Welcome to Ad2Roanoke’s first installment of “Career ADvice from…” a series of enlightening interviews with local (and not-so-local) creative professionals.

Our questionnaire was written in order to get helpful information for the big questions we all have as students and young professionals in the advertising industry. Hopefully, you’ll learn a bit more about what to do after graduating, what you can expect from your first job and get a personal look into the minds of some seasoned professionals. You’ll definitely want to come back and check out advice installments from art directors, interactive designers, copywriters, photographers, more creative directors and even a celebrity or two!

With that said, we’re kicking off the first edition with the big wigs, the masterminds behind most of the work that gets out of the door and, you’ll read, the people you’ll be getting coffee for your first six months: the Creative Directors.

In this article:

Tony PearmanJohn GreissmayerChris Henson

Tony Pearman
Chief Creative Officer
Access Advertising & PR

Credentials: BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University with an emphasis in Graphic Design.

How did you get your start in advertising?
Had a wonderful high school art teacher that directed and guided me toward VCU and what she called “commercial art”. She was a blessing.

What are the best and worst parts about your job?
Best? Clients. They inspire me, give me opportunity, pay me, trust me to represent them. Without clients none of it is possible or matters.
Worst? Clients. They hinder, inhibit and at times prevent the realization of great ideas. But, in their defense, it is their money.

What inspires you?
My local competitors. The other agencies (large and small) that I read about online and in publications. ADDYs. My peers at work. Movies, books, graffiti artists, furniture designers.

Who would you work with on your dream collaboration?
Banksy or Quentin Tarantino. Or both.

Name an advertising trend that drives you crazy.
The belief that every client should be on facebook. iStock.

Best ad campaign you’ve seen recently?
1. Obama’s Presidential Campaign 2. CumminsNitro Brisbane for ‘The Best Job in the World’ 3. BooneOakley’s website.

You’ve just completed school with an advertising degree. What is your next move?
1. Research your butt off about a city you either want or need to live in. Go there, what ever it takes. 2. Find the best firm in that town that fits your idea of what a great ad agency or design firm is supposed to be. 3. Work for them, at any cost, for free, as an intern, do whatever it takes. Get a job that sucks to pay the bills and keep trying till you get in that agency. The struggle and the heartache will be worth the lessons and the opportunities and growth a good agency offers a young designer. In twenty years you won’t remember that they didn’t pay you enough. Or that the hours sucked. Or if our apartment had roaches the size of Volkswagens. Or you missed your Mom or that guy or girl you ended up breaking up with anyway after they cheated on you. All you will remember is what you learned and how you grew.

What kinds of experience do you look for from college graduates?
In what ways can they give themselves the edge? 1. Conceptual thinking and problem solving. 2. Perfect craft. 3. Experience (as an intern ideally).

Similarly, what skill sets/experiences are necessary in an entry-level creative?
Basic software and Mac skill sets, including InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, etc. Any web capability. Again, great craft.

Briefly describe the content and size of the ideal portfolio for a designer?
No larger than 16×20. Ideally more like 11×14. 8-12 great pieces.

What kinds of starting salaries can one expect as a designer?
Depends on the firm and the town. In Roanoke? $25,000 to $35,000 depending upon talent.

Who would win in a fight: Lee Clow or Don Draper?
Lee Clow is arguably one of the greatest advertising minds in history. Draper could not carry Clow’s jock strap.

Please number from 1-6 the following, in order of least sexy to sexiest advertising profession (1 = you’d rather clean toilets, 6 = living the dream):
Creative Director – 6
Designer – 5
Photographer – 4
Web Designer – 3
Copywriter – 4
Account Executive – 1 (no offense, it’s just not what I aspire to be)

More from:

John GreissmayerChris Henson

]]> http://ad2roanoke.org/career-advice-from-creative-directors-pt-1/feed/ 1 http://ad2roanoke.org/looking-for-a-professional-mentor-ad2roanokes-got-you-covered/ http://ad2roanoke.org/looking-for-a-professional-mentor-ad2roanokes-got-you-covered/#comments Mon, 25 Jan 2010 18:15:35 +0000 Ariel Clark http://ad2roanoke.org/?p=494

"Telemachus, your margins are spot on, but you need to watch your kerning."

