Pop Culture Con. It is a geektacular extravaganza of nerdly delights. This year’s event garnered over 30,000 attendees, most in fully costumed glory. These posters were conceived of as a teaser campaign via newspaper (Creative Loafing) inserts and through direct mail to comic shops, indie record stores and the like.
UPDATE 01.15.08 Apparently these posters won an Addy. Don’t know what category, yet. Hopefully it’s the Pack-Your-Bags-We-Got-You-A-Great-Gig-In-New-York category.
Ketel One is a delicious beverage.
Here are some pupal stage ads for Ketel One. A long copy extravaganza.
Terror and Glee
So, this is a blog. I guess it’s supposed to be about my adventures in ad school. You know- angst, sleep deprivation, self-doubt, infighting, the constant struggle against pun bigots, and all sorts of other pleasantries. (And that’s just at happy hour, ba-dump bump.) I suspect, however, that there will be a lot of incoherent rambling, blissfully off topic and random.
There will, of course, be ads to mock. Everything I post will be a work in progress. Some might actually be art directed by me, which is an insult to art directors everywhere. Frankly, it’s an insult to drunk monkeys everywhere, but I digress.
A little about me, I guess. About a year ago I had an epiphany. It’s funny how epiphanies often show up to the party dressed in an elaborate crisis costume. Anyway, I decided that pining for a life I didn’t have was probably much more exhausting than actually trying to have it. I decided I was going to start taking bigger risks, and doing things outside my comfort zone. So. I left a successful and soul-crushing career that provided me free designer clothes (!!!), visited Italy for a few weeks, then enrolled in ad school to become a copywriter.
I’d wanted to do it (advertising) for years. People have said that I’m funny, weird and well-written, and since those were some of the prerequisites, I did it. It’s like any creative endeavor, I guess. You learn to inhabit a mental space that constantly vacillates between terror and glee. Mostly terror. It’s really hard to be smart, funny and/or weird on command, but it’s immensely satisfying when you actually pull it off. Sure, I get no sleep, sure, I’m kinda poor. Yeah. I’ve alienated all my non-addy friends with in-depth font analyses at dinner parties. But it’s worth it. So, now I’m doing all this stuff I was always afraid to do before… taking an acting class, jumping out of an airplane, starting over.
Terror and glee.
