Recently, I’ve enjoyed Hyundai’s new Sonata safety commercials by Innocean Worlwide, narrated by the infamous ‘The Dude’, Jeff Bridges. I love this ad because it reminds me of growing up with my two older brothers. They were teenagers back in the mid 90s, so Metallica and Red Hot Chili Pepper posters covered their walls, along with the infamous ‘Seattle rock flannel’ and cut up jeans.

Next up, Ally bank commercials by BBH New York. They took an excellent approach. I love the simplicity of having the kids be the consumer. All of a sudden all that fine print you forget about and never think twice about is brought to light. Of course, seeing the kid’s reactions are also priceless. Great humor, great copy.

Lastly, I truly enjoy the commercials for Call of Duty 2, by DDB. The references are obviously endless, but I’m sure what everybody likes is the old guy that reminds them of their father or grandfather complaining about the youth of today. The actor’s mannerisms and voice are perfect.

Below is an idea that I thought would be exciting, not only in Omaha, but perhaps in designated areas like California and Texas of major universities or wherever Super Regionals are held. I would take away the center icon and replace it with the official NCAA logo or the new stadium logo. Either way, the website would be along all sides of the field as shown below in order to continuously draw people into the history, scheduling and the overall culture that is Omaha College World Series.

Next up were some print ads that were also a fun addition to the project. The print ads focused on the passion, heart and sense of camaraderie found in college sports. TCU baseball truly reflected these ads during this past championship with their relentless desire to win and incredible sense of alumni and community support. They reminded all of us that “It’s not about the money”

The idea: Remind consumers about Vegas for their next vacation – while they are on their way to one already. In theory, when you’re sitting in an airline seat you’re already halfway there to the poker table, all that’s missing are the poker chips. What makes it work even better, is for the people who are drinking ‘ice cold’ beverages, making it feel even more like vegas.

Here are the initial drawings from my sketchbook:

As you can see I even debated making the seats black and red – a total emersion of Vegas. I thought about what type of interaction I wanted with the audience and how I wanted them to think, “Damn, I want to be in Vegas right now”.  This could easily play off the Visit Vegas campaign that is going on already, playing off of their latest slogan, “Your Vegas is showing”.

Off to the right are sketches about how the airline seat would look when the tray is closed. I debated whether to entice the consumer or leave it a surprise..

In a row, each seat would have a different hand, or different chips from possible casinos as a promotion for them as well. Here’s how a tray could look:

I thought of this initially after reminiscing about family road trips and my dad teaching us how play poker using the ice chest as table and cheerios as pokers chips…And then my mother looking back while driving saying, “What are you teaching our children?!”  Good times.

Here’s one of the results, just before football season kicks off:

This seemed like a wonderful background for a TCU athletic event, especially with the Horned Frog looking so menacing and powerful. This background was eventually used for their schedule. After more revisions I came up with another background for this lacrosse poster, and again had a lot of fun.

Here’s the final poster background:

And here’s the final information, as requested by the team and coach for the event poster. I’m happy with it, and think they were too. GO FROGS!

So I’ve decided to work out concepts on the computer as sort of a “quick sketch” or perhaps idea that I might have about design, typography etc. I like to have fun with these and not spend too much time, again just approaching it as an initial idea. This one features Shakira, and I’d like to come up with more spreads featuring other artists. Right now this all just place holder text to help develop the concept.

Second spread:

My favorite thing about this piece was working on the typography and coming up with my own letters. I definitely spent some time on this, and have started expanding to other letters. In addition, it’s made me focus on my original alphabet that I’ve already started (more on this later). Hope you enjoy!