Dreams of Advertising Glory.

Ad concept using Kareem. (Click to view larger image)

Most of what I've been working on lately won't be ready for public consumption for a while so I decided to post more flash from the past artwork. Specifically two 22 yr old marker comps I found in my flat file a few months ago.

When I attended "Seattle Art Institute" it was finishing it's transition from it's former identity as the "Burnley School of Art." My favorite classes while in art school were the advertising classes. I enjoyed the whole foundation of a concept and campaign that facilitated the art and design. Mind you this was before the dawn of the digital age. Sure we had Apple II computers but the graphics at best looked like the old vector based "BattleZone" game you'd play at the mall arcade. Application based UI, Illustrator and Photoshop were not available yet so to show your concepts and ideas you had to do it the old fashioned way, using marker comps.

No one in school at that time ever pushed developing your own style. So most of my work from school was geared towards realism. I didn't feel out my own style until after I graduated. So naturally when I worked on marker comps I wanted to make my ad comps look as authentic and real as possible.

The Bausch & Lomb comp above was my concept for a B&W ad assignment in school.


Ad concept for Porsche. (Click to view larger image)

If memory serves our class assignment was to use modern advertising methodologies in our approach. So I decided to go with the age old advertising slogan of "Sex Sells." Needless to say all the guys in our class liked the idea but no so much the females. LOL

My initial plan after art school was to find a job in an ad agency. I wanted to run with the big dogs. Brainstorm clever headlines and campaigns and take the advertising world by storm. I felt I had the chops, all I needed was the opportunity.

Well I sent out a bunch of resumes and a nice mid-size ad agency gave me a call. The creative director invited me to come in for an interview. I was stoked! This was it, my big chance. I showed up for the interview and he looked over my book and seemed to like what he saw. He then closed it, folded his hands and said.

"I'd like you to work on some concepts for a new client we have. If I like what I see then we'll bring you on board."

My mind started to spin, and I was excited. We figured out a deadline to mail him the designs and he said we'd figure out the pricing later. To make a long story short I spent days brainstorming coming up with a bunch of ideas I thought would work great, mocked them all up and sent them off to the agency. I then waited for a phone call. That phone call never came, I called them back to follow up multiple times and they never returned my calls. Over the next few weeks I got really discouraged, I felt they must have hated everything and accepted the fact I just wasn't good enough for them.

A few months later I saw some ads and realized this agency had adapted some of my ideas. I then realized how cut-throat the advertising world is. This agency wasn't interested in hiring me at all, they just wanted to exploit me. I realized at that moment I'd never work at an ad agency and I shifted my focus career wise.

To end this post on a positive note however my grades on both ads above was an "A."