For such a beautiful, well-made film, I hated every second of Valley Uprising. There’s no question I have a near-paralyzing fear of heights, but watching people like Alex Honnold (pictured above) scale a 3,000-foot sheer rock face with nothing more than ballet shoes and talcum powder made my stomach turn over endlessly. Did I forget to mention they don’t use ropes or other safety measures? Ummmm, no thanks. Not today, tomorrow, or any other I still have left here on terra firma.
agency: Bravo Echo
creative direction: Olaf Richter
design: Pete Alwan
Just finished some banners to promote the Little Nell Hotel’s fly fishing program. I haven’t experienced it, but apparently they do everything for you except put the fly in the fish’s mouth. You can even choose to have a white table cloth lunch with wine pairings. What would Grizzly Adams think? Ha.
agency: in-house
creative direction: Jeremy Lacroix, Nicole Chiala
design: Nicole Chiala, Cameron Gallacher
Planning and producing a magazine can be quite messy when using a range of tools (email, Dropbox, Slack, etc.). There winds up being a lot of lag and confusion in the movement of assets and tracking of updates and approvals. For those looking to whip their workflow into shape, issuu has the perfect solution — issuu Collaborate. It allows an unlimited number of collaborators to work together on all aspects of the planning and production of the magazine from one central hub.
agency: in-house
creative direction: Jeremy Lacroix, Nicole Chiala
design: Nicole Chiala
There are more than 26 million free-to-read publications on issuu. In order to showcase the breadth of content found within this extensive collection, several “segment” campaigns are currently in the works. The first, Generators, focuses on a group of sensational young publishers producing high-quality magazines around fashion, art, music and design. Before the campaign launched, we invited six of these Generators to Hacienda issuu in San Francisco’s Mission district for an incredible weekend that was part conference, part workshop and part inspiration fest. We promoted the Generators campaign on issuu.com, issuu’s social channels and via an email newsletter.
agency: Bravo Echo
creative direction: Olaf Richter, Graham Button
design: Pete Alwan
Luxury without a single nose in the air. That’s what you get when you stay at The Limelight Hotel in Aspen. It’s not exactly cheap, but what it offers in terms of community and focus on getting you outside to play is what makes it worth the higher price tag. We wanted the 140+ page site to feel as exciting as the hotel’s lounge.
agency: in-house
creative direction: Jeremy Lacroix
design: Rachel Rochelle
For anyone seeking digital distribution of their magazine, issuu makes it painfully easy. Simply upload a PDF of your publication and it will be presented in a beautiful online reader for a worldwide audience to enjoy. Of course, with more than 26 million free-to-read publications on issuu, occasionally something in the system will go awry. Rather than create a typical 404 page, we took it in a direction that issuu’s audience would connect with immediately.
Really? Your Prius is spitting out slightly less greenhouse gas than my 1989 Jeep Cherokee, so you get to streamline your visit to the bank? Considering the environmental cost of producing your little hybrid, buying a car like yours is actually worse for the environment than buying a non-gas guzzling used car. Anyway, it’s pretty easy to disregard signs like these, because despite the occasional dirty look, they are simply unregulated attempts by businesses to make Boulderites feel even more special than they already do.
agency: in-house
creative direction: Jeremy Lacroix, Nicole Chiala
design: Nicole Chiala
Magazine publishers looking to distribute their publications digitally find the biggest worldwide audience using issuu. Although the basic plan is free, a paid subscription provides a wealth of benefits to publishers wanting to monetize their publications. This ongoing series highlights a few issuu success stories as a way to help those publishers on the fence see the true value of upgrading.
agency: gyro, Inc.
creative direction: Aaron Stern
For some reason, the people at Johns Manville weren’t into my idea of using Andrew Dice Clay to help make them stand out in the building materials category. They assured me those who were interested in Johns Manville insulation, roofing systems, HVAC products and fiberglass already knew JM was the best, and really got excited about all dry technical stuff. In other words, no foul-mouthed comics necessary. Who was I to argue, and so began my 5-month education on the world of JM building materials. All told, the finished site included over 150 pages.
agency: in-house
creative direction: Jeremy Lacroix
design: Rachel Rochelle
No matter what type of magazine or other publication you produce, issuu will publish it on their site in a beautiful reader for a worldwide audience to enjoy. You also have the option of embedding it on your own site or blog, sharing it on any of your social channels or printing it to distribute traditionally. Currently, there are over 26 million free-to-read publications available on issuu. This was a down-and-dirty brand campaign to attract new publishers.
agency: rabble+rouser
creative direction: Christina Schroeder
art direction: Matthew Sharpe
Weber grills are built like tanks. They don’t rust. They cook food evenly. And they last forever. Thankfully, we didn’t have to talk about any of that stuff because quality and durability are already built into the Weber name. We simply had to remind people what makes grilling season so great. These are anything but serious times…
agency: Genesis, Inc.
creative direction: Graham Button
design: Janet Johnson
For one of the nicest hotels in Aspen, The Little Nell’s website was one of the worst. Haha, okay maybe it wasn’t that bad, but it definitely needed a refresh to better reflect what level of service the hotel offered. In total, the site needed around 140 pages written.
