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San Diego freelance copywriter Anne McColl shares tips and insights on copywriting, running a small business, marketing trends, writing websites, and design.
How many times when concpeting media placement as the thought of putting a message on wrappers for cups of Starbucks coffee. Well, USSA Bank did just that and bought the wrapper on independent coffee shops. Kinda fun. From Bread on Market in the East Village.
Last week my family spent some time at a cousin’s ranch in New Mexico. We stayed in a 1860s adobe, saw the inner workings of a cattle ranch, explored ruins of a fort from the 1860s and saw Indian artifacts littered on the ground. For me, it was an eye-opening and educational time.
At the end of the week, I asked my six-year-old son what he liked best: “Playing with my dragon in the rock pile.”
A pile of gravel in the driveway, but to him that equals excitement.
It was just another reminder to me how different people can have different perceptions of the same thing. Working as an interactive copywriter, I have to constantly work at getting into the minds of the people I'm trying to appeal to – that's people – not users, consumers or customers.
One of my favorites, Mike Perry, artist, illustrator and curator of books like Hand Job and Over and Over, has an exhibition entitled Lost in the Discovery of What Shapes the Mind at MCAD in Minneapolis. I'm drawn to his work because his hand-drawn type adds a human touch that is lacking in much of today's design.
I've been working on revamping my portfolio site for quite some time with designer/illustrator Matt Luckey. The entire design process as been about stripping away the extra, giving emphasis to the work. Which brings me to a site where a copywriter literally stripped. May I present Lawson Clarke, otherwise known as MaleCopywriter.com. His site, as well as his work is hilarious.
Of course, Lawson's site is even funnier when you realize his inspiration – Burt Reynolds circa 1972.
Lawson appears in Erik Proulx's Lemonade, a film about advertising professionals reinventing themselves. He also appeared as the original Straight Guy in the pilot for Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. For not always quite work-appropriate commentary, follow him @malecopywriter.
So if a picture is worth a thousand words, that's a pretty damn good blog post.
Here's the challenge suggested by Shelly Bowen, one of my favorite people and content strategist extraordinaire: Take a shot. Every day.
It can be low-tech. (Hello iPhone!)
But the idea is to take the time to notice the small details, an interesting pattery or a new viewpoint.
Because the more I work as an interactive copywriter, the more important the visual has become.
Follow along here.
As creatives, it’s our job to remain fresh and creatively inspired. How do you do that? Hang out with other artists? Go see a new band? Take a new route to work? Spend your lunch hour browsing in a bookstore?
Well, how about closing up shop for two months and going to New York City with the sole intention of soaking up the atmosphere and working only on personal projects?
That’s exactly what photographer and HIVE resident Chaz Cruz is planning to do. For the last few years, Chaz has run a thriving portrait and wedding photography business and has developed a reputation for getting shots that no one else does.
“I always ask my clients what make you you? What makes you tick?” he explains. “And then try to capture that.”
But Chaz felt in need for a little creative rejuvenation so he’s planning a two-month sabbatical to New York. “For the last two years I’ve only shot people. For these next two months, I want to shoot everything but people and do totally personal work."
Chaz was inspired by a TED talk given by noted designer Stefan Sagmeister who proposes the concept of the creative sabbatical. Sagmeister says taking time off from work to explore new avenues of inspiration can have big pay-offs in the form of higher levels of creativity and a renewed passion for your work.
Chaz is excited about the next two months. “I’ve already contacted a lot of photographers that I want to meet for coffee. I’ve seen their work and just want to get insights into how they work.”
Spending time on personal project should be a liberating experience. “Right now I just want to go out and shoot for myself,” says Chaz. “I want to grow as a person and an artist. Then my business can catch up.”
We’ll look forward from hearing from Chaz and seeing some work from his time off.
You can follow Chaz’s New York adventures at @chazcruz
I regularly volunteer as an art teacher for a second grade class. And sometimes, I think I learn more than the kids I am supposedly instructing.
A recent lesson was about the color wheel. We started out with the primary colors – red, yellow and blue – and then proceeded to mix secondary colors. Then the kids quickly sketched out ceremonial masks and then painted them. Some of the kids could have spent the entire sketching their masks but we gave them only three minutes so they could spend most of their time painting.
In class I find myself repeating the same phrases over and over, from lesson to lesson – many are applicable to my work.
“You guys, just go for it. Just get something down on paper, you have to start somewhere.”
