David Gray – CTV

David Gray

Digital Sales Producer

CTV

Website: www.ctv.com

Email: davidgraydesign@gmail.com

Portfolio: http://www.davidgraydesign.com/

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/davidjjgray

David graduated in 2007 from the Sheridan web design course.


Publicis - http://www.publicis.ca/
3 years - started out as an interactive designer

• honest you will work hard - sometimes 16 hour days (I do this already myself)
• to move up the ladder, stay ahead by working on own time,  keeping up on trends and technology
• David spoke of long hours and deadline pressures

He then worked at Rogers where he moved mostly into web banners

• he loved it - new project often daily - pushes out a lot of work (the one who does the banners is known as the "banner bitch")
• flash is dying - but banners are still flash and HTML5
• while doing flash banners, he became a producer and became a educator to the creatives to ensure the web designs will work

...Then with the economic crash he was laid off

• he then became a freelancer -
• try to stay on the "good side"
• good to have contacts
• great money - sometimes set your own rate, or work within a budget and work at strange hours
• feast or Famine

TBWA 
http://www.tbwa-toronto.com/
as a producer be work at 9am and leaving at 7:30 and answering calls all night

• Visa was an interesting client
• quick turnovers
• maintenance some things is a few hours
• 2000 pages - largest site in Canada if not North America
• most of the site was superfluous and part of the job was to clean up the site.
• A big part of his job was making the client happy, organizing production flow and time.

Then CTV media
 David's wife helped him get a job through her contacts. Contact Contacts.

• Gillian spoke up regarding internal recruitment, companies are always looking for good people and often give incentives to employees and receive a bonus. This saves the company thousands of dollars in recruiting fees.
• Linked in is a  powerful tool - use it
• found many jobs on linked in
• did a 360 — worked for an agency, media and then to a publisher (ie CTV)
• His job is organizing, he is a delegator - hands out projects, project manager + MORE

Sample of project David was involved in:

http://retail.petro-canada.ca/en/cibc/default.aspx

• Use companies such as lunchbox to source talent -
• Amy Mirano - Lunchbox
• http://www.thelunchsite.com/what/
• many companies that work under her - very eclectic group of companies.
• She has visual artists, musicians and creatives

David's advice

• Don't take things personally
• Get great references
• Pitch yourself and pitch your friends
• Be organized
• Know your browsers
• Learn about Mobile

We are Lollipop

Michael Gramlow

Creative Director

http://www.wearelollipop.com/

http://www.michaelgramlow.com/

mgramlow@wearelollipop.com
416.399.6236

Lollipop is an interactive creative production company run by ex-agency types...

While we work in whatever way is right for the agency, generally it looks something like this: the agency owns the client relationship, strategy and idea. We help them figure out how to bring the idea to life in the interactive world. That could range from creating a treatment and shooting content to fleshing out and building a core idea into a fully functional interactive experience.

To get there, Lollipop provides interactive direction, full-service production management, design, animation, web and app development services.

We also think it’s pretty important to mention that we come from the agency side of the business; so we understand how agencies work and what their needs are from a production partner (read: level of service is really, really important). Our goal is to make the process as enjoyable and un-complicated as we possibly can.

• Most of their clients are in the US and Europe where budgets are bigger and top tier interactive production companies have emerged
• The Barbarian Group, Big Spaceship Firstborn, EVB, NOrth Kingdom

Interactive Pure Play

• Trend towards largescale site buildes
• large big budget clients
• companies Critical Mass, Organic, Blast Radius

Intergrated Ad Agency 

• have to find business
• brand oriented, creative
• often work with other channels - part of a bigger campaign
• often very siloed
• ie Txi, BBDO, DDB

Production Company

• have reps
• works as a partner
• well versed in production
• ability to work on a range of clients/projects
• and emerging specialty
• companies lollipop pixel Pusher, Indus Blue, Fuel, Jam 3

Samples of their work 

(I loved seeing all this - looks like a lot of fun but I know there would much time and crazy work hours that must goes into these!


