Smart Creative Blog

Effective Use of Awesome

2011-07-25T13:16:00.000-07:00

At Smart Creative, we never stop chasing Awesome. It's the word we like to hear most from our clients and colleagues, and it's the standard we set for every project we tackle. The best part is, Awesome doesn't cost a bajillion dollars. In fact, it's more often the clever use of limited resources that generates an idea worthy of the A-word.

Here are a couple of quick examples.

First, check out this super-cool design for a fishing lure using a Coca Cola bottle cap. Bottle caps are cool, cheap, and iconic. This design is also super-effective because it has all of the necessary characteristics of the classic lure known as a spoon. So, it will not only do it's job (catch fish) but it looks cool too. The best part is, if you lose it, you just crack open another icy cold bottle of Awesome.

Next up is our recently departed summer intern, Olivia Howard. She was definitely "BEST INTERN EVER" and as a going away gift she made all of us T-shirts using a sharpie and puffy paint. We wore them out and about on her last day and told everyone we were famous rock stars. Not sure if anyone believed us, but we got lots of looks and great service at the restaurant. We also used the occasion to snap this team photo. The moral of the story is that we grew as a team, gained a little street cred, and had a bunch of laughs for a very low investment.

Have you effectively leveraged your Awesome lately?

Love, Money, & Advertising

2011-06-29T09:50:00.000-07:00

We all work. A lot. There's some work we do for the money and some that we do for the love. In our little world at Smart Creative, we encourage a balance between the two and we get totally psyched when we see our team members doing cool things outside of the office. Because somewhere in that balance, brilliant ideas emerge.

Here are a couple of links worth checking out from the Smart Creative team:

Florida Southern Men's Cross Country
Jason runs a mile in like four minutes. He's insane.

Magnificent Applesauce
This is Chad's band. They're very musical.

Hillbilly Lottery
Chad & his buddy Rob created this iphone game and apparently had a really good time doing it.

Pixel Shavings
Fred blogs with other illustrators. He's sure he'll be famous one day.

Production Notes - Endure

2011-03-29T06:41:00.000-07:00

Projects with small budgets and big hearts continue to create wins at Smart Creative. We were just informed that the key art we produced for the film "Endure" won a statewide Gold ADDY at the 4th district American Advertising Federation creative competition. It's now up for a national award and we'll keep our fingers crossed. In the meantime, here's a funny little backstory that few people got to hear.

So one of the creepiest scenes in the whole film is when Clare Kramer, bound and gagged, gets dragged across the floor of her house. She can do these awesome crazy eyes that were captured in the lighting. We wanted that for the poster.

However, the resources we could access were limited to stills from the film, shot on Red HD cameras, but only medium resolution (at best) for print. We pitched it with the 'crazy eyes' shot and they went for it, but asked if we could "zoom out" on Clare.

Problem: The shot was a tight close-up. There was no full-body option.

Solution: We bind and gag designer Jordan Weiland and shoot her in similar lighting. She always wanted to be an extra on CSI, anyways. Then, thanks to a photoshop head-swap (say that five times fast), we have the image we need.

Kudos on this project go to Chad, Jordan and Fred for a great collaboration.

Blasted

2011-03-11T08:44:00.000-08:00

Smart Creative was recently tasked with tackling some last-minute communications to help get the troops from the American Advertising Federation to the Rally in Tally - the industry's chance to say our peace with legislators at the Florida capital. The chosen tactic was eblasts, and I thought this might be a good chance for a quick discussion on what makes for effective advertising with those sometimes spammy little mass messages we get.

Personally, I like to approach an eblast as I would a billboard or a poster. Few words, quick messages, strong contrast, and easy-to-understand concepts.

Light backgrounds allow for breathing room inside a viewer's email box (but dark backgrounds can create super-cool framing opportunities).

I prefer something that can be converted to a GIF because it'll keep the file size down, which means I tend toward illustrative pieces as opposed to photographic. These three different blasts ended up about 16k each, which is tiny.

Overall advice, though, is to provide memorable imagery and a clear call to action. That's how you'll get the best response rates.

