Another recent job opening, this time from our friends at Mitchell + Palmer:
We’re adding a Digital Designer to our creative team! If you are a doer, builder, and maker of all things digital with a portfolio to prove it, let’s talk. Here is a little more detail on exactly who we are looking for:
You’re a renaissance artist. A Swiss army knife. The mortar holding every creative team together. You can design, build, execute, output, wireframe, and maybe even tweak an occasional line of code. You understand the big idea and build to strategy in realizing the vision of the brand or campaign. You can take a single piece of creative, a look, an idea and build