Michael Gramlow, Lollipop

About Lollipop
Lollipop is an interactive, creative production company.
They provides interactive direction, full-service production management, design, animation, web and app development services to agencies that need to bring their work into the interactive environment.

Client List:

Virgin Mobile, BBDO Toronto, GSD&M, American Heritage Dictionary, Dickies, Sprint Biz360, Jack Daniels, American Express, Kia Optima, Freedom Filter, Zicam, Chevy, Sapporo Beer, Vextini

About Michael Gramlow

Michael Gramlow is the co-founder & creative director a lollipop. He works with agency creatives to translate their idea into the digital world. Michael works to direct content and manage the art direction and design of work.

Michael has also had the role of Creative Director at Organic and Dentsu.

What is lollipop?
- an interactive, creative production company.

What does that mean?
- over the past couple of years, the agency and interact world have evolved (actually completely changed)
- we saw a need for sophisticated interactive models that mirrors the broadcast production model that agencies are familiar with.


our point of view

strategy > big idea > treatment > shoot/design > edit/post > development

the industry

- this model is more prevalent i the us and europse where budgets are bigger and top-tier interactive production companies have emerged: the barbarian group, big spaceship, firstborn, EVB, north kingdom

- as the industry continues to evolve, i see three areas of opportunity for work - each requires a unique passion and skill set.

1) interactive pure play
-trend toward large scale build

2) integrated ad agency
- work tends to be creative and brand oriented

3) Production company
- works as a partner to agencies to execute work
- well-versed in production techniques
- ability to work on a broad range of clients/projects
-an emerging specialty

How it works
- the rep will give them opportunities and they have to decide if to pitch it, and then how. If they win the contract the rep gets a cut in the contract.
- lollipop has a small core staff. their work is very much project-based and they use a lot of freelance talent to ramp up and down.
-shooting something- all freelance crew.

Advice for the freelance world
- work with a company that places freelancers for exclusive engagements.

"when you finish this program, you have to work so hard to pound the payment to bug people. you've really got to make an effort to get on people's radar, even if you think you're annoying them." - Michael

"sometimes design is not just pixels on a page, it's about the experience, the emotion and the mood that you are trying to evoke." - Michael

"there is a big tendency in this business for something to go directly to the computer. storyboards are critically important, and it's important to take the time to step back and think on paper. Before you sit down and execute, get a piece of paper and get things sketched out." - Michael

Pure Black Sunshine coffee site
Sprint Bz360
- Business-to business thing
- shot on a camera call the phantom - 900 fps
- great tools, powerful video, great usability

Dickies
very cool ad - plumbing breaks down and floods site

TJ Max
- using google maps- enter an address using google maps and share a carol.
- carolers singing christmas carols in front of a googlemaps streetview.

Sapporo Beer
- travel through animated scenes composed of a mixture of live action, cgi and matte painting
- users are guided through the site unlocking scrolls to be entered to win a trip to japan

Virgin Mobile
- wanted to create a user generated site to raise money for homeless youth.
- they've raised $40,000 so far
- consumers come to the site and post a challenge
- html site with javascript, used google check out for the ecommerce dept.

Contact

439 Wellington St. West, Suite 107 Toronto, ON, M5V 1E7 Tel: 416-597-8777 Fax: 416-946-1304

Allison Garnett, Critical Mass

About Critical Mass

Critical Mass is an international Marketing firm that specializes in:

- Insight & planning

- Experience Design

- Experience Distribution

- Social Media

- Technology Services

- Marketing Science

Client List:

Nissan, Adidas, Theodore Alexander, Best Buy, Clorox, Humana, Budweiser, United, Moen, hp, Nasa, at&t, Nestle, Harley Davidson, peanuts, Infiniti

About Allison Garnett

Allison Garnett is a Creative Director with Critical Mass. Before coming to Critical Mass, Allison started her own business (SuperCapacity) and worked at Taxi.

Lecture Notes

"as much as I love what I do, work comes second, and family and personal life comes first."

Creative Director = a jack of all trades

designer/art director/project manager/account manag
er/new business/stylist/
photographer/creative direction...etc

-She started her own business (supercapacity) after she had adopted a child. Moved to Taxi and then after having another child moved to Critical Mass.

-Her first stepping stone were landing the accounts: Molson Canadian, Levi's and Nike.

