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  • The White House reacts to work by Ackerman McQueen

    February 27th, 2013 / Comments (0)

    Guns, God and beer are what many claim our nation was founded upon. While you may disagree with this statement, the NRA continues to fight for the second amendment right, and the OKC based PR firm, Ackerman McQueen, strategizes their moves. Their latest spot quickly caught flack from the White House for including the President's children. But after managing the brand for over 30 years, AM has had their fair share of fire and controversy.

    Check it out here

  • City Arts Center is now Oklahoma Contemporary

    February 26th, 2013 / Comments (5)





    In case you haven't noticed the signage around 10th and Broadway, City Arts Center has a new look and name. Overall, the logo by itself isn't very special or can identify with Oklahoma City or Oklahoma at all. We would hate to see the invoice for hiring someone to typeset your name in Gotham Bold and put lines between the letters. Feels like Gotham has become the 'go-to' font for a lot of designers, and will just become the equivalent of Helvetica in the 70s. That being said, this 'contemporary' mark will look dated in 5 years. The mark is an improvement of the stale, old type, as it leaves room to incorporate some of the Arts into the printed pieces. The new mark is boring, but the new poster treatments are superb.....we'll see how long they actually stick to it.

    What’s done is done. City Arts Center paid for a solution and they received one.
    Time will tell if their investment paid off.

    Were these folks ignorant of the wellspring of local professional talent? Or did they simply make a sound business decision with the information they had available at the time?

    What does it say about the creative community in Oklahoma when organizations look somewhere else for good work? Does it say, “Quality creative is only found on a coast.” Or perhaps it says the more damning, “Your Addy doesn’t matter.”

    It may simply say that we as a creative community are failing to communicate our relevance to the local marketplace. We are failing to excite potential clients to look around the corner for excellent creative work.

    It’s our fault. Will we choose to learn and course correct or sulk and complain?

    What do you believe the business actions taken by City Arts Center say about Oklahomas creative community? More importantly, what are you going to do about it?

    Leave us a comment or hit us up on Twitter. You can catch some of the conversation from rest of the nation over at Brand New. Also, thanks to Walkingstick for sending this in yesterday on Twitterland.

  • Creativity in the Community: Dustin Gilpen

    February 26th, 2013 / Comments (0)

    Creative Profession:
    I’m co-owner/designer/printer at Tree & Leaf Clothing, a screenprinting shop and retail store here in OKC.

    Job:
    I do most of the design work for our brand, our collaborative shirts (The Spy, DailyThunder, and The Lost Ogle), and all of the poster printing done here at our shop.

    Short bio:
    Dusty is the third generation of a family of commercial artists and illustrators. A college dropout and self-taught printer, his design style is thoroughly influenced by typography, cartoons, and graffiti. Nearly all the branding and design work at Tree & Leaf is done by Dusty. Join him every Thursday at the Tree & Leaf shop for Drink & Draw, or follow his animated life on Twitter and Instagram: @TRUdust.

    1. How did you come to Oklahoma City? And more importantly, why do you stay?
    I was born in Oklahoma City and never thought about leaving. I legitimately love this city and state. Starting a business 6 years ago has only increased my passion for this city. Watching and being actively involved in the community over last 6 years has been amazing. The amount of growth in culture and development is astounding. I’m anxious to see what the future brings for OKC, and that alone is a great reason to hang around a little longer.

    2. Who was your greatest mentor?
    My greatest mentor is my father, Greg Gilpin, and his greatest mentor would be his father, Dick Gilpin. Both have been commercial artists, illustrators, and graphic designers their entire lives in Oklahoma City. Their humorously illustrated lives have taught me not only how to draw, but how to communicate with clients, friends, and others through cartoons and laughter. Growing up in a household and legacy of artists only propelled and encouraged me to where I am today.

    3. Which project are you most proud of? Please explain why?
    The projects I’m most proud of are projects that I’ve had the most fun doing. My two favorite projects I’ve produced have been the painting of a delivery van for Dirty Water Coffee Co, and a screen printed poster I designed and printed for a beard growing contest we hosted at the shop. I don’t think either of the projects even grossed a profit, but they were a lot of fun to work on. There are larger and more prestigious jobs I’ve had, but these were really fun and that’s what counts.

