University Review #3

Today will be our final University presentation. Hopefully we'll finish making all the changes before 2! We are meeting in one of the conference rooms and we will be conference-calling the South Carolina office for their feedback. We will also be hearing about the second part of this campaign from the creative directors who were working on it here.

University Review 2

We spent all morning working on the University project before our big meeting with Lisa and a few of the other creative directors. It is so nice to be able to print out our work quickly and to size without having to worry (as opposed to when we are in school). 


We met with Lisa this afternoon about our University project. Based on her suggestions we have to make copy tweaks and as well as adjustments to the legal. We are going to narrow down our layout selection to 3 or 4 and pick the 3 or 4 best headlines and copy to go with them.  

Collage Meeting

Today we met with Rio about our collage progress. After exchanging multiple emails about different concepts and tweaks, we met in person with print outs of our current designs. Amy has been working on a Coney Island collage and I have been working on China Town and SoHo. He wants us to include an illustrative element (like a white graphic) in addition to the photographs and typography. He also wants graphic (vectored) images as well. For the Soho collage, I have included a photograph of graffiti one of the art directors shot and iconic buildings from the neighborhood as well as the "Subway Map Floating on a New York Sidewalk" on Greene Street between Prince and Spring. It was designed by Francoise Schein in 1986. 

Meetings, meetings, meetings.

I think I will enjoy working for a larger agency after I graduate strictly based on the free food. There were a couple meetings this morning with free breakfast. It seemed like the whole creative department was included in the first meeting about broadcast. We were given a presentation by one of the production executives from the South Carolina office about everything that goes into a television commercial. She went over the production costs, the timing of a shoot, how to handle paying actors, and what needs to be done to finish editing a spot before it can be actually shown.

Later on, we sat through a meeting about image buying presented by the art buying department. They spend a lot of time researching artists and looking over tons of work so they can offer recommendations to art directors who might need stock imagery or photographers for photo shoots. They also have to deal with all the legal contracts over images with royalties and copyrights. It was interesting to learn about their system and how they prioritize image needs based on the projects.

Meeting the CEO

The New York office recently merged with another agency and today we got to meet the President of the latter. He was very friendly and had a thick Southern accent. He held a meeting with all of the new employees in the office; Amy, myself, two other marketing interns, a full time PR woman who came from the South Carolina office, and a new junior art director. He was very friendly and genuinely interested in our plans after our internship.

Later on, we had an office wide meeting with him to go over new business initiatives.

First Review

We met with a couple account executives and creative directors for our first review. We decided to make several layouts that were more fun and creative than what their ads usually look like, but we also designed some that were based on their conservative style. We also applied this notion to the copy as well; some of the lines were obviously focused on students while some were more conservative. In the beginning of the meeting, we went over the brief again and talked mostly about the feel the client would want. We used some stock imagery with people which we were told to change. After the meeting, the copy writer wanted to brainstorm about more lines for the next review. He told us, "Do something crazy that you like and think will work, and let the client kill it."

The view was a little distracting!

Friday the 13th!

Today we met to be briefed on the second part of the University project. Account executives, Lisa, several creative and art directors were there. The head account executive went through the brief and covered all of the legal information and what the client was looking for. Unlike the client's typically conservative ads, this University project allows everyone to think a little more creatively and more "hip". We spent a while brainstorming (of which every minute needs to be billed!). It was interesting to be a part of a big group brainstorm (where everyone is experienced, excluding Amy and myself).

Also, we were helping a couple of the art directors mount printed ads for their client presentation which was actually a lot of fun. They don't normally do this, but the creative services guy, Chuck, is out this week so they were put in charge temporarily. We had to peel off the backing of this special paper to get the glue onto the back side of the ad which was then laid on top of black foam core. When the ad glued down, we ran it through a press (looks like a mini print making press) to make sure the corners would not roll up. They ended up looking pretty good, but I'm sure Chuck's craft is a million times better.