"When you're looking for that first job, for me it's not about the company, it's trying to get as much experience as you can and getting some work into your book to be able to move onto a better position." - Garnett

Taxi
-She was there for 6 years, and finally left because it was getting too comfortable, and not feeling challenged.

Clients: MINI, Town Shoes, LCBO Microsites, Cadillac Fairview (vertical movement website, the great thing about the building was that it was sustainable), Taxi packaging, Westjet (identity design), Telus (digital, was definitely one of the hardest years of her career)

"sometimes you don't have a large budget to hire all the extra people, so you just have to do it yourself, be innovative." - Garnett

"Internal projects are part of what makes going to work really fun."
"The great thing about being on a digital team of an agency that owns the whole brand, you don't have to rely on the assets they send you, it gives you the opportunity to push your work further."

Moving on to Critical Mass

-She moved because she wanted to focus and become really good at one thing. She wanted to work on a big website, something with an IA, a planner and a tech team.

-At Taxi they could not compete and pitch for interactive work because of their limited development team.

- Her first project: Luxury furniture site by Theodore Alexander. "It was really complicated. I pretended I knew what I was doing, and within a few months I really did know what I was doing." They really treated the furniture almost like a Rolex watch or a High end car. Most clients, you end up having to use all the assets they have, but they pitched the idea of re-shooting the furniture with their style guide. They really wanted people to perceive them as high end, so they opened up their own studio on Vietnam, hire
d a team and reshot all of their furniture.

Ensuing projects

- Brita USA site.
- Nestle small-budget projects(facebook apps etc)
- Sears

"I do a lot of pitching to land a business. What critical mass is good at doing, is creating great videos for their pitches to make their ideas come to life. These are the things you have to do these days to win business. Everyone is after the same piece of pie, and this is what you have to do to win business." - Garnett

"You can't look to your job necessarily to fulfill you. I like to things on the side that make me happy. I still always have projects on the go and I have my book of ideas." - Garnett


Other Pursuits

-She designs Identities in her spare time.
-Pro-Bono work is good.
-SuperCapacity - business card - won awards, in her top 5 pieces of all time.
- Biotherm
"Contests are a great way to also have some fun." - Garnett

http://www.canneslions.com/ ($125 entry fee)

- Land of Sparkalot (her tumblr blog)
it's important to take note of things that are taking off on the web (aka tumblr).
- Valigirls blog
- Hello blog (photo blog) - started this blog when she went to China to adopt a child.

"when you put yourself out there you open yourself up to a lot of opportunities." - Garnett

- my lalaland - her portal that links to her other projects

It's just advertising
"we don't save lives, so have fun, and make cool shit."
"when you have kids you realize if you have an hour of free time you have to use it up, you have to make use of each hour."

- make stickers, cool business cards, mailer....to get them to keep your information. moodcard: mood.com.
- open house- don't be afraid to ask for cards, and email your portfolio, info to them. It doesn't hurt to follow up, because there's nothing to lose.


Contact

Alison LinkedIn

Twitter @supercapacity

Portfolio mylalaland.com

Sapient Nitro

About Sapient

The Sapient Team thinks of themselves as "idea engineers", blending together their skills in communication, branding and transactional expertise to "spark the relationship between consumers and brands" for their clients.

Clients

- abercrombie & fitch

- vail

- bmo

- chrysler

- jeep

- dodge

- rbc

- harley davidson

- sportchek

Lecture Notes

-Kim: Studio Manager. Matching People with the Right work.

-Gael: Started as an info architect. Her background is digital and interactive. 2 years ago made change from information architecture to experience research.

- Norma: graduate from the program. Since graduation has worked at quite a few agencies and has for a year worked at Sapient. Sapient allows her to grow and utilizes all of her strengths. Senior art director at Sapient.

About Sapient

- really international

- 240 people in their office and still growing

Creative Team

- creative team consists of 25 just on the visual side of things

- a good environment for mentorship because there is a lot of senor staff

- it is a great platform to learn

Work

-"The definition of great is entirely defined by the client you're working for and the problem you're trying to solve for them"

- Norma

"We take on the personalities of our clients instead of expecting our clients to be like us"

- Norma

"Our creative is the expression of a strategy based on an emotional or practical empathy"

-Norma

Jeep:

the task:

create a jeep wrangler microsite for international markets. browser and device compatibility. Language and cultural considerations.

the answer:

take cues from the TV ad, we set the wrangler in different environments, each with its own personality. Created a scrolling site. Site is about an emotional experience, and has little clutter. Powerful imagery, impacting typography. Most of the shots were composited.

