"What...Is One To Do W/ This?"

Looked over at an ad my coworker Cindy is revamping from a couple years ago. I must say WOW! One could get lost in all those scribbly doodle notes! Where to start?

We had a little conversation about it that went just like this;
Me, "Now I get the little change outs, but um, wow the bottom is scary! I wouldn't even know what to do with that."
Cindy, "Yeah, I'm not even gonna touch that till Monday. There is only so much you can do on a Friday. Unless of course you absolutely have to!"

In the end, it probably isn't too hard to figure out. At first glance though, it makes you either stare and go "uhhhhhhh," for a few moments. Or, look away as quickly as you looked at it! Haha!

"Santa's Night Out"

A blitzing piece that Beauty Alliance stores across the country will use to promote their "Santa's Night Out" sale. The front has the sale information and the back will have each individual store's info and will be filled out by customers to enter in a drawing. These were done by the request of the Colorado Area Manager and her supervisor and were sent to the BAI headquarters in Florida to be printed. Once printed holes will be cut at designated areas so the stores can attach candy canes to their blitzing pieces.

Spec Ad Campaign For Durango Mountain Resort

At The Daily Sentinel's 4th Quarter kick off meeting, the bosses presented us with a project. The idea was for each of the 5 different teams of artists and sales reps to come up with an ad campaign for a real or fictional company. The reps would have to come up with the content for the artist to work from and in the end make a presentation showcasing how advertising with TDS would be beneficial to them. The reps had to also propose a schedule of ads to run in the regular paper and special sections that would best suit the needs of the company.
This was the first time ever that I have had the chance to work with all three of my reps as well as all three of my reps to work together. They thought to benefit this particular company that would combine the services of one company with the main company. It would save each company in advertising dollars as well as promote both by advertising package type deals already in place by both companies. Below are the ads we proposed during our meeting for Durango Mountain Resort, CO.

One ad they proposed is a 8.5 x 11 front and back page insert, to be inserted into the regular paper. Here is the front showcasing the skiing aspect of Durango Mountain.
And here is the back showcasing the deals you get when packaging lodging with skiing as Durango Mountain.
Next up was a half page Tabloid size ad to run in special sections as well as the weekly Out & About section and the Sentinel Weekly. Most ads tend to go horizontal in these publications, but when I looked at the content, I felt a vertical ad would flow more easily.
And last was a half page ROP ad to run in the regular paper and our special ski section that comes out in November. The opposite happened for this one where I chose to go horizontal rather than vertical. I thought the ad would be WAY to tall (21 inches) and not nearly wide enough (5.833 inches).
My rep Judy chose Durango Mountain because they are one of her future prospect companies and in making spec ads for them, she hopes that all they'll have to say is yes. These ads are currently just specs and with the quality and time the four of us put into them, hopefully they will be sold!

"Sexy Signage"

9.30.09 Update to Beauty Alliance:
More signage for Beauty Alliance that went to
all the stores in my friend's area.
This "Grab Bag" sign was to be place in sign holders in the stores.And this sign was a flier that was to be handed out
personally to every customer.
9.1.09: I was asked my a friend of mine who manages several Beauty Alliance stores around the state to make up some signage to be displayed around the stores. It needed to be in the shape of a star and needed to say "sexyhair" on it. I recreated "sexyhair's" logo and went from there.

"Some Newsies!"

"Nucla-Naturita: Vacationland 2009"

My most recent build...just cleared today at 1:00pm. It will be a full page/full color ad running on glossy paper in this years special section known as "Vacationland 2009." It is a publication that prints just before the start of summer every year. Along with the three "Portait" and four Christmas special sections, is one of the largest special sections of the year. This year it will be on news stands 5.17.09.
As a side note: as of April 28th, I have been a Graphic Artist at The Daily Sentinel for one year now. "Vacationland" just happened to be my very first special section when I started. It was already down to the Sales Reps' Ad Deadline when I was thrown right into it. Back then it seemed kinda crazy, not really knowing what was going on and such, but now having lived through the four Christmas and the three "Portrait" special sections..."Vacationland" is no longer so intimidating!

"Aspen Promo"

Yet another example of my own photography that came in handy.
This is a picture I took of my friend Michael while a few of us were at
Powderhorn Resort on 2.14.09 (yes Valentine's Day).
We all just so happened to be playing in our one true love...
the snow =)During the next week at work, my rep Judy came to me and asked me to work up a kind of spec for what they like to call a "leave behind" for an ad gang page. Basically its a kind of ad that the sales reps would use to get businesses to buy into the paper or special sections. They work up a plan, decide what sizes of ads they want to run, decide what colors they will run in and create prices for the different sizes. For this particular leave behind, Judy is working with the Aspen Chamber Resort Association and together they will try to get Aspen area business to participate in this particular gang page. Its just another way for sales reps to push sales to bring in more revenue. Coincidentally, I just so happened to have a picture that would bring out the winter aspect of Aspen w/ out it actually being in Aspen.

Ski Swap

An ad I built for Powderhorn Ski Patrol's annual Ski Swap. I actually took it on for a sales rep that was not my own, during the time when we were down an artist. They really wanted a picture of people carrying both skis and a snowboard. I just happen to have just the picture. It was taken of my buddy and I during a fantastic trip to Crested Butte last March. Once again, who knew I would be in another ad?