    Dirty Water Coffee Co VanDirty Water Coffee Co Van

    Grow A BeardGrow A Beard

    This is the wall inside Tree & Leaf, it was a lot of fun and definitely one of the bigger productions I’ve been involved in. Collaborative painting by (Tanner Frady, Tanké, Dylan Bradway, and myself)

    Tree and Leaf WallTree and Leaf Wall

    I proposed recently, and that is something I’m really proud of as well.

    I Love You graffitiI Love You graffiti

    4. What is one thing other creatives can learn from your biggest success and/or failure?
    Successes: Work hard and happily with others. Remain humble and you’ll learn more. Remember that working with others is a privilege.

    Failures: Don’t be arrogant. Don’t assume entitlement. Think before you speak.

    5. If you could play a game with any creative in the community, what would it be and whom would you play against?
    I’d probably play Rummy or Dominoes with Burt Seybourne, Bruce Eagle, Bob Jacobsen, Dean Wilhite, and my dad. That would probably be pretty educational. I’d rather draw than play cards though...

    6. What is one thing you would change about your job or profession?
    I really can’t think of much else I’d rather be doing. If I get bored with designing on the computer I draw, when I get bored with drawing, I print, when I get bored with printing, I paint.

    Sometimes (with any contract job) you have to sacrifice creative direction to the will of the client. It would be nice to have more freedom when approaching contract work, but that has been a dream for as long as a skilled workers have done work for a know-it-alls.

    7. What is your best source of inspiration?
    My best source for inspiration is through an archive of art I’ve been collecting of my grandfather's work; Drink & Draw is a huge source of inspiration and encouragement to work harder. Generally just being around other artists keeps me on my toes and pushing to work harder.

  • 47th ADDY Awards Recap

    February 26th, 2013 / Comments (0)

    OKC's finest creatives were out Saturday night to pat each other on the back for all the great work that came out last year. For those of you that missed it, you missed a few jokes about the creative studios around town and 3 hour long (seemed like at least 8 hours) powerpoint slideshow showing all the winners.

    We don't have near enough time to cover everything, so here's a few of the big winners:

    Best of Show
    Funnel Design Group: Science Museum Neil Armstrong Poster

    Jeff Fontanta Humor Award
    VI Marketing and Branding: 80s Jingle

    Best of Interactive
    Liquidfish: Flint Website

    Best of Print
    Funnel Design Group: Science Museum Neil Armstrong Poster

    Best of Video:
    VI Marketing and Branding: Selectquote

    Seems like VI was trying to pull the nostalgia factor on their work, with the 80s jingle and Selectquote spots. It worked really well on the commercials, but the jingle fell short for us. But you have to give them an A for effort though, it has to be a daunting task to try to make Paycom sound cool. Liquidfish's Flint site was a good, but really not sure how "interactive" the site really was. Suppose looking at 15 different menus was enough for the judges. We felt that Funnel's work was strong, but the Selectquote commercials really stole the show. In any case, you can download a PDF of the rest of the winners here

  • Oklahoma Art in Public Places

    February 22nd, 2013 / Comments (3)

    Not the best infographic we've seen, but assists in informing us about what the OK Art in Public Places is about. We definately support the idea of seeing more art around our city. To learn more about the program, you can read about the Debate on House Bill 1430 here or http://www.okpublicart.org/

  • To This Day Project

    February 22nd, 2013 / Comments (0)

    This brilliant, awesome, and moving video is built by many collaborators around the world, creating works based about Shane Kyoczan's spoken word poem about bullying. This is wonderful and sad on so many levels. You can check out more of Kyoczan's words at his site and to get involved against bullying, check out bullying.org.

  • How It Feels [through Glass]

    February 20th, 2013 / Comments (0)

  • So God Made a Designer

    February 20th, 2013 / Comments (0)

    Inspired by Ram's Superbowl Spot.

Rocket Fuel