In February, Ad2Roanoke is kicking off the first year of its mentorship program, and we’re looking for students and fresh graduates who are interested in getting a head start in the advertising industry. We’ve hand-selected a talented group of local advertising veterans who are happy to serve as professional resources and cheerleaders. The participating experts range from the creative to the strategic, so regardless of whether you want to be a creative director or an account supervisor, we’ve got someone ready to give you some one-on-one career advice.

Eligible participants must be:

• Current or recently-graduated students in the advertising industry
• Available the evening of February 16th for the pairing event in Roanoke
• Accessible by email
• A current member of Ad2Roanoke

This is a great opportunity for those looking to get a leg up in the field, but seats are limited! If you’d like to attend, please send an email with your name, the name of your school, your (estimated) graduation year and where you’d like your career to take you, to ad2@ad2roanoke.org. We’ll be selecting participants first-come, first-served based on eligibility and professional goals, in order to find the best match, so feel free to elaborate on your professional plans. Event details to follow.

If you are not a member of Ad2Roanoke but wish to participate, you may join the club at http://ad2roanoke.org/membership/join/

Canabalt

Play online | Put it on your iPhone for $3

Canabalt really just needs to be experienced, but I’ll try and describe it anyway. Your city is being decimated, and you have to escape. See how far you can get as you bound your way to freedom in the parkour platformer. For a game that takes only one finger to play, I almost hate to admit how much time I’ve spent jumping from rooftop to rooftop, crashing through plate glass and scrambling to avoid the falling engines. Play this one with speakers up or headphones on.

Play more games by Adam Saltsman

More games after the jump.

Dino Run

Play online

Speaking of avoiding the doom in a panic, check out this slightly more colorful sidescroller. The guys from PixelJam know how to have fun with their games. Keep your raptor out of the wake of the death-bringing meteor impact. Keep your pace up by avoiding your fellow dinos and collect mysterious power-ups to help you along your way. Pick up lost eggs and be rewarded with point you can put towards performance upgrades. I give this one big points the drama in a very serene environment.

Play more games by PixelJam

Understanding Games / Black Forrest

Play Understanding Games online

As a theme for these Lunch Break Gaming articles, I hope I’ve encouraged you to take inspiration from your downtime. I’m a fan of how games, as a whole, work. Not so much the nuts and bolts, but what draws us to them, why we consider them “fun” and what makes them worth playing again and again. The episodic series of Understanding Games ask questions about learning in games and how we identify with computer generated characters while you interact with them. Join Bob and Bub as they break down the forth-wall and pull you into what makes a game successful.

Play The Black Forrest online

Also from Pixlate, a series of experimental mini-games presented with limited explanation and varying mechanics between them. Pilot your little ghost friend around these worlds and notice how your experience changes as the way the games are played changes.

Small Worlds

Play Small Worlds online

Lastly, and in the vein of experimental “art games”, try out Small Worlds. This entry into the Casual Gameplay Design Competition #6 by David Shute has become very popular with its simplistic style and worlds that make you want to explore every pixel in them, literally. Not bad for a game whose protagonist is only 3 points tall. This game adds a little extra texture, but that, along with the soundtrack, just helps you get wrapped up in poking around these little alternate dimensions.

For more pixel art games, try Nitrome, it’s their specialty. Share your own favorites in the comments.

Big thanks to John Park for starting us out. See these with captions on Flickr.

AD2 Roanoke and Steve FM present you with the solution to holiday stress, the 2009 Ugly Sweater Gala. Cover up the extra pounds from Thanksgiving with glitter and horizontal neon stripes. Have a Cosby-esque jello shot and soothe away the facial tics. Whatever you do, make sure you wear something that would make Aunt Ethel proud. We know you have one. Work it. Wear it.

The cover for this event is $10 or $5 with a donation of gently worn clothing that will go to the Rescue Mission. This fund-raising event is open to everyone.

RSVPs aren’t required, but let us know if your coming on Facebook.

Listen: Download audio file (Ugly-Sweater-Gala-09.mp3)

By this point in my education, I had been through all of one (1) class that even hinted at how I might get a portfolio online. I could build a web site, or at the very least modify a template, but beyond building the thing, I had no clue how to actually get it up and running. I also didn’t want to spend money on hosting space, although I did, eventually.

So, about 5 years later, thinking back on how big of a hassle that was I had one of those “if I knew then what I know now” moments. And with that moment came an idea for a professional-looking, low-cost portfolio website for those willing to invest the time. I’ll also share with you how to use it as a marketing tool and how to integrate some cool social media techniques. Let’s get started.