Paralaxing: using a depth of field. the images cut into three layers: background, mid ground and foreground, and the layers move at a different speed to give the illusion of depth. The client loved it because they could do this without going into the world of flash. This was done with HTML5.

Chrysler:

The ask:

-taking cues from the TV ad, build an experience that ties together the nostalgia from the past, the feeling of your first car with the luxuries of the present, the grand voyager. showcase the features of the van in terms of how they enrich the character's life.

How tight is a tight time limit: she created that site in 1 night. the initial design happened in the evening, but the rest of it she was able to take a week and a half to finish. uses HTML5 to do the special effects.

Q: what is the life cycle of a microsite like that: 8 months.

Q: why was the timeline so quick: a lot of times a client will hold onto a brief for too long, realize they need to get it out, and brief the creative too late. But as a creative she has realized that her best work originates from a tight timeline.

Abercrombie and Fitch:

It was about working in tandem with Abercrombie and Fitch at their head office. Abercrombie and Fitch: 1) photography 2) print 3) web. It was time to re-prioritize.

The ask:

A&F fit guide and A&F mobile experience.

The answer:

good design is not enough. embed creative team with the client to translate the experience of their stores into digital channels. apply digital intelligence to their creative brand.

-She has never worked with a team so stringent on their brand, especially their brand typography.

- Designed a fit-guy site to show off styles

- designed for their mobile experience, that needs minimal changes.

Vail:

Epic Mix Program - Sapient developed the online experience.

The Ask: engage mountain athletes through Snocial

The Anwer: A facebook app Scavenger hunt that acts as a tutorial for people who are new to the program. "Epic Mix Snowcial Scavenger Hunt"

User centered approach

persona: a customer archetype. Personas are based on primary research (original).

"when you involve your client, they feel a sense of ownership over the project. They have to follow you through the steps, and have buy-in." - Gael

Sapient's strength: "One company that does everything". - Gael

"Our culture is like this. We argue. People challenge me all the time and I welcome that." - Gael

Information Architecture

"In olden times, people would just open up photoshop and make something. But you can build a building without a plan." - Gael

- "being a good IA is so rare. It is rare to have a combination of planning, creative thinking, and skill."

Studio Manager Kim Speaks

Attributes:

- What she is looking at is culture and fit. Attributes are a huge part of hiring.

-What they are looking for is not necessarily tangible. They want to see people that can work within a team, they want people who embrace the attitude of feedback.

- A commitment to ongoing learning, initiative, flexibility, mentoring and being mentored.

- Flexibility: things change drastically. You need to be able to switch gears quickly.

What you can expect from Us:

-Environment for learning

-Big clients

-Variation

- Opportunity for promotion

- Mentorship

- An amazing culture

What we Expect from You

- forward thinking design

-fluency in digital channels

-typography

- presentation skills

- eagerness

- compassion & drive

Contact

Sapient Nitro Contact Form link: http://www.sapient.com/en-us/sapientnitro/contact-us.html

Genco and Jon Cebecioglu, Studio Vitamin C

About Studio Vitamin C

Specialization

-web design

- print design

- Brand I.D.

Client List:

Rev Kitchens and baths, Sacred Craft, Metrix Group

About Genco and Jon Cebecioglue

Genco: After working over 6 years in Toronto’s leading digital design studios, Genco co-founded Studio Vitamin C.

Jon: Jon is a graphic designer who has been working in the design field for 3 years. Jon is the co-founder of Studio Vitamin C.

