update

the event for qdoba finally happened feb 20th in denver-- the project i was mostly working on at the end of the internship. there has been a bunch of blog postings about an email blast with the idea of sadpacker, along with the completion of the stunt. a really large idea translated into an integrated campaign

www.sadpacker.com


video
pictures
email marketing

doneeee

not officially, because i'm still here but i will be in a matter of a couple hours. the rest of this week went by kind of fast with stuff for qdoba. i didn't have much to do today. i finally took pictures of the office, got an agency reel, collected my files, cleaned up my desk (i had a mound of paper to recycle)...and showed my portfolio. at lunch time they had a little surprise related to the work we've been doing which was funny. i got a card signed by everyone and a surprise check :) it was really sweet...anyway im waiting around now for people to get out of a meeting to collect my evaluation forms (3) and maybe get a little more feedback on my work for this semester. then....it's home and packing like a madwoman to go back down tomorrow. 

i'm ready to be back at school but at the same time i really wish i could see some of these projects through. you invest all this time and it is such a reward to see the ideas produced... i had a great experience at amalgamated. the first week was absolutely nuts but it got me right into it. i learned a lottttt which will hopefully help this semester.. i hope there's a possibility to one day be back? 

anyway, looking forward to seeing everyone back at schoool! 

(this will most likely be the end to my blog..RIP) 

beginning of the end

monday & tuesday--
a lot is going on, especially with a new qdoba campaign, however it's in preparation for production. they are in the process of finding directors, getting permits, estimates, talent, etc. therefore, there hasn't been much to do the past couple days. this concept can take over 5 months to execute from start to finish and this internship seems to have me situated right smack in the middle.

so i'm 3 days away from done... the creative director asked to see my book. he asked me what i've learned. i think the most important thing i've learned in this experience is that you need a really solid, strong, versatile idea that carries the campaign and blows it out in a million different ways. i actually worked with and saw a real life example through this month, that i think i can use to set the bar. i think a couple of my pieces might have the idea, but they could be pushed so much further... i also think that i could do a lot more with my design. hopefully this semester will be the time to have this all come together...

end of week 4

THURSDAY -
i wrote lines in the morning for 2 creatives working on a human resources campaign for qdoba. they need collateral for in-store posters, email postings, etc. to get managers and crew in their stores. it was a bit of a challenge to be creative about "recruiting." i also finalized magnet designs i started my first week (they are getting estimates for production.) and some more ben & jerrys stuff.

FRIDAY- most random day ever.
the day started out with a friend of the owners' coming to visit the office, rob carducci (he was a big time art director at cliff freeman a few years ago.) i was told he had really "inspiring hair" and that i should go out with him in case he hit on me (a joke. ) anyway he is this crazy 40-something year old rocker. he must've done well in advertising because now his full time gig is a band called the compulsions. i helped him scan in his cd album designs which were crumpled paper with type. he had a vision in his head of exactly how he wanted it to look, but had no idea how to do it. i guess we'll find that there's still a generation of art people out there who refuse to learn the computer. anyway i pretty much learned how to make really rock metal grungy type, through doing this project for him. rob said there'd be a "special thanks to hillary luvshis," which is really funny....

the rest of the day was pretty fun. we ate ben & jerrys ice cream and brainstormed new flavor names -targeted to our age group. we had a qdoba conference call and found out they may be doing this really cool stunt out in denver in february. i cant give details, but i find it amazing that if you want something done and you're willing to pay for it, basically anything can be possible...

i went out with a few of the creative people for a drink after work for the first time, which was cool :) nice start to the weekend. its weird that its going to be my last week... hopefully it'll be a good one !!

gipped of a snow day

tuesday--
i did a couple tweaks to the mikes ad that i thought was finished, helped with taking pictures for a qdoba microsite and created/scanned paper textures into the computer. i learned a cool trick-- if you create a background in photoshop, make it really contrasty and save it as a bitmap, you can import it into illustrator, reverse it out with a color and it makes a distressed/screen printed look.

wed--
it was snowing, school was cancelled and the roads weren't plowed..but i trekked into the city where it was only raning. i should have been sleeping and lounging in my pjs but instead i worked till 8pm. i spent most of the day writing lines for ben & jerrys, which is reallyy cool...except when you have to do it for 6 hours straight. we haven't had much practice with copywriting and while i enjoy it, i dont quite have the stamina... going to have to continue tomorrow....

lost track of the days

i left off at wed of last week... for the rest of the week, i worked on a mike's harder lemonade print ad and finished materials for the blowhard academy website. amalgamated blows went live on friday. we sent an email to an old employee that now works at crispin porter + bogusky to forward it around their office (since it was a parody of their "shred school") and within 20 minutes it circulated to alex bogusky himself, then to their entire 900 person company. amalgamated's internal site crashed due to the volume of hits. it maxed out at 8,000 views the first day!! the video can now be found on youtube.


check out the original site: amalgamated blows or the "blow hard academy."

i think it's funny to people who saw the shred school video and to those who have a weird sense of humor. everyone in the office was on the floor because we know the amazingg talent (who is NOT an actor, but a naturally weird account guy who happens to be great on camera.)



MONDAY:
today i finished off the mikes harder lemonade ad. it was really difficult because it was for a trade magazine, meaning it was really boring with a lot of copy points and pieces to work with. it had to have paragraphs of text, 2 barcodes, 2 cans of mike's completely visible called a hero shot, a NEW! sign, and an obnoxiously large headline in bad handwritten font. it was more of a puzzle how to make it look the least bad, than a design challenge to make it look good.

i also did some line drawing illustrations for part of a qdoba microsite. i'm getting decent at the pen tool.

i got out the earliest time so far at 530 :)

11,12

i came back to work mon after a good, much needed weekend. there were a bunch of meetings going on to regroup, about casting and getting stuff together. i revised some comps, did more stock searching and ran errands to mrs.fields and gamestop at the manhattan mall. i didn't mind the errands since i dont get out of the office much. i got home kinda late unfortunately....

tuesday i mostly worked on our side project that is hopefully coming together. we took a break close to 12 to watch the inauguration which was really cool. they brought in qdoba for lunch again since their in-house designers came to work with the designers here for their new branding. 

in other news, good and bad...we are at the halfway mark.