Building a website.

I’m going to go ahead a assume you’ve taken a class or poked around enough on the web to know how to build a website. If you really have no clue, keep reading, it’s easier than you think. If you are getting ready to graduate, you’ve probably even been assigned to build a portfolio site of some kind already. If you like what you have, you’ve got all the HTML written and images sized properly then you can just skip over this next section. For everyone else that’s had a rough time of this, try something like this:

Using Flickr or Picasa as a Content Management System.

This is really an article unto itself, but the idea here is simple. There are several Flash and javascript galleries that are available online that can pull the information out of a photo sharing site like Flickr into a script that will build a gallery for you. Google a few keywords like “Flash Flickr gallery” or “javascript Picasa gallery” and you’ll find “How-to” blogs that will give examples and go into more detail about how to install them into your site. Most of these are free to use, so don’t stop at the first one you come across if you see a price tag, just keep looking.

Most of what you’ll find is a bunch of code that links to other files you have to download, so just make sure you link properly. Then all you need to do is upload images to your Flickr account, tag with descriptions and publish. Then after you add your account name to your script, it will pull that information out of Flickr into the gallery on your site. Neat, huh?

Finding a domain name.

Next, you’re going to need a domain name. Try to find something short and catchy, like your name. No hyphens. Try really hard to shoot for a ‘.com’ extension, too. It’s a lot easier for people to remember when you slip it into conversations when you’re rubbing elbows at AD2 Roanoke events (wink, wink). You can go back to Google and search around for cheap domain name hosts. You should expect to pay about $10 with a trusted registrar. There are free solutions, but typically, you have to be listed as what looks like a sub-domain of another site (i.e. yourname.freehostingsite.com) and that just looks clunky.

Finding web hosting.

You’ve probably noticed that with some of these places, you can get ‘discounted web hosting’ or ‘free domain name with web hosting’ deals. If you find one of those that sounds too good to pass up, feel free to get on it. You’re looking to pay about $60 – $80. If you only want to pay half that, let AD2 Roanoke host your site for you.

AD2 Hosting.

We’re now offering to host your site for as low as $2 a month. There is a full list of features listed here. We recognize that for a few dollars more a month, you can have WAY more space, but unless you’re moving huge files or need the space for something else, you would just be wasting your money. For $2/month AD2 Roanoke members get 500Mb to play with. Plus, you help support AD2 Roanoke continue to offer more specials and events.

More to help you promote.

After you have made your big domain and hosting purchases, used the File Manager or FTP to upload your site from your local computer to the web host and you take the time to test that everything works, you’ll be up and running.

Congratulations, you have a website. Now what?

It’s time to promote. As you begin to look for a job or find freelance work, the website becomes your go-to 24/7 account executive. Invite people to view your work online by putting your URL on your business card along with your custom email address (one of the benefits of having your own domain). Remind people that you provide samples of your work “upon request or at my website” on your resume. Attach it alongside your Twitter account profile and in your Facebook info page. Use your Flickr RSS feed along with your blog RSS feed on your social media to keep people apprised of what you’ve done lately. Use Linked In to help you connect with the people you meet out at AD2 events. And, as a last piece of advice, as you go into the marketplace, be nice and be yourself. People appreciate sincerity and that will get people to come back for more.

All of this is just my suggestion to you. It’s not a proven method of getting you a job, but it will make you competitive as you and hundreds of other young professionals are vying for the same positions.

Here are some suggestions that I received…

How To Be a Graphic Designer Without Not Losing Your Soul – Adrian Shaughnessy http://bit.ly/1s46ko

Things I Have Learned in My Life So Far – Stefan Sagmeister http://bit.ly/pF5xx

100 Habits of Successful Graphic Designers – Josh Berger, Sarah Dougher http://bit.ly/279h8O

Hey Whipple, Squeeze This – Luke Sullivan http://bit.ly/sId7r

And David Ogilvy is so rockin’ awesome that these were suggested several times:

The King of Madison Avenue: David Ogilvy

Ogilvy On Advertising – David Ogilvy http://bit.ly/1eP8v0

Confessions of an Advertising Man – David Ogilvy http://bit.ly/1gjwgN

Also see, David Airey’s blog on his favorite book: http://www.davidairey.com/whats-your-favourite-graphic-design-book

(Sidenote: I apologize to Brad and Patrick, since they responded to my query and unfortunately your answers were lost by a work email change-over. Sorry!)