agency: EMEHT.
creative direction: John Lee, Jiae Kim
design: Nicholas Skyles, Melissa Jun
Sit down with the founder of KIND Snacks and you’ll hear the word “and” a lot. He believes there’s no reason his snacks can’t be both healthy and tasty. This brAND philosophy gave KIND a unique position in the market, which is summed up in their lengthy tagline: Do the KIND thing for your body, your tastebuds & your world. The more we learned about the company, they more realized what they were doing was “kinda awesome,” and just like that #kindawesome was born. The campaign, in conjunction with the brand refresh, contributed to the doubling of KIND’s business in one year, from $200M to $400M.
agency: Genesis, Inc.
creative direction/art direction: Olaf Richter
When Merrell Footwear came looking for a new ad agency, they didn’t have much of a problem. They owned fit and comfort. They had incredible distribution. Their growth was remarkable. What they didn’t have was the attention of Millennials. Standing out in a sea of sameness within the category would be easy. Finding the right connective tissue with this audience became the true challenge. We did so by recognizing a universal truth: as humans, we are never more free than when we are outside. And at no other time in our lives are we outside more than during childhood. It was a time of innocence and wonder. Of fearlessness and endless adventure. And more than anything, pure joy. Our message to this generation became: to live life meaningfully today, let out the child trapped inside.
agency: emeht
creative direction: John Lee, Jiae Kim
animation: Laundry
I’ve been an Adidas fan as long as I can remember, but you gotta give it to Nike for their ridiculously-innovative ways. This project launched right at the beginning of the whole basket-weave fad, which it turns out was much more than a fad. Flyknit is definitely the new standard in athletic shoe comfort. That said, you can guarantee those in Beaverton are busy coming up with the next big thing. Stay tuned…
agency: Genesis, Inc.
creative direction/art direction: Olaf Richter
No other bicycle component manufacturer has impacted the industry quite like Shimano. Although footwear isn’t technically a component, its connection to the bike’s powertrain can’t be understated. Shimano redefined the the shoe-to-pedal interface with the introduction of SPD back in 1990. Since then, delivering footwear with the same level of innovation, material selection and flawless functionality as every other Shimano product has remained a top priority. As more and more footwear competitors entered the market, it was our job to make sure both consumers and dealers saw Shimano footwear as one more essential component on the bicycle.
agency: Ogilvy & Mather
creative direction: Vicky Azarian/Chris Lindau
art direction: Gina Whitt
Have you heard? Small to midsize businesses are the engines of a smarter planet. Sounds believable enough, right? Well, it was our job to convince SMBs they should fork over a chunk of change to IBM to make their business run smarter. Using current IBM customers, we created a series of animated videos to help tell these companies’ stories. The videos lived on the main SMB landing page, which also included games visitors could engage with while imagining all that IBM could do for them.
agency: Genesis, Inc.
creative direction/art direction: Olaf Richter
They should rename the athletic shoe business the athletic shoe “claims” business. If you aren’t trying to convince people your shoes are built in some special way that will practically take all the work out of running, well then, you just aren’t going to sell many shoes. Imagine our surprise when Pearl Izumi came along and had actual scientific proof that their new midsole design indeed provided a more efficient run. At that point, we just had to piss off dog lovers and make a small child cry.
agency: McClain Finlon
creative direction: Mike Weed
art direction: Joel Barnard
If there’s one thing you can say about JTC Engineering, it’s that they know how to get things done. Our task was to highlight some of their best work in a fun and interesting way. You know, pretty much the exact opposite of what you’d expect from an engineering firm.
agency: Ogilvy & Mather
creative direction: Vicky Azarian/Chris Lindau
art direction: Gina Whitt
photography/illustration: Heimo
I had long appreciated how smart the current IBM work was, which I was able to experience directly during my time at Ogilvy. This campaign was obviously a little different than most of the other work that was being done, but the overall “Smarter Planet” campaign’s visual interest translated nicely here via the work of Heimo.
agency: Lowe & Partners
creative direction: Vince Engel
art direction: Thomas Richie
It was a tough time to be working on Eddie Bauer. They were in the midst of trying to shed their outdoor-enthusiast reputation and become a “fashion” brand targeting city dwellers, poorly. Thankfully, this project grounded in pure inspiration landed on our desks. John Ryan is a stud, plain and simple. A paraplegic, he hand cycled across the length of Canada to raise money for spinal cord regeneration research.
agency: Digitas
creative direction: Kim Snow
art direction: Tony Larsen
The AMEX spg. (Starwood Preferred Guest) card is all about earning hotel points that can be used at Starwood properties all around the world. In fact, it’s so generous, you can earn a three-night stay after your first purchase. Somewhere around the third day of beating our heads against the wall, we came up with this simple visual solution of using the AMEX card as a hotel key. File under: painfully obvious.
agency: Dimassimo
creative direction: Mark Dimassimo
art direction: Jon Rosen
A series of print ads used whenever Crunch Gym needed to announce the opening of a new location. Crunch was a great client that understood how to get a lot of attention with a very limited budget. As much as they let us push the envelope, we were still amazed at how quickly they bought off on our idea of “virgin equipment” enticing people to come take a ride.
