The Chicago Portfolio School

Creative Mornings at The Chicago Portfolio School

It was a chilly, big city morning when the creative fires began to warm up the Chicago Portfolio School as advertising and creative professionals from the surrounding areas gathered for the world renowned Creative Mornings breakfast lecture series. Needless to say, every morning is a creative morning at CPS, but this sunrise had a little extra creative power packed into the room.

A big heaping of that creativity was duly laid on us by non other than illustrator Jay Ryan; part comedian, part human, and the full on creative genius behind The Bird Machine print shop. After the wonderfully delicious (and free) breakfast and coffee, Jay tore into his life work with fascinating details. And the devil is in the detail, as we learned through Jay’s painstakingly thorough process. There is so much more that goes into the process of printing one of Jay’s beautiful illustrations and it was very interesting to get a peak behind the curtain. In the magician’s profession, it is seen as career suicide to share your trade secrets. And even though some might call what Jay does magical, we are glad to have had the opportunity to learn some of his tricks.

The morning ended has it started, as people drifted around chatting with one another and finishing the last of their breakfast, satisfied with the boost of creativity they received. The lecture was a huge success and I can not wait for the next Creative Mornings. In the end, we shared some laughs, we shared some insight, and most importantly, we all had a reason to go into work a little later that day. What more could you ask for?
 

 

All I Got Was This Shirt

Remember that kid in high school that was too cheap to buy a yearbook? Instead, on the last day of school, he’d stroll through the halls collecting signatures on the plainest of white t-shirts. If he was popular, he’d fill it up. If he wasn’t, someone would inevitably draw something inappropriate, and he’d get sent home.

In hindsight, that kid may have been a genius.

Enter the CPS Freshman Mixer…

At the beginning of each quarter, CPS takes over a bar and buys the students drinks. It’s a great way to get to know some of your fellow students, teachers, and maybe (this is by no means a confession) sing a little karaoke.

First quarter students (like myself) are to wear a white shirt and bring sharpies. These shirts then become pages where the more seasoned CPS students write “words of wisdom” to help us survive our year at school. Even Jeff and Maria get in on the act.

All in all, it’s a darn good time.

And in the spirit of advice, I have some for next year’s newbies: Get there early (drinks go fast), and if you have white sheets like I do, don’t pass out in your shirt.

Occasionally Perfect

For a lot of people, myself included, a billboard is just a huge print ad. Pictures. Text. Just at a really large scale. (Yes, there are digital ones now, but in general a billboard is a billboard.)

For Heineken, a billboard became something different. A few weeks ago, I noticed some buzzing on Twitter and Facebook. An impromptu concert with Broken Social Scene… on a billboard. This isn’t the first time this has happened. Heineken, with Wieden + Kennedy, did a similar stunt in NYC with TV on the Radio.

They took a basic billboard ad and turned it into an experience. With a pretty good turnout too, if I might say so. My only complaint is that apparently all of Chicago is way taller than my 5-foot-4-inches.  You can read more about the event here: Heineken Light: Occasionally Perfect Billboard travels to Chicago. Or you can even watch highlights from the concert on Heineken’s YouTube Channel here.

I do have to admit though, my main point of going to this show is that my friend was sitting in with them playing trombone—but, that said, I’m glad I went because it’s good to see how others are stepping it up and turning advertising into experiences. Which for me, that’s the goal.

Chicago is a three-peat town. AGAIN!

Explaining the Big Ad Gig would take five sentences. Go the website for the full story. In short, it’s a competition between ad students. Winners get a freelance gig at one of five prestigious creative-type places. Hence the name: Big Ad Gig.

Last year, first place went to a CPS grad. Two years ago, ditto. This year, THREE of the eight finalists are CPSers. I’m liking our odds…here’s who’ll be representing our school at the final presentations in NYC.

Steve Stenholt made a funny video.
Sara Nitz also made a funny video.
William Shandling also also made a funny video.

10/6/11 UPDATE:
William was one of the Big Winners and will be working at Martin Agency in Richmond, VA!!!

2011 Cusp Conference Wrap Up

It’s not easy getting a CPS student out of bed before noon during school break. Let alone 11 of us, 2 days in a row.

What’ll turn night owls in to early birds? Volunteering at the 2011 Cusp Conference.

September 28 and 29 found several of us at the Museum of Contemporary Art registering attendees, guarding doorways, arranging and rearranging signage, or asking each other to repeat what someone just said so we could tweet nuggets of inspiration.

