Marketing Concepts Over Breakfast or My Favorite Morning Reads

Each morning, my boys and I sit at the breakfast table and talk about the coming day (if I have had enough coffee) or listen to the latest tunes my eight year old had found on iTunes (if I have had enough coffee). My wife leaves earlier than we do so we have the house to our selves.

While waiting for the school bus, I surf through a variety of blogs to help spark my brain and maybe give me inspiration for the day.

Here are a few favorites of mine:

www.sinfest.net No, it isn't dirty. It is Tatsuya Ishida's cartoon about pop culture. It is an easy read and helps me get started.

http://www.pvponline.com/ Another web cartoon that features characters about my age (or so I imagine). One of them is a mac-lovin', slacker type. Another is a troll.

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/ If you don't know who Seth Godin is, then you probably don't do much marketing. Love or hate his ideas, they certainly can make you think. And, he is not shy about sharing ideas.

http://blog.guykawasaki.com/ As a mac guy, how could I not like Guy. As a student of marketing, he is a must read. Think different, Dude.

Advertising/Design Goodness Sort of a Lurzner's Archive for the internet. Inspiration and clever advertising.

Heartstorming Ian Summer's blog about creativity. What Seth and Guy do for (to) me with marketing, Ian does with creativity.

The image above is a sandwich of two images I captured in New Hampshire. The poster was created for a software company working on a virtual racing simulator. The marketing director really liked the image but the powers that be went in a different direction, orphaning the project.

Ah, well.

Happy New Year!

Okay, so this is the last time we procrastinate our holiday card! Still, you get a whole year to do thank you cards after a wedding. So...?

Big doings in the works for this year. New Years Resolutions include things like updated goals, better planning, less procrastinating, new personal photography projects to keep me fresh for the all important client shoots.

Also, contacting old clients that I might have lost touch with and suggesting projects to my favorite collaborators.

Plus, finish building the new office, look for bigger photo studio space and spend time with the family.

Gonna be a fun year for commercial photography. Hope you can join me!

The picture above was done in the studio. The background was added after.

Posters and Composites

One of my constant inspirations is the art of the movie poster. Where else does the art of compositing come together to express the idea of a two hour span of time? It makes heros and villans larger than life. It conveys the central theme and drama (or comedy or whatever) to an audience through the common visual language. It is a dialog that happens in one composition.

For a while now, I have been exploring this art with a local community theater. (Yes, the same one that I just completed a 31 portrait series of its members. You can still order the book by clicking the link to the right.)

Once again, I was able to team up with Kristin MacDougall, on of the fine producers at the Footlight Club, and we brainstormed a poster design for Vampire Lesbians of Sodom and Sleeping Beauty or Coma, two Charles Busch plays.

Principle photography took place over a few short hours, photographing the available actors, in costume, on a white background. Compositing and final design, however, took around 6 hours to put together the poster and banner to advertise the show.


This makes my sixth poster series for the club and I look forward to our next project together!