Cheers, -fk

Clearly Opaque

2011-03-04T12:50:00.000-08:00

Here's a nifty little trick from Smart Creative's Tymn Armstrong for designing on transparent materials. Tervis Tumblers now let you design your own wrap for their products, and it's easy to go overboard with colors and patterns. In this case keeping it simple actually creates a super-cool effect when you use white as a single color imprint. When the glass is empty, you still achieve a subtle reveal but add ya' a little diet coke and you get fantastic contrast and a message that really pops. Not too shabby.

How Little Projects Win Big Awards

2011-02-25T10:34:00.000-08:00

Okay, I'll admit it. I actually tried to talk us out of working on this project. The client had no money, a journalism background rather than our preferred client-side marketing expertise, and I think maybe I even ended up paying for lunch. (Maybe not, but it makes the story that much better.)

And yet, Chuck Welch of Lakeland Local pitched me a vision whereby the downtown area we work and play in could be pedal-friendly, with residual benefits for everybody. Less traffic, less pollution, better parking, healthier living and more members of the creative class who gravitate towards that lifestyle. How could we say no? Or worse yet, how could we let it have an ugly logo?

We worked with Chuck on creating an accurate and detailed creative brief that spec'ed everything from the audience to the brand voice to the shelf of brands that Bike Lakeland would be compared to. We didn't spend an eternity on it, and in fact, he did most of the legwork.

And then Tymn, one of our rockstar designers, did his thing. I thought it was awesome. Chuck thought it was awesome, and we didn't shift a single pixel (well, vector). And then, not surprisingly, a panel of our peers choose it as their collective favorite piece from every single entry in this year's Polk ADDY competition.

So for those of you who are wondering, here's how an identity development project with no budget wins a top spot at the ADDYs. First, we had clearly defined objectives. The creative brief was well-written and took into consideration a lot of the behind-the-scenes marketing stuff that positions a brand for success. We were smart.

Second, the concept was both clever and thoughtful. (And I get to brag on my designer because it was all his idea.) Lakeland has the iconic swan, and Tymn found a way to make this very subtle illustration where the saddle of the bike was also a swan. You don't necessarily catch it on the first look, but once you see it, you won't miss it again. He executed the concept well, with a great color palette, good typography and interesting juxtapositions of the other elements. We were creative.

And then the final reason this design turned out so awesome is because NOBODY TOUCHED IT! Sometimes a designer's instinct is so dead-on, that it needs no revision. As the project manager, I could have messed with it. The client could have asked for any number of changes. But, in the end, Chuck said "You're the designers. I trust your recommendation." We had the right client.

And so the result wasn't just golden, it was the judges' pick for their favorite piece. It's a classic win/win/win - for Smart Creative, for Bike Lakeland, and for good advertising.

Tymn Wins International Recognition

2011-02-11T06:48:00.000-08:00

The best commercial art in the world comes from places like New York, Milan, Amsterdam, and now downtown Lakeland. Since 1959, Communication Arts has published examples of the best in visual communications from around the world through a highly competitive international design competition. This year, designer Tymn Armstrong of downtown Lakeland's Smart Creative is admitted into an elite group of award-winning designers that many spend their entire careers trying to infiltrate.

A spot illustration that Armstrong produced was bestowed a Communication Arts "Award of Excellence" and will be published in their Illustration annual. It will be one of 62 editorial illustrations in the annual, chosen from thousands of entries and alongside work from major agencies and media outlets around the globe.

The illustration, titled "How to Eat Bad Eggs" was originally published in Ocala, accompanying a feature magazine story about a father who made eggs for his son every morning to show his love.

Armstrong, 25, moved his family to Lakeland in 2010 to join Smart Creative, a downtown creative studio specializing in retail communications for large and growing brands. Fred Koehler is Smart's Managing Director. "Since first we met Tymn, we knew that he was the type of designer with the potential to achieve some great successes in his field. We just didn't know it was going to be so early in his career. We're fortunate to have him on our team and in our community."