Lecture Notes

- you should work at a small studio when you start out

- recommended that you work for an agency for at least 1 year

- You should be receptive to criticism, and open to suggestions

- Networking is an important strategy for success

Job types:

A small studio:

- you can get a lot of experience out of a smaller studio

- there isn't much opportunity for "moving up the ladder"

- there is a limited budget at a small studio, limited what you can do for your clients, your wage

An Angency:

- there are a lot of opportunities to get promoted

- you will be taken advantage of in terms of hours, workload, end up sleeping under your desk

Freelance:

- you have a lot of freedom, can set your own schedule, your own wage

Contact

Studio Vitamin C

376 Bathhurst Street

Toronto, ON. M5T 2S6

Genco 416.388.8849

genco@studiovitaminc.com

Jon 416.824.0328

jon@studiovitaminc.com

Meg Kerr - Mozaic

Meg Kerr is a Social Media Integration Manager at Mosaic Experiential Marketing. Before coming to Mosaic, Meg Kerr studied Media, Information & Technoculture and Broadcast Journalism. You can contact her through LinkedIn, or you can follow her on Twitter: @meg_kerr.

It was great to have Meg in, to address the growing role social networks now play in our field.

What is Social Media?

"Social media is like teen sex: everyone wants to do it, no one knows how, and when they finally do it, they're surprised it's not better"

Meg Kerr gets a lot of requests from big brands who want to "to do social media". They are trying to jump in head first without deciding what their objective is. First a brand needs to decide what they need, and then discover how to get there, and it is not always through social media.

Social media = networks that make and share content really easily online.

Social media is here to stay, and it's fundamentally shifted the way people talk to each other, and that's why marketers are so interested in accessing that space.

Trends

1) Realtime + mobile devices

Technology that allows people to share information in realtime from anywhere is very powerful. This refers to smart phones and computers, etc. The velocity and volume at which information is shared will continue to accelerate.

Nearly 1/3 of Canadians own a Smart Phone. More people will soon be accessing the internet on their phones than on their laptops, which will have a huge effect on advertising.

Twitter is such a game changer because now news organization can never truly be the first to break a story. When news happens, people can turn to twitter first for first-hand accounts, photographs and videos. These sources are becoming much faster than traditional sources of media.

Example: When Tiger Woods crashed his car, within 15 minutes on twitter we knew details about the crash, 45 minutes before the news broke the story.

2) Location-based services and Geo-tagging.

Instead of telling your friends where you are, location-based services like four-square and yelp update your location for you. Some of these networks are easily integrated with your other social media sites.

Four-square: works by checking in locations via your phone. There is also a function on four-square where you can offer reviews on businesses for your friends. Four-Square has now layered on the ability for venues to offer deals via their site. There are now 15 million users on four-square.

3) Privacy

The industry perspective: If a site allows members to keep too much of their info private, that will effect what kind of information the site can sell, and therefore revenue.

There is risk involved in your information not being private enough. It was a great reminder for Meg to show us the news report about a family's tweet that led to their house being burglarized while they were away.

See a related news clip here

There is also risk that your information posted on social networks is searchable by anyone, and as we are all by now aware, could lead to repercussions.

Please Rob Me: A site that tells the world when you're not home by scanning twitter and facebook for posts about when you aren't home.

Privacy issues have always been a concern, but now that location is involved it is even more of an issue.

4) Social Media becoming less social

Mass networks fill up with "noise" and become cluttered, and now youths are seeking out more exclusive niche markets. Twitter and Facebook contain a mass amount of information, and it is difficult to cut through all of the clutter. Now social networks are moving away from inclusiveness. Example: you can create lists of what people you want to see what information online.

Now there are invitation-only social networks specific to interests. There are even sites where you are required to submit a resume to join. Online users are becoming overwhelmed, and wanting to segment their lives, and only see information that they are really interested in. Meg thinks we'll be seeing more and more of this.

The web 2.0 suicide machine:

A tongue-in-cheek social commentary about the amount of time we invest in social networking sites. This website will permanently erase your social networking sites upon request. This is a service that deletes your digital life.

The Athletic Therapy Centre

Our session at the Athletic Therapy Centre fulfilled the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities requirement that all programs provide students with Health and Safety training.

Beginning at 11am, we rotated through exercise stations and getting our personal assessments.

Those of us who had injuries and concerns had priority one-on-one appointments with a 3rd year

athletic therapy student. We were also led through different exercises to help us prevent further injuries as a result of our work in web design.

Common Signs and Symptoms to watch for include:

- tightness and ache in forearms

-tightness/knots in shoulders and neck

-tension headaches

-tingling and or numbness either intermittent or prolonged

-pain that can not be relieved with stretching

- decreased range of motion in neck, shoulders, wrists, lower back

almost all of these injuries are caused by changes in posture, and before the symptoms are too great, taking action is required.