Little Black Sunshine
Coffee brand — had a lot of creative liberty and played on the drug smuggling theme
Packaging.
Visit the link for an experience in the underbelly of the coffee trade!
www.pureblacksunshine.com

Sprint 

http://biz360.sprint.com/

• Shot on a camera Phantom - slow mation - 900 fps
• salvage and rescue fixtures and materials on demolished or tear downs
• their business is built on sprint products

Sapporo Beer

• online adventure game to discover ancient scrolls
• great effect - visit link below to check it out.

http://www.wearelollipop.com/portfolio/sapporo/

Dickies – durable clothing

• media rich
• the ad takes over the entire site

check out the geolocation integration here and the skilled carolling!

http://work.wearelollipop.com/share-a-carol/

side note: greenscreen.com find all sorts of animals... if you are looking for a reindeer — 
I would like a panda ...

Critical Mass - Alison Garnett

Alison Garnett
Creative Director
Critical Mass


Website: http://www.criticalmass.com/
LinkedIn: http://ca.linkedin.com/in/alisongarnett
Blog: http://www.mylalaland.com/
Blog: http://www.alisongarnett.com/

Alison does not take herself seriously
Her name is SUPERCAPACITY.


Her idea came from washing machines and the super capacity setting. This term is reflectiive of her ability to load super capacity into her life.


She is a creative director, blogs, on flikr, wife & mother of 2 and 3 dogs. She manages to do most of her checklist by midnight.


What I appreciate is that her family is more important than work
no matter what her family comes first

She never has taken a design class in her life - but her bakground is painting and drawing from OCAD. She then decided to take this multimedia course at Sheridan


Alison is a creative director - she says she is more of a jack of all trades:
designer art director, project manager, account manager, new business, stylist, photographer , blogger writer, illustrator, Bad cop, Good Cop


First job

• ICE – live events – but then discovered the web
• Freelance – Henderson Bas (Sean hired her)
• Supercapacity – her own business after adopting her first child,
• Taxi 6 years – had another baby,  then moved to Critical Mass

About Taxi

• amazing creative directors
• Jason McCann
• working on cool projects as MINI - great client
• Her advice was try and work on clients that are amazing brands

Town Shoes – I loved this as I love shoes!

• great posters - gold fish and gold sandals
• crystal boots and constellation stars
• think on your feet literally

LCBO

• microsites
• improvise on small budgets
• mediterrean wine

Cadillac Fairview

• Brand the building
• design collateral
• and website
• sustainable building
• each colour reprsented something - legend on a graph

Alison managed digital team for Telus
telusmobility.com

• landed a huge account with no translation
• microsite to compare phones - online quiz
• banners, and microsites
• the most fun was shooting the pygmy goats

After 6 years moved from Taxi, Alison moved to Critical Mass
Alison wanted to work on a large site and collaborate with an IT team
Taxi did not have the resources for this.


Theodore Alexander
http://theodorealexander.com/
luxury furniture - largest site - e-commerce tool,
flew out to NC to convince them to let them take photos - treating the furniture like a rolex or expensive car. Created a style guide on how to shoot, with a horizon and reflection to keep everything consistent and high-end

Some other brands Alison has worked on 
Brita – scroll deeper into the water
Nestle - are you roloworthy? – baby food to ice cream and chocolate, facebook apps
Sears – Sears.ca


Pitching LIVE

• At Critical Mass every pitch  includes a quick video and how the brand comes to life
• by Aftereffects designer
• pitch how it shows on mobile, or ipad
• ie childrens world - modern day on christmas catalogue for Sears

SUPERCAPACITY

• little book of ideas
• designs logos
• pro bono work - the redwood
• supercapacity - waterproof printed cards - on plastic, very tactile

Alison likes blogging - tumbler, wordpress

• valigirls - blog - friend in amsterdam - they love the same things and can stay in touch - reskinned a wordpress
• Hello - started a blog 9 years ago — about her travel to china to adopt her daughter
• my lalaland – one portal that links to everything she is working on

Alison does not waste a moment and makes the most of her time


It's just advertising, we dont save lives, so have fun and make cool sh**t!