“It’s art. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Just wing it.”
“Don’t worry if you make a mistake, work with it. Make it part of your piece.”
“Coloring in between the lines is way overrated.”
Lessons to take to heart.
During a surf session out in the big and mushy waves last week, a crusty old fellow gave me the best compliment I could ever receive:
“Girl, you’ve got cojones.”
On my previous wave, I took a late takeoff and went straight down the face for Mr.-Toad’s-Wild-Ride. I barely made it. But sometimes, barely is good enough. That’s one of the valuable lessons I learn over and over surfing.
It always amazes me how much the ocean and surfing can teach me:
Live life. Now. Surfing isn’t like tennis or basketball where the courts are always available for a practice session. Wave conditions are a temperamental thing. When there are waves, you surf today. They may not be there tomorrow. The takeaway – don’t live life in the future, waiting for the time until you graduate, get that job, get that promotion, get that house. Life happens right now.
Live on the edge. A wave is a precious commodity. Yet, if you don’t push yourself, you’ll never get better. So when the board is locked in the face, it’s time to cross step and make your way towards the nose. (Guess what my New Year’s resolution is.) What’s the worst that can happen? I’ll fall and waste a perfectly good wave. But there’s always another wave coming.
Let it roll over you. A big holy-mother-of-god mountain of water appears right before you. What do you do? Turtle roll you and your board over and let the wave pass over you. Then you paddle like hell to get out of the way before the next one hits. Things in life don’t always run smooth, but the ability to let things roll by, then try to improve the situation is a nice skill to cultivate.
Sometimes you just have to go for it. If you think too much, you’ll miss out. A moment’s hesitation on the paddle and the wave can pass you by. Yes, it’s advisable to put a little forethought into things like having a kid or starting a business. But if you waited until you were 100% sure, nothing would ever happen.
Don't be afraid to look like an idiot. Perhaps one of the most valuable lessons I've ever learned. If I was that self-conscious, I would have aborted at my attempts at surfing years ago. It’s taken me years to become socially mediocre at the sport. And usually, people are encouraging. (Just don’t get in the way of their waves.)
Enjoy the downtime. Sometimes when you’re in between sets, you just have to sit, watch the horizon and wait. This is when the magic occurs. A young inquisitive seal may pop his head out of the water for a closer look or a pod of dolphins may swim by. You never know what might happen.
Savor the bliss. Feeling the wave behind you, carving down a face, it’s 10, 20 or 30 seconds of sheer heaven. After a wonderful morning session, I never feel more alive, more joyous or more blessed. And that’s the attitude I try carry with me throughout the day.
It's the holiday time of year (and it has been since Halloween) when our favorite brands spread yuletide cheer with seasonal billboards. With a rich source of carols, stories and traditions to play off of, it can make for some interesting concepts. Here are some of my favorites around town. (I never realized that you can take your life into your hands when shooting a billboard.)
San Diego Zoo has a tradition of doing great billboards. I love the simple visual pun here.
Another favorite billboard that ran for a couple of holiday seasons was by Wells Fargo Bank. It was a simple classic shot of their stagecoach pulled by a team of horses. At night, the nose of the lead horse was lit up red. But this year they went for cookie cutter horses pulling a stage coach which was sort of cutesy.
Patron Great copywriting as always: "Eliminate regifting." Visit their site for more wonderful words.
This is a three dimensional billboard by IKEA where furniture spells out joy. The headline "Decorate for the holidays" refers to more than just putting up a tree and lights for the holidays. I would just hate to be standing below this billboard during an earthquake.
I remember once for an ad assignment coming up with a concept involving a dress made out of paper. Here's the shot I was dreaming of.
Jolis Paons, is an amazing artist, just 21 years old. She designed a couture dress made purely out of phonebook paper.
Paons says of the paper dress she designed and created for her Creative Processes class, “I pleated, stuck, sewed, and glued everything by hand.”
I was going to applaud Zazzle for making up their own holiday and excuse for a sale.
But what do I know? October 22 was ALL CAPS DAY and I find out it's real holiday! The one day when it's okay to write email subject lines and SHOUT OUT YOUR OFFER.
Pretty cool anyway. (I wonder what they did for Talk Like A Pirate Day, my favorite holiday.)
"Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up."PABLO PICASSO
As adults, we often talk about unleashing our inner Picassos. But with kids, their Picasso hasn’t been buried yet. And in their enthusiasm they can teach us about creative problem solving.
