The Art Institute

Adventures in Art Classes

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Jelly Belly Ad Campaign

Advertising class project number 3: (you can see the photo shoot on a previous post)

Working on the premise that Jelly Belly gourmet beans are special (Ronald Reagan was never without them!), I wanted my campaign to be about creating or evoking memories and being a part of long term relationships.

I featured their Cold Stone Creamery (ice cream) flavors because of their nostalgic coloring.

Tagline: The Taste of Memories

Following are pages from my formal presentation of 5 different ads for the campaign:

1. Magazine Print Ad – 2 children building memories

2: Billboard – evoking a nostalgic memory and indicating that Jelly Belly Jelly Beans have longevity and are still fun as adults.

3: A quilt show sponsorship by Jelly Bellys. This would be their candy sales counter at the show and the quilt with candy on it would be inside the glass counter. It was challenging to show that.

(Note – this is a quilt I made and gave to a friend of mine a few years ago for her birthday. It seemed perfect for this and she allowed me to spill candy on it.)

4. Direct Marketing print piece advertising the quilt show.

#5. Another event sponsorship.


Hope you enjoyed these as much as I enjoyed the research!

Feel free to vote! I like feedback!

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Conceptual Illustration: Some have the courage…

Conceptual Illustration

My goal with the second illustration was to go for a simpler form. I chose to do a line drawing with minimal color, which is not my usual style.

Process:

  • research art precedents
  • brainstorm words that describe the concepts in the chapter we were illustrating
  • choose a concept and brainstorm images that would best illustrate the idea
  • draw concept sketches
  • choose one and thumbnail
  • get a roommate to pose for me for reference photos
  • (get feedback from class and teacher and start all over again)
  • complete the final piece on bristol board with ink and watercolor

M. Scott Peck – The Road Less Traveled

Illustration of chapter 1: Discipline

“Life is a series of problems. Do we want to moan about them or solve them?”

Some have the courage…

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Portfolio Prep Plan

The Portfolio Prep class is my most active, yet the things that I am doing are not “beautiful”. This quarter Zeb Wood was teaching it for the first time to his group of animation students. I asked to be in his class because I suspected he was going to be good (he is a founder of Indiana Uploaded.) I am not disappointed!!! He has me working my tail off, but with my consent and cooperation.

Zeb works with the individual students to set their personal goals for the class. My plan took a two pronged approach:

  1. Prep for graduate school
  2. Portfolio/resume preparation

The list of things to accomplish in 11 weeks is daunting, but I set up a Work Breakdown Structure and am plowing through it. Here is a visual… there are even more items to accomplish after the quarter is over, including designing and setting up a web site. Aiy aiy aiy!

So far, as of mid-quarter I have accomplished the following and more:

  1. Identified schools/programs I am planning to apply to and started the process of collecting information (letters of recommendation etc.) for applications.
  2. Written a 6 pg CV (long version of my resume) as well as a cleaned up short resume.
  3. Named my business, designed a business card to be sent to the printer this week, and purchased the domain name and hosting from godaddy.com.
  4. Put together a rough and ready version of my portfolio.

AND,  job opportunities began popping up this past week (thus the need for a rough and ready version of my portfolio.) My internship will be ending and I would like to try my hand at something else, so it is fun to have the energy flowing before I am even ready!

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Jelly Belly Photo Shoot

Our 3rd project in Advertising was chocolate. And not just any chocolate… our favorite chocolate!

Anyone who knows me or is following my blog will know that I can not eat chocolate for health reasons *insert sad face here*.

Assignment: 25 points – Buy your favorite chocolate candy and spend some time with it. Really experience it, then bring it in to share.  Write a creative brief and begin developing a campaign surrounding this wonderful candy.

This posed a problem for me. I had been craving chocolate for weeks and knew for certain that I would not be able  to immerse myself in it for 3 weeks without tasting it! After some consultation with the teacher she agreed to allow me to use jelly beans (some are chocolate- so that should count, right?) Jelly beans are no threat, but I could give them to my nieces and nephews and live vicariously through their experience! (By the end, I was having a hard time resisting their temptation, though!)

Thus… the Great Jelly Belly Event was scheduled! One Sunday afternoon I turned the kids loose on a bowl of the Cold Stone Creamery Jelly Bellys while I held the camera. It was chaotic and quite entertaining. Maybe not the most scientific photo shoot, but very immersing.

Call it research, call it a photo shoot, call it “Aunt Sheri is the bestest Aunt ever”… I called it fun and then titled it “homework”!

