The Chicago Portfolio School

Late nights at CPS. Or how Twitter delivered me free pizza.

I’m no stranger to late nights at CPS. Especially this quarter. It seems at least once a week, generally more, my friend and fellow designer Jennie and I stick around after class, head to “our room” and work into the wee hours. Usually until at least midnight, sometimes as late as 1:30 or 2am. We’d stay later but we both live on the north side of the city, and the commute home isn’t my favorite part of the night.

Last night, with our friend Maggie (a CPS web design student), we received a bit of a surprise, and it all started with a tweet:

“I need pizza. Who wants to buy/make me a pizza and then deliver it to me at @PortfolioSchool? Please and thank you.”

That simple tweet resulted in a unique conversation, all on twitter, and landed us each our own pizza and two boxes of lava cakes to share from Domino’s Pizza—or, really, from Ramon DeLeon. He’s an owner of 6 Chicagoland Domino’s, and has been making his mark for his #RamonWOW deals. It’s not often he personally delivers pizza any more, but we’re glad he made the special trip out to CPS. Beyond surprising people with free pizzas, Ramon also travels internationally to speak about Social Media. When Twitter took off, a lot of companies and brands felt the need to jump aboard, and rightly so. Twitter is an amazing and powerful tool. However, a lot of people still just don’t get it and aren’t using it to it’s full potential.

My friends joke around because on top of blogging a lot, I also manage a handful of twitter accounts. I won’t claim to be an expert, or even a Ramon, but I will say that Twitter is definitely a part of my life and how I communicate—with friends and brands. I think that’s the essential part that most people forget. This is a mode of communication. I can throw all the random tweets out there I want—and I do sometimes, I have two cats and yes, I tweet about them. But if I don’t engage others, and actually be a part of the conversation, then I’ve missed the point.

It’s more than status updates, and I think the more brands that realize that, the greater the reward they’ll find.

I want to say thanks to Ramon again, and also as today’s his birthday—may you be as happy as all those you’ve WOWed.

Everyone I meet is a designer…

I don’t know if it’s the circles I run in, or because it’s Chicago, or because I’m now hyper aware of it, but it seems like everyone I’m meeting now is or has been a designer. Friends of friends, guys at bars, and even my taxi driver! (Granted, he was the Singing Taxi Driver—if you’ve never heard of him, he’s a treat. You can’t request him, it’s all based on your karmic luck. He does sing, and he’s pretty good. He’s been doing this for about 20 years now, and yes before that in his long list of experience, he too was a designer/creative director for apparently a decently large magazine. He wouldn’t say which.)

Anyway, it’s no joke. I’m either a magnet for other designers or Chicago’s just full of them. When I’m talking to a guy and I tell him I’m a designer, if he responds with “oh, me too.” I can only say, “oh, nice.” It’s not a bad thing—I love creatives, and especially creative boys. But it’s really just a reminder of how many people are out there calling themselves a designer. Future employers and clients are going to have to weed through that whole mess and I need to make sure I get noticed.

So I’ve decided, I’m not going to think just like a designer as much. Too many other designers out there. It’s like we’ve turned into zebras—and of course we’re all debating whether it’s white on black or black on white. Instead of just being a designer, I’m going to start thinking like a visual strategist.*

*I was sadly hoping I’d coined a new term, but the googles have told me otherwise. Either way, there’s a good chance it’ll end up on some future version of my business card.
artwork by me

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!”