The Chicago Portfolio School

Auf Wiedersehen, Dan.

Dan Nelson does a lot of stuff for our school. Important, intelligent, creative stuff. Most notably, he is the brain behind our captivating tweets and facebooks.

Maria Scileppi compares him to Robin Hood. He’s always thinking a couple steps ahead, and he’s created a sharp voice for our school through social media.

So, he’s our Robin Hood. His business card says ‘Creative Technologist,’ and he’s a mighty good’un. Here’s the sad part of this post: Dan is heading to Boulder Digital Works at the University of Colorado to further his education in digital strategy.

We’ll miss him. He’ll miss our mascot.

Here are his parting words for the students & faculty of CPS:

“Catch ya on the flip side Chicago. It’s been an awesome two years with plenty of great memories. Good luck with the printer, bitches!”

we’re lovin’ it…

For the past nearly over a month, a good number of us here at CPS have been thinking about hamburgers, fries, shakes, nuggets, and even frozen strawberry lemonades. These thoughts also included the ‘L’, hidden treasures, giant dogs, road trips, and even zombies.

Folks, welcome to Royal Rumble.

As you may recall, though we may call it a “break” there’s no break from work here. Part of that is the ad competition that happens when classes end—Royal Rumble. We work with a real agency, for a real client. Best campaign wins. Can I say, it’s a bit intimidating your first time…

All of a sudden you’re no longer presenting your wildest and most elaborative ideas in front of your peers. You’re presenting (what is hopefully) a strong campaign to real creative directors at DDB, our agency partners for this Rumble. It’s definitely a challenge coming up with something fresh for a client that’s easily recognizable worldwide. I know my partner and I alone had all but one idea shot down in the first round, most with the note “it’s been done before.”

About 9 teams made it through to the final round and presented this past Tuesday. My partner Tawnia and I were one of them! We didn’t win. Tied for third is good, though. I’m happy.

The honors go to my co-blogger Jake and his partner Erica. The guys from DDB said it was something they hadn’t seen before. This is the second Rumble in a row in which Jake’s been a part of the winning team—major kudos to you, sir. Second place went to Matt Mindis, John McKenzie, Justin Florio and Mike Schneberg. McCamie Cole & Alison Lato tied for third. (And I’m going to give a shout out to my partner for her awesome script writing abilities. She’s awesome.)

Congrats to all the teams, really. Guys, we rock.

I’m the copywriter that graduated from your school.

Meet Josh. He graduated from CPS in 2007, and he started working at Leo Burnett shortly thereafter.

He’s the writer behind this, this, this, and this. He’s the co-writer behind this.

Allstate’s campaign has been extremely successful, both commercially and creatively. Meaning it won a pile of awards, and it sold a lot of insurance. Josh’s job was to write sports-related spots for Mayhem. My opinion doesn’t count for much, but I’d say he did a great job.

But hey, the One Show judges agreed with me. And their opinions count for a lot.

Josh has moved to C-K, where he’s kept busy by Corona and Heinz. His advice for current students: take school seriously. Treat it like a job, and never stop pushing your work.

Wise words. Congrats & best of luck to Josh.

why we should rethink QR codes

Some people think that QR codes are just a fad, and that they’re dying out. But really, they’ve just been misunderstood and misused. They’ve got a lot of untapped potential.

My friend Jenn knows this and recently wrote an article on the subject for Tech.li: QR Codes Aren’t Dead — They’re Misunderstood.

The title of the article says it all. However, Jenn offers some good examples across various industries on how some brands have been using QR codes, and doing it better than others.

“A QR code should enhance an experience, not redirect the user to a promotional website. Anyone who takes the time to scan the code should be rewarded. Encourage your customers to become a part of the experience; don’t just come at them with marketing mumbo jumbo.”

So check out Jenn’s article. As advertisers and designers we should all be taking steps like these to make our work an experience, not just a cool looking piece.