How to Prevent Injury

Stretching is important, and it is recommended that we break for 5-10 minutes every hour we spend at a workstation.

We should vary our work tasks so that we can change body position. On our break we should try to move around, relax our muscles and change positions.

Some great stretch to do on your work break:

1. Shoulder roll: Slowly roll your shoulders backward five times in a circulra motion. Next, roll your shoulders forwards.

2. Back/side stretch: Interlace your fingers and lift your arms over your head, keeping the elbows straight. Press arms as far back as you can. To stretch your sides, slowly lean to the left and then to the right.

3. Back curl: Grasp your shin. Lift the leg off the floor. Bend forward (curling your back), and reach your nose to your knee. Repeat with the other leg.

4. Ankle and Flex Stretch: Hold one foot off the floor with your leg straight. Alternately flex your ankle (point your toes up) and extend (point your toes down). Repeat with the other leg.

My Experience

(photo by derek Woolam)

I had a wonderful time. I have since started using the stretches we learned on my breaks at home and I've realized how easy it is to ignore your body and the consequences of doing this over a long period of time. At the centre the student working with me addressed my neck and back pain (the result of bad posture and uncomfortable working positions). She worked on a knot at the base of my neck and it felt great, but I need to work on my posture and sitting position while working.

For more information about available athletic therapy sessions at the Athletic Therapy Centre, please click here.

Jason Bouwman, Compass Creative

Jason Bouwman

Jason Bouwman is a Sheridan Grad from the

Illustration program in 1994. He owns and operates a small design

firm called Compass Creative in Burlington, Ontario. You can contact him through Linkedin. You can also find him on Twitter.

Where Jason Started out

-He was an illustration student at Sheridan. He started out taking the technical illustration class, and this was something very different from the rest of his blue-collar family. For him to go into the arts was something quite unique.

- He knew he had a talent and a passion for the arts.

- He had always had a business mentality, a pragmatism, and at a young age was concerned with the idea of making a living. When he looked at his career, at the back of his mind there was a responsibility to turn this into a business.

- At first he went into industrial design, simply because he though there was a market for that.

- After a year of Industrial design he was unhappy and failed. He planned to go into business, but his friends encouraged him to go into illustration.

- At the time he was making these decisions to try and balance what he wanted to do with being ucccessful.

During School

- He didn't get as caught up with passing classes as with building a strong portfolio

- He looked for opportunities with classes to build his portfolio and in second year he began calling up companies promoting himself. This is how he landed his first job.

- He studied technical illustration in the hopes of the job market being strong there.

- At this point computers were not being used. When he started looking for work it became apparent computer skills would be apparent.

His First Job

- Howard Marketing and Communications was his first job

- "it was simply a job"

- He said he could do some things he had no idea how to use. He had to learn very rapidly and stressful, but sometimes in business you have to fake it till you make it.

- he was straight with his employer that he didn't want to stay there.

The Origins of His ambition for his own Company

- It comes from his family background, his brother and father both own their own businesses.

- Their family were immigrants, very responsible, very self-sufficient. Had to be strong enough to make a new life here.

- In his family there is this built in "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" mentality.

- he had always had it in his head that he could do his own thing.

- Jason was stuck with a talent that he thought he had to use. But he didn't want to have to live in the big city in order to do what he loved. He was a small-town guy, and he wasn't a "schmoozer". It just wasn't him. He is a hopeless introvert.

- He brought in a consultant to ask what he was doing wrong, and the consultant told him he was very introverted.

- He can't be outgoing all day and every day, it will just tap his energy.

- Starting his own business was what he envisioned for his own future.

- "do an honest day's work, get a good job, get through life".

Leaving Howard

- "I've done a lot of things very intuitively"

- He made a lot of decisions rather intuitively.

- when he walked into Howard he Knew he was going to leave there one day.

- He told them that his goal was to be there for two or three years and move on. He was taken on as a freelancer. He worked long hours to accumulate funds for his planned future.

- He was so respected at his work that his employer gave him the keys to Howard in order to do his own freelance work there.

- He ended up staying there longer than two years and all the while he was doing things at nights.

- He cold-called companies that might need an illustrator. He still fancied the idea that he could become an illustrator.