Idea Engineers

SAPIENT

is a global company with services in global markets, government services and integrated marketing. 

Success doesn’t just happen. 

Success is planned.

This was an enthusiastic team that entered our class! Lots of laughs and a wealth of professional knowledge,  experience and tips were generously shared today.

Sonia Welch, Recruiter
In her other life, Sonia was a Print Designer. She then went on at trip to Asia where we inspired to do a career shift by monks — for real! She became a recruiter and manages the interview processes and engages potential candidates for Sapient


Kim Welch, Studio Manager
Kims plans and staffs projects for 160 people across Chicago, Toronto and Minnianapolis. She is responsible for building the right teams for specific projects. Kim looks for how well people work in teams and how they will fit into the Sapient Nitro Culture. 


Gail Leija, Manager Marketing Strategy & Analysis
User Experience Research
Gail's focus is the users experience. Her job is about learning about the user/audience, better then they know themselves. She brings an essential skill of knowing the target audience to the projects at Sapient.


Norma Penner, Senior Art Director
An enthusiastic and passionate designer. This Sheridan Grad has taken her fine arts background an adapted to the online world.


Some Sapient facts

• Sapient is an international company
• 240 people in Toronto office
• Sapient 5 years ago was 4600 and is now 10000 people

Creative titles at Sapient include:

• 25 people - Elliot
• ACDS
• SRADs
• ADs
• Designers
• IAs
• Copywriters

Sapient is a great environment for mentorship, great platform to learn
Clients in Toronto include:

• Abercrombie & Fitch
• Vail
• BMO
• Chrysler
• Jeep
• Dodge
• RBC
• TD
• HarleyDavidson
• Sportchek

Case Studies
Client Chrysler 


The ASK

• Create a Jeep wrangler microsite for international markets browser and device capability.

The Answer

• Taking cues from the TV ad we set the wrangler in different environments - each with its own personality
• as you explore the site, you reveal the various attributes of the Jeep and the people who drive it.
• This was a scrolling site and combined with a cool effect called paralaxing which creates the illusion of 3D. The elements move at different speeds and use HTML5

Client: Abercrombie & Fitch
they have 2500 people inhouse

• photography
• print
• web

The ASK

• A&F Fit guide and A&F mobile marketing
• digital intelligence to their brand
• original idea from client was Flash (but not mobile capable)

The ANSWER

• created simple guide to the fits of the jeans online
• then translated everything to mobile site
• designed simple so easy for in house to team to update

Some thoughts from Sapient when working on a brand

• put the customer come alive and create empathy
• not for one campaign but an overall strategy and rethink
• involve the client – they feel ownership of project
• they need to see where you are on in every step
• inspire client and sell the job – want the clients be your partner

Think of the target user

• persona
• name
• job age
• and influence
• attitudes & values
• experience expectations & needs
• brand & product affinities
• segment highlights
• shopping motivations
• product characteristics & preferences
• 
  

Kim, the studio manager spoke about Sapient as a company and what they offer as an environment

• Sapient  a team - constructive collaboration
• commitment to ongoing learning
• mentoring and growth — flexibility
• things can change drastically -switch gears quickly
• looking at culture and fit
• enviroment for learning
• big clients
• variation
• opportunity for promotion
• mentorship
• an amazing culture
• 
  

She spoke of Sapient biggest self serve company 

• choose and own your career 
• no ceiling on the place, ACD she will get there when she is ready - no spots are taking - everyone is on own path - not a limit on senior positions - more of a colloborative team 

What Sapient expects from you

• Forward thinking design
• fluency in digital channels - currency
• typography
• presentation skills - need to be able to sell it
• eagerness