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Catchin’ the Breeze

Our first illustration challenge was to create a cd cover. I chose a song that has been the embodiment of my return to college and move towards the lifestyle I want  – no, not sailing and ocean cruising… following my heart and living in joy!

I chose an almost monochromatic theme and focused on the sun as a symbol of the hope and promise ahead… “as you walk into the light….” The main stanzas are below the photo.

Technique is watercolor and ink on illustration board.

The process was to collect photo references and work from those. I chose a photo from the trip to the Keys that had a boat on the water; however, I wanted a photo of a sailboat with the sail unfurled, so that Saturday a friend and I headed to Geist Lake and lucked out! The sailing club had a class in session and using a zoom lens I shot photos to my heart’s content!

Catchin' the Breeze

I created a youtube video of the actual song set to the photos of our dolphin swim for the nieces and nephews, so excuse that personalization. However, this is the specific song for anyone wishing to hear it – Eden’s Bridge: Catching the Breeze .

Catching the breeze
Sailing away and traveling
The seven seas
Open your door and
Step out and catch the breeze

The journey is long
But one step is all that it takes
To start
So lift up your eyes and
Pack up your courage and fill
Your heart

The horizon is distant
The sun is so bright
And the city is fading
As you walk out into the light

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Advertising Cup Noodles

Assignment 2 was to create an advertising campaign for Nissan’s Ramen Cup Noodles to college students. (An interesting note is that these were invented to feed the masses inexpensively after WWII.)

Using this brand, we explored a variety of tools for brainstorming and idea generating, sometimes in a team and sometimes alone. Then we each set up our own creative brief.

My one word for the product is “smart” – health commentaries not withstanding. Smart because it saves money, is quick and easy, can be eaten on the go, and the containers are recyclable.

We were then tasked with creating a tagline and carrying the big idea across the campaign with 3 different approaches.

The tagline I created was “Use your noodle” as a play off of the “smart” aspect.

  1. Print Ad is for a bus stop. I can see this one being changeable with all sorts of images of really stupid things that students do, but I was unable to find a high resolution image of something like students using skateboards incorrectly etc. so went with the head-bust image.
  2. Social Ad is for a Facebook contest calling for spontaneous photos of students NOT using their noodle.
  3. Guerrilla Advertising is trash cans around campus that look like the noodle containers.

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Still on Island Time

I can’t let go of my vacation just yet… from wearing colorful island clothing to using my photos in my homework. Below is the first ad submitted for my Advertising class. We had to write a heading and a tag line.

Heading: Your time. Our place.

Tagline: Hospitality made personal.

And incidentally, this photo was taken at the Marriott on Key Largo.


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Summer 2011 Break

How to take a summer break:

  • Interview during finals week and accept a job (to be an internship) to start in one week
  • Next have a major tooth extraction
  • Add a very sweet new niece, Shalome!
  • Work frantically on a client project
  • Start a new job
  • Try to get an insane amount of things caught up during the days not working
  • Go on a 4 day vacation to the Keys before school starts again… oh yeah!

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Celebration!

What a quarter! And what an end to the quarter!

Saturday of the last week of school as I was still reeling with the relief of no classwork, Theresa and my brother, Stephen, added the 19th grandbaby to our family.

Sweet Shalome gave my heart a healing balm. I look forward to many Sundays ahead, rocking her and bonding with her as I have done many before her. Such a precious gift! Such a joy! Such a blessing to our family.

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Loss, Sorrow, and Renewed Hope

This was the quarter that stretched my emotions in all directions.

From the beginning, allergies hit quickly and very hard, causing some scary moments. The remainder of the quarter was spent identifying and clearing my system of these sensitivities. Evening classes were the most challenging, specifically in a classroom that was stuffy hot with little circulation.

A few weeks into the quarter I was diagnosed with a wheat sensitivity (gluten / gliadin), which contributes to the multiple sensitivities that I have been battling. This upended my eating schedule as we also began a candida cleanse in order to calm my over-reactive immune system. By the end of the quarter, I was getting into the routine, but it was quite the struggle. Lainey and Charlotte stepped up and helped in so many ways that made it possible to stay on such a strict diet while attending school and concentrating on homework.

As if that were not enough, my beloved companion and sweet, sweet kitty became sick one night. The next day she was diagnosed with acute kidney failure and she had to be put down right then to end her suffering. Outside of the loss of friend or family member, this was the hardest loss I have ever experienced. The fact that it was so sudden (she was only 14 years old and seemed quite healthy), added to my stress.

This quarter definitely goes down as my most difficult on an emotional level. The renewal of hope is that all this dietary work will end in a lessening of the sensitivities and better health all around.