New Project

Today was a busy morning. Some of the art directors were prepping for a client presentation and needed to update some of their placeholder images in their ads. They had Amy and I looking through stock house sites for new images (like a grocery cart and car dash) which we had to go back in and photoshop phones in. We also had to update the type; there are so many rules and guidelines about what the type has to look like (header type had to be a certain size with a particular glow around it and everything else had a strict style to follow).

After this, we met with one of the account executives to go over a new project Amy and I would be working on. It was a completely new project that they were going to pitch to the client so that was a little nerve-racking. It was going to be an promotional pieces for an event on a college campus directed at college students. We have to design a pizza box top ad, flyer, and door hangers. We also met with one of the copy writers today who helped brainstorm tag lines. We made at least 4 different layouts each today, each printed with a different set of copy. We won't be having the first review for at least a week so we have a lot of time to work on these.

Friday (First Beer Cart!)

Today was pretty busy for Amy and I. We met one of the junior art directors, Rio, who was working on an internal office project. All of the conference rooms have names like Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Antartica, etc... and HH wanted to make it more New York oriented because they video conference with the South Carolina office all the time. So, they asked us to design collages that would be printed large enough to cover a whole wall. Rio had been working on a few collages already so I decided to create a collage for the SoHo room and one for the China Town room. We spent a while on stock sites looking for interesting imagery; we could have spent hours looking (that's why they have an art buying team in charge of finding and purchasing images and taking care of the legal information).

Every other Friday is Beer Cart in the kitchen (pretty much happy hour that starts at 4:30 and runs til the end of the day) where everyone socializes and celebrates birthdays. It was nice to have a Beer Cart the first week so we could get to know everyone. We also got to talk to Lisa (the UD alum that got us the internships) for a little about our plans after school and what she had done.

Here is our new favorite beer cart drink:

Day 2

Today was the second day of our internship. I was late because off all the traffic on the highway, but there weren't that many people in their offices to catch me. Everyday we seem to meet someone new who went to the University of Delaware. We were asked to sit in on a video conference with one of their other branches (it was the Greenville, South Carolina one). They were talking mostly about marketing and taking a strictly digital view in order to drive customers to the stores. It was interesting to sit in on this and hear all of the feedback from both offices. We spent a lot of time brainstorming afterwords. We also needed to retouch and tweak a couple photographs in addition to learning about library in InDesign for their more complicated files. Today wasn't as cold.

Here are some images of the kitchen:

Photos

Here is our desk! We sit at the one end of the creative department near Lisa Diller's office. It's really nice and open and the Christmas lights are still up!

First Day!

For January, I will be one of the creative interns (along with Amy Brown) at the ad agency, Hill Holliday. I forgot to post yesterday (on my first day no less!). I am commuting from New Jersey and I am taking a bus that gets into Port Authority. Unfortunately, there were a ton of people on the bus and all the seats were taken so I had to stand in the aisle. Once I got into the city, I tried taking the S shuttle from 42nd to Grand Central so I would only have to walk a couple blocks to 41st and 3rd (where HH is located), but I found out it took twice as long as walking the entire route on the way back home.

We were supposed to arrive at 9:30am for "intern orientation," but since we both got to the building around 9 and it was absolutely freezing outside, we both decided to head upstairs early. We waited near reception, which is still decorated for the holidays, until the HR woman came over and took us around on a tour. The entire floor is HH, but half of it is dedicated to Boston office employees and the accounting department. The other half of the floor is filled with NY office creatives, which is where Amy and I have a desk. We are near the corner of the building near Lisa Diller's office; she is the creative director and the UD alum that gave us the internships. We were each given a computer to sit at and we were allowed to raid the supply office for any materials we would need.

Everyone seemed really busy catching up with work after the holiday break. We spent a good amount of time making name tags for our desks. We also needed to get building ids so we had to have our photos taken. We were given a PDF of past work to look at and to get us familiar with the kind of print work they do.

The walk back to Port Authority was awfully cold, but I was happy that I was able to get a seat on the way back.