I had the pleasure and delight of teaching an art lesson to my daughter’s second grade art class as part of a volunteer group that brings art into the classroom. At this age, the kids aren’t self-conscious yet and just let the creativity flow out of them. This lesson dealt with the graphic importance of line and shape and the contrast between geometric and organic lines.
For this project, we were drawing monsters in black and white. Now if I had asked the kids to just begin drawing a monster, I would have ended up with a class of kids staring at a blank piece of paper. (And as we’ve all experienced at one time or another during the creative process, that blank piece of paper, screen or canvas can be the scariest monster we ever have to face.)
To jumpstart the process, the kids dropped a string on the paper, traced it and “found” their monsters. The organic shape of string on paper provided a great springboard for the kids. They needed very little encouragement as they located the mouth, teeth or various body parts of their monsters. The kids added tails, feet, antennae, feelers, scales, a multitude of eyeballs and other body parts that defied description. As you can see, one kid drew a monster truck instead of a monster. (Kudos to that maverick for making the assignment his own.)
As creative professionals, we make a living being creative on command. While creativity can’t exactly be learned, there are ways to foster it. And often, the hardest step is taking the first step. So the trick is developing an arsenal of “strings.” What can you use as inspiration or a starting point? One of my favorite ways to begin a project is walk away from the computer, take a stroll to a bookstore and enjoy an hour of browsing. One art director I’ve worked often looks a problem from a reverse point of view, which is an excellent way to get a fresh perspective once you’ve had time to sink your teeth into a project.
A key is to keep your mind open to additional stimulus and to make connections to problems you are working on. Recently, overhearing a conversation between two programmers during a Jelly co-working session gave me an extra insight when I working on naming a retail project in Texas.
It was enlightening to see how the children’s creativity fed off of one another once they started. One table became very carnivorous as one girl drew the fish that her shark was going to eat. Suddenly, dinner appeared outside the mouths of many dragons, fish and serpents and one child made his monster have an external digestive track. At another table, one boy realized his camel also looked like a map of the United States and drew stars and stripes for his American Camel.
The biggest lesson learned? Have a sense of humor and have fun.
I’ll be teaching more art classes this year, so there’s more to come!
object width="425" height="344">[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wwi2tMlzk18&hl=en&fs=1&] Eye candy fueling my current fascination with yellow sticky animation. A video by Greg Condon for Choo Choo la Rouge's song "Here Come the Guns" from the album Black Clouds, available now on Kiam records.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cX4t5-YpHQ&hl=en&fs=1&] Hey, if Ford can create excitement for cars via Tuberware parties, so can Microsoft. Here, they have every demographic covered in this HGTV-style show on how to host a launch party. But time must really drag because the clock behind the cast starts out at 2:00ish, between seconds :46 and :48, the hours pass instantly from 3:30 to 4:10 and the whole video ends at 5:20 pm. Maybe that's how much time it takes to get your Windows 7 working.
Sometimes I think I may encounter error messages more than most people. Here's a delightful one I just encountered. Makes me feel warm and fuzzy even though it was a deadend. Great example for interactive copywriters on how every interaction can be a touchstone.
John Hendrix is featured is this months Comm Arts (one of the few magazines I subscribe to.) In addition to working as an illustrator for a host of magazines, he worked as an Art Director on the New York op-ed page. Some pretty thought provoking pieces. I love the banners on each of the pages on his site.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bpP9sI72bM&hl=en&fs=1&] Never saw the movie, but the title sequences sure do rock.
Endless inspiration (and laughs always) from illustrator Christopher Niemann. Check his work out atwww.christophniemann.com
It’s something that happens to us all. You click to buy something and the eternal beach ball of hell appears, spinning and spinning while systems process a particular request. It’s the online equivalent of being put on hold on the telephone and being treated to bad elevator music.
Come on, let’s use this down time to entertain, or at least promote the product. When Alaska Airlines is processing flight information, Tim the Moose nonchalantly strolls across the screen. But my hands down favorite has to be for travel discounter Priceline, where during processing times, customers are treated to shots of longtime spokesperson William Shatner doing karate chops and proclaiming, “Watch me flex my bargainus maximus.”
What a pity they don’t have him singing.
Does creativity make a difference? Oh yes! [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cd6-n7MhVg8&hl=en&fs=1&]