Elliot summed up as key to success in our industry:
compassion + drive

Designers, writers, animators, producers,
administrators, managers, coders,
buyers, directors, presenters, builders,
composers, analyzers, measurers,
planners, observers, navigators,
converters, persuaders, partners,

Idea engineers

Vitamin C — Boost your brand

Genco + Jon Cebecioglu Studio Vitamin C

Website: http://www.studiovitaminc.com

Email: genco@studiovitaminc.com  jon@studiovitaminc.com

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/genco-cebecioglu/12/b42/8a2

Twitter: @StudioVitaminC

Last day of school before the holidays and everyone frantically still working on end of semester projects (including myself)


Our two guest lecturers walked in sipping on their starbucks – thought I could really use one of those right now!  The two speakers are brothers and designing runs in the family - as both their father and mother are designers as well! 


Genco reinforced concentrate on year end and keep on track with timelines as the next semester will be work intensive and gearing up for grad show. Genco stated this is the only program that has such a show at the end of year, so to use the opportunity to promote yourself

• Genco contract work for Traffic
• Started his own business Vitamin C and partnered up with his brother
• they do a lot of outsourcing - freelancing

Vitamin C specializes in digital devices, websites and branding

Some examples of their work:

Networking is the key - 85-90% of clients are WOM or industry contacts — people referring us to new clients. They have not done any marketing for their business but always busy.


Some tips on career from Vtiamin C:

• Small studios are great for experience and receive credit for work
• however smaller clients, less pay, less opportunity to move up

• Big agencies, large brands, depending on where you work - terrible hours, opportunity to move up the design ladder

• Freelance - control your own time -  but  you have no time - no securities as in benefits or job security

• Start up - if you have that really great idea - requires a lot of passion, need to be open to criticism, and determination, requires funding - investors invest in you - and if they feel you are competent they will often invest as venture capitalists

• Network , start showing your face, lecture startups, they meet potential clients who require brand identity and websites —try to get to know people in the industry and find the people and groups relevant to your work, expand your social group

• Working for someone else before you work for yourself so you can learn and grow. It will help you and your business in the long run.

• Be 100% committed.

Another interesting fact is that the two brothers were born in Turkey. Genco and Jon joked they fight all the time and often in Turkish...


This is a country I l travelled for a month in. While editing this piece looking at a doll that sits on the ledge of my office window that I bought from a little old lady in Cappadocia.... memories!

Meg Kerr

Social Media Integration Manager

Mosaic Experiential Marketing

www.linkedin.com/in/megkerr

“Social Media is like teen sex. Everyone wants to do it. No one knows how. When finally done, there is surprise it’s not better”

- Avinash Kaushik (Analytics evangelist at Google).

An attention-grabbing quote started our morning career lecture by Megg Kerr.

Almost all of us are on facebook, twitter and using social media in our lives on a daily basis for personal, work and as a source for information. 


Facebook has changed the world. I also love this video she shared with us – The Social Media Revolution.

 I was very much looking forward to Meg's presentation this morning and hearing her perspective and about her social media career.


Meg originally studied Broadcast Journalism from Fanshaw. She also studied media and technoculture at Western.  However, she  could see a change in media... the success of being the first one to capture a  breaking news story was becoming a thing of the past with the presence of online media. She embraced social media and now currently works in Mosaic’s  Experiential Marketing. Meg has worked at Mosaic since 2006, working in social media strategy, community management, analytics and blog outreach.



Forms of social media are:

• Micro-blogs (like Twitter)
• Social networking sites (Facebook)
• Geotagging (Foursquare)
• Blogs (Blogger, Wordpress)
• Video (YouTube)

Meg discussed the new trends and happenings in Social Media...



