THIS IS THE STUFF I CAN’T SHOW
I have stuff I want to show but would have to throw behind a password protected site and I just can't figure out the perfect password for it. Plus some of it is pitch work or concepts that died, not quite sure how to share those. I think I figured a hack and that's what this page is. Work I love. But work I can't share... Unless we grab a coffee in-person.
“
Making your way in the world today takes everything you got. Taking a break from all your worries, it sure would help a lot. Wouldn't you like to get away? Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name.
THE PITCH
Imagine going into a pitch where your concept write up is the first several lines of the Cheers theme song because it was COMPLETELY on strategy (for a vegetable dip of course). And pair that idea with a visual of cartoon vegetables hanging out in a delicious dip in the style of The Amazing World of Gumball. It was fun. It was amazing. It was our stretch idea. But sadly it didn't win.
THE TELENOVELA
TLDR (and it is really long): I'm a champion for my team's work so when they come to me with something that's awesome AND they're super passionate I'll break the rules of presentation any day.
In our first creative review my writer came in and said "ok, so this is a lot of words but I think it really works." Her write up was topping at 460 words. We were working on a project to promote our client's product in small Los Angeles bodegas. The audience was both the acculturated and unacculturated hispanic market. ​My team's idea was to have a telenovela theme that played out in movie poster style in-store visuals as well as short video clips to drive traffic. ​I know concept write-ups should be about three sentences but when you're working on a telenovela themed idea you need the write up to match. This was our wild card idea. The client loved it. We were pleasantly surprised it lasted three rounds where it stood as the hero concept. But in the end the sales team wanted to be more conservative and refresh the previous year's work. It was sad to see this die...
It is late September. The air is hot, but pleasant. A young and beautiful rising star, Ana Teresa Garcia is busy preparing her home for a family cookout to celebrate the third anniversary of her twin second cousins’, Juan and Jose, reunion after being separated at birth twenty-six years ago. It’s been quite some time since the entire family has gotten together, now that everyone is grown and spread out across the country. She’s very much looking forward to the festivities, although she’s starting to feel nervous. Perhaps it is a twinge of guilt? She does not know. For the first time, she will be cooking the traditional dishes from her childhood in Mexico, passed down to her Abuela to her mama and now to her. And while her new life is filled with much success and excitement, it comes with big secrets. One in particular that she fears may dishonor her family. [insert dramatic music]
[Cut to later that afternoon.] The cookout in full swing. The family, extended family and longtime family friends who might as well be family are all laughing and talking loudly and animatedly over music, cold cervezas and a lot of food. There is much reminiscing on old memories among los primos and hushed whispers relaying the latest drama between poor, sweet Enrique, that muy caliente Diego and an ever-indecisive Monica’s ongoing love triangle. With all the gossip and chatter over the years, nothing could shock anyone anymore. Until…*GASP*
A glass breaks in the kitchen. Ana rushes through the doorway to find her mother, pale, mouth open, bracing herself against the kitchen counter. Ana looks around frantically to find the source of her mother’s distress. She follows her gaze to a bottle of (our client’s cooking product), half hidden in the shadows of the pantry. Ana quickly closes the pantry door before the others filter in. In a low voice, she rambles off an apology, an explanation, anything to help her mom understand, all while waving the others off that it was nothing. Her mother lowers her eyes, shakes her head and tells Ana, “No. Not here.”
In the moment, Ana took those three words as denial. Her mother’s inability to accept that her only daughter had changed the key ingredient in generations-old family recipes. And worse, served these tampered recipes to everyone she ever cared about. But what Ana did not know was that seeing the bottle of (our client’s cooking product) caused her mother to regain her memories from suffering amnesia all those years ago. Her mother had meant to keep her secret after all, because she too had a secret. She and her daughter were more alike than Ana could ever know. Rosa Maria Garcia was no stranger to (our client) and neither were those recipes.
MAKING THE LOGO SMALLER... BUT IN A WAY BIGGER
Our client asked us to create Pride packaging for their product. But they wanted to show that they care about the LGBTQ+ community and weren't just rainbow washing.
​
Enter an art director who realized if you dropped a few letters from the clients logo, which is their name, you got something amazing. Something that allowed us to layer in a fantastic community relations campaign.
We paired that idea with another designer's concept of No Labels. No Labels stripped the branding off the packaging because it would still read as the category leader because of its iconic shape.
​
We had a mostly naked pack with this truncated logo. It had a great story, a community tie-in, amazing design and we know it would move product and start a conversation. The client LOVED it. But they thought it was too big for an activation at just one retailer. So this might come back soon even bigger.