Who The Heck Took The Pic??

The following are ads I've made using my own "photography":

This Farmers Insurance ad started out at a spec that was a full page going into the "How To Guide" special section that ran this last July. My rep didn't give me any details or ideas of what she wanted, so I was free to come up with whatever I could. I went on the internet looking for anything related to the Grand Valley and just decided to use one of my own pics. My rep had a very hard time selling it and it eventually came down to deadline. She ended up convincing the person in charge and that person convinced each of the agents to buy part of the ad so they could afford it.
The picture itself was one of the very first pics I took back in the beginning of June with my brand new Nikon Coolpix P80. A 10.1 megapixel, 18x optical wide zoom digital camera. I went up on the Colorado National Monument right after I bought it. The sun was just going down, and I thought it was the perfect time to play around.

This First United Methodist Church ad also started out as a spec. My rep gave me a piece of paper w/ a picture of Balanced Rock from the Colorado National Monument and the text that needed to be on the ad. She wanted a full color and a black and white ad so that the customer would have choices. I did a bunch of searching on the internet for images of Balanced Rock, and couldn't find anything worth using that wasn't already copyrighted. So I decided that night to go out and take my own picture. A friend and I ventured out at about 6 pm and found the rock almost too late. The sun had already started to set behind the surrounding cliffs, the rock was still lit, but only for a short period of time. (On a plus, I managed to convince the entrance ranger to let me in for free since I was only going about a mile up the road and would be about a half an hour or so.)
For this ad, I wanted to get the image to pop a little more, and give it a realistic yet not so fake look. So I applied a couple of different effects. The rock itself I isolated and there are actually two images, one on top of the other. The first layer is underneath and is the original picture. The second layer is on top and is the image of the rock that I applied the effect "torn edges" to. One looks real, one looks fake. I then took the top layer and did a "multiply" blending effect to it which blended the two layers with variations on transparencies. After that I created a background that I thought would look good w/ the rock and tada!
The customer chose to go with the black and white due to cost and it ran in last Saturday's paper and in this weeks Sentinel Weekly which comes out on Wednesdays

Sentinel Sessions in B/W

This ad ran for one month in the paper. Every week the text changed, but the same graphic was kept. This was the ad that ran it's last week. To fit a female performer, the customer wanted a more feminine graphic.
This ad ran in the yearly special "Country Jam" section. This customer severely wanted her ad to be re-vamped. She loved it, had no changes and will be back next year. :)

This ad ran in both the "Rest Assured" and Relay For Life" special sections. It was originally a long shot spec ad and the customer ended up loving it so they bought it.
This company was not pleased with the lack of results they were getting from their previous ad which had ran for months and in many special sections. They were ready to cut their contract. My rep asked me on a long shot if I would spruce it up a little to see if we could get them to keep advertising. The ad ran once and they pulled all the ads scheduled for the next month. :(
This customer was also not please with his previous ads. I actually designed the previous ad based off the example he gave me. He loved the previous ad...I thought it looked to much like a business card...oh well. After his month running with the previous ad was up and he wasn't happy, my rep asked me to come up with a whole new concept for him that hopefully he would buy. He was very wishy washy about advertising in the paper and has not yet chosen to continue with this new ad. As far as I know, this spec is dead. :(

I DO what I DO

So I was cruising the I-State w/ some peeps this weekend w/ the top down. We were coming back from Glenwood and their "Strawberry Days". I was a lil bored,so I thought I'd play around with angles and the sunset.


I later had some free time. So I thought I'd play with this picture a bit. I saw something when I was zoomed into the pic on the camera. I am not so sure why I chose what I chose. I think maybe because it looked like a Guess ad. I thought cool, maybe I'll make a Gucci ad. I'm not so sure they sell eye wear.

As I was working on it, I remembered an upcoming ad that I was planning on starting the next day at work for an eye wear company here in town. I thought, how neat would it be if I could do something along the lines of my Gucci ad for this company? So the next day I showed my ad and shared my thoughts with my sales rep. She said "That is way cool. Lets just use you!" So I said ok, but if I find something else I'll try that too. So I made the ad using me, based off my Gucci ad, and another version featuring a woman looking at the camera w/ regular glasses on.

My rep went out and sold the ad today. The customer loved it...and had absolutely no changes to make! My rep bought me a very large chai, left me a cute note and was so excited,she told everybody in the company about my ad and how I am the model and how they plan on running the ad many many more times. And I am now famous...Woooowa!





7/22/08 Eyemart Update:
These ads have been created all as specs based off my first ad. My main goal is to make eye wear as individual and relatable to each subject as I can. There will be even more to come.

This version is actually going to print tomorrow 7/23 in the "Summer Home Improvement" special section. I chose to play up the fact that they sell safety goggles. It was originally a full page spec, but the customer didn't want to pay that much because they had already spent a lot in July.










This version will be going to print 8/1 in the "Back To School" special section. My rep wanted me to make it fun and make it have to do with kids. I chose this girl cause she's basically telling me to get off my duff and get her some new glasses. We were very excited about this one because the customer chose to stick with the full page ad! :$)

8/8/08 Eyemart Update:
This version was a spec intended to go into this years "Answer Book." Unfortunately the customer could not afford to advertise in the special section. This ad may never see the printed pages :(