- He thought maybe he could set up in Burlington and find a number of agencies to work for.

- There was a point in his life that he knew if he was going to jump, he had to jump then.

- one day he left Howard and started on his own.

Starting up his own business

- He converted the basement of his house into his own studio.

- He often had days he wasn't working, and would call up his brothers to do some construction work.

- A few years passed. He was working as an illustrator.

- But he wondered: after 20 years and I still going to be sitting down here? Twenty years by myself in a basement...I don't think that's going to do...

- When he looked at his business - there's only so many hours in a day. What he was selling was time. He realized he had to charge more per hour, it was his only way to get more money. and The only way to charge more per hour...

Discovering strengths to grow his Company

- What he decided to do: He decided to grow, hire somebody. He was going to try it. He knew he didn't want to stay in his basement too much longer and maybe now it was the time to grow.

- He went out and rented a space, and hired someone.

- Before he hired someone he asked why his clients hired him: they said he really listens, he's very concise and he creates solutions that a right for them.

- It wasn't about him, it was about his clients. He was almost like a translator for the story they needed to tell.

- It wasn't about him, and he needed to learn how they were so he started asking lots of questions.

- ever since then his company has been pushing that value in their work. Insight before website.

- People don't want websites. What they want is dollars. Sales.

- we tell our clients: they don't owe you money. You need to give them a story. and to know the story you need to know your market. and Prior to that you have to have a mission, and know why you exist in the first place. You need to delve into why they exist and what they are trying to do.

- figure out how you're going to change the world, then brand.

- visual elements all just individual pieces that need to support a core idea.

Compass Creative today

- works for a large number of small to intermediate sized companies

- we build websites based on insight and market reality. We reflect who they are and not who we are.

- a website on it's own doesn't help, it's about creating the right experience.

- His company has experience organic growth by word of mouth, and growing with their clients.

- They narrow down what they do now. They have figured out what they do and what they are good at. They need to keep finding new clients who are at that place.

How does Compass Creative Hire and what is the structure?

- In a typical firm there's probably about 30 different roles you can put a title to, and there are only 6 people in the team.

- He kept hiring designers, but then he has no visionaries and managers.

- They worked with a consultant, and just like a coach to a sports team they could see the big picture.

- It's about delegating the right share of responsibilities.

- Jason works on finances, sales, networking, marketing. He is also the chief creative director, responsible for the quality of work going out.

- his decision to embrace the web with his business was a struggle, but he did some hiring to develop that aspect of his business

- team also includes designer/photographer, web programmers, web designer, administrative assistant.

- One of his goals in life is to create a great place of Employment. He cares about the people he hires, because we spend the bulk of our life at work. We need to spend most of our life with people we don't care about to support the people we do care about. Make the place you work comfortable. Make it sociable, make it attractive. If people enjoy their work, they do better work and they tend not to leave.

-They pay a little bit more. They ask what they are looking for, judge their skills and make sure they have a good fit with the culture.

The Design Process at Compass Creative

- initial group brainstorming

- then separation into groups and individuals based on responsibility

- they push to put out the best product they can, but value is defined by the constraints you are under

- you create the best value you can working with the time and money you have

Working in a Creative field

- He started his business for very selfish reasons

- There was nothing in there about the customer, it was all about him, and he had to learn that it wasn't about him.

- What need am I fulfilling, how do I differentiate myself? This is ongoing. This is something you have to continually re-invent over and over again.

- creative people love what they do and are passionate about what they do, but they make a lot of poor choices to protect their ability to do that. You are going to have a wildly imbalanced life if you are going to protect your ability to do what you love to do.

- You get abused, you work 18 hours a day for nothing but you continue to do it because you are doing what you love.

- hard work is only hard when you aren't appreciated and it doesn't feel meaningful

References

Book: First Things First"

(how to break your life and your work into priorities)

- this book is about identifying the important things in your life, and how to live your life by as compass as opposed to a clock.

Book: "Things I wish I knew when I was 20"

Words of Wisdom

- figure out what's really important and live your life with those things in priority.

- what are the most important things to you? live your life by a compass and not a clock.

- We need to spend most of our life with people we don't care about to support the people we do care about. Make the place you work comfortable.

- hard work is only hard when you aren't appreciated and it doesn't feel meaningful