If you’ve never had the pleasure of attending or even hearing about Cusp, that may be due in part to the topic of this conference. It’s nearly indefinable.  Even after experiencing it, I struggle with calling it a discussion on the “design of everything.” What I do know is that it’s put together each year by local design firm smbolic. They call it: “part design project and part science experiment.” Essentially, smbolic finds twenty-some people who’ve turned a good idea in to a great project to present their work to a room full of about 300 curious minds.

I walked in to the conference with a list of must-see presenters. Among them were Adam Sadowsky, President and CEO of Syyn Labs; Erik Proulx, former adman and current filmmaker; and Baratunde Thurston, a writer and comedian; to put it boringly. In truth, all of the presenters have as complicated a bio as Cusp does, and I was surprised, provoked and energized by each person I heard.

While each presenter had his or her own way of exhibiting, many touched on a common theme; process matters. Whether it was Yves Béhar’s use of design to encourage positive social change or Christopher Simmons’s extraordinary look at his favorite bottle opener, most presenters stated in one way or another that success is no accident.

What I was reminded of by Cusp, and what I hope sticks with me as this quarter begins, is to not just see the end result. It’s true that CPS is a one year program – of which I am now halfway through! – and I’m here to produce the best portfolio possible. But I’m also here to experiment, ask questions, make connections and, whether I like it or not, make mistakes.

So thank you to Cusp for helping me recognize that being willing to fail can be just as respectable as being successful. And the truer I am to the process, the more likely I am to do something great.

written by Courtney McCormack

Think small-ish

So, summer quarter ended a couple days ago. Goodbye, summer quarter.

That means another Royal Rumble is upon us. For those of you who are new here, the Rumble is a quarterly in-school competition hosted by a real client. Students are divided into teams, and they’re given two weeks to work on a brief.

This time around, our client is Fiat - the lil’ Italian car that’s actually quite spacious. We know it’s spacious because we took turns sitting in one & fiddling with various dials on the fancy dashboard.

The brand is relaunching in the States after a 50 year absence, so it’s an exciting project to be part of. Also, the winning team gets a cash prize, plus the possibility of seeing their work produced.

Like, produced in the real world. Where real things happen.

Our new website is coming.

The picture says it all.

Actually, the picture is pretty confusing, so here’s what happened yesterday: we shot a bunch of video for our website re-design. It’s going to be pretty fantastic. Wexley School for Girls concepted & designed it, which is why it’s going to be fantastic.

Among other things, the new CPS web-experience will involve taxidermy, astrophysics, and snakes.

If that doesn’t pique your curiosity, please resume your game of Parcheesi. We are sorry to have bothered you.

it’s a blog party!

What happens when you get over a hundred bloggers together in Chicago? Well, typically it’s just a lot of drinking, socializing, and exchanging links. However, this weekend, 20-Something Bloggers (20SB) is having their inaugural summit this weekend, and yours truly will be in attendance.

They’ve selected top people from the 20SB community as well as the international blogosphere* to come speak on two tracks: aspiration and application—one to motivate you and help you grow as a blogger, another to help you best utilize tools to get the most out of your blog. And of course, there will be a fair bit of drinking, socializing, and exchanging links too. I’ll be there helping out in various breakout sessions and panels. Mainly I’m looking forward to a chance to spend time with some of my good friends.

I’m not new to the 20SB community. In fact, I’m one of two Community Mod Leads on their admin team. I joined the community in late 2008/early 2009, back when there were just about 5000 members. Today, 20SB has grown to over 18,000 members internationally. It is the worlds’ largest community of personal bloggers.

There’s still a chance to register for the event—and Tech.li is offering 50% off the registration price.

I’ll give you a full recap after the event for those unable to attend. You can also follow the events on twitter through the #20sbsummit hashtag, or you can follow my tweets at @myadorkablelife.

-Erini

*I cannot believe I just said “blogosphere”…

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.

editing away!

The HOW Design Live conference was great! I learned quite a bit…including the more awesome an event, the harder it is to remember to pull out your camera and film it so you can vlog it! But a vlog recap is coming — I’m working on it now and it’ll be up this week! I’m trying to use that amazing creative energy I picked up, working on designs and even getting back into some creative writing pieces. So I’m going through all my conference notes and swag to keep feeding that energy! (As you can see from the photo, there was so. much. swag. I think I pinched a nerve carrying that Neenah Paper bag full of paper sample books! What you can’t see are the 2 other bags I was also hauling around, also full of swag.)

Many thanks to CPS and the HOW Brand for making this opportunity available to me! All this rambling to say, a vlog is indeed still forthcoming!

Photo by Jennie Li.