4 Trends Affecting Social Media

• Real Time and Mobile Devices - accessing information anytime and anywhere
• Location Based, Services and Geotagging - GPS enabled smartphones, your phone can identify where you are and update your location for you. This trend can allow incentives for these people who are location tagging. I used this on facebook when I went to my favourite pub for a drink and ended up having a couple of friends find me there due to me posting and the pub gave me a free drink for posting. rather cool....
• Privacy - people are becoming more awareto what information they share. Higher privacy settings make users more secure, but the downside it limits valuable information for marketers
• Social Media is becoming less social - 1st and 2nd generation users were like little kids eating candy - ready to overdose. I think as society we are have had too much facebook and shared too much.. we are now as as a society reeling our information inwards and be more protective of what we share and who we share it with. Secure social media groups are being formed - more niche and selected participants
• www.bluechipexpert.com
• www.doostang.com
• www.songfriends.com

Social Media users are even "detoxing" from mobile and social media by removing it from their life... rather like drug users -- I found this rather curious that people have allowed social media to permeate their lives so heavily. Some even commit suicide online to remove their profiles Web 2.0 Suicide Machine.  This site erases your digital life...


Another tip is not to post what you ate for breakfast or insignifcant thoughts. In particular as a business only post relevant and not too often. From first hand experience, I grow tired of a constant stream of posts and then end up resenting the brand and I delete them to avoid receiving notifications.


“Unless you’ve got something to say, don’t say anything, unless it's interesting”

Of course the above statement is entirely subjective, however the public is more sophisticated and educated than ever with the constant source of information they consume. Consumers are becoming more digital savy all the time, so the social media landscape is constantly changing. Businesses are using many of these trends to promote their business, however they also must manage social media and PR crisis.

• People trust peer to peer more than advertising which has a huge impact on sales (I researched this for marketing - a growing trend called "Friendmoration"
• Comparison shopping poses questions for retailers
• Technology is now changing how we as consumers can access information using QR codes in supermarkets, billboards, posters.

I enjoyed Meg’s discussion very much, she had much to share with us....  and she is a very fast speaker! I think a conversational trend in general of online and digital users as we digest and transfer so much information quickly... And I LOVED her fashion sense - right on trend in her chiffon loose tunic dress, long feather necklace and chunky high shoes! Inspired me to go shopping online......

Brampton AthleticTherapy Visit

Renew, Restore and Rehabilitate


Friday we got to sleep in a bit, which is part of restoring... especially for myself — I think I am beginning to transform into a vampire... but they do sleep during the day... I just do not sleep.


Going to school full-time, working full time and a full time single mom definitely has been affecting my rest. Not sure how to these things all full-time — so sleep is often compromised. Also, unlimited hours in front of the computer and diving slowly into the laptop is bad for my back and neck. (I correct myself after typing this!)


Slouching and bad posture from lack of activity is a threat to anyone who works in front of a computer.  As designers with crazy deadlines, we often skip the necessities such as breaks, lunches and even bathroom breaks — "just to do one more thing"


So the trip to the Brampton Sheridan Campus where the Athletic Therapy department was a welcomed, much needed trip and reminder to take care of our bodies.


I personally have degenerative discs in lower back and no curve in my neck — both issues cause daily discomfort which you learn to live with, however I have noticed this semester these health problems compounding due to lack of stretching and balancing work and physical exercise. 


When we arrived as a class to the Athletic Gym, Amanda warmly welcomed  us. I was lucky to be on of the first on the treatment table....

Being stretched out — felt amazing!I need a rack at home to open up my vertebrae.... felt great! and the talented therapist hit some pressure points... 


Then to top it off a hot compress around my neck — sigh — I could have definitely had a nap...


We then moved to the gym and we proceed to learn some stretches for neck, back shoulders and proper posture at our computers.


Keep moving your body, keep in shape, remember to eat (and not just doritos...) healthy, vitamin-enriched, anti-oxidant foods to fight against colds.. My favourite and easy one is berries; blackberries, blueberries, and raspberries — wash and eat!


The key is to remember to do these stretches.... I stand now and stretch!


Thank you to Derek the Designer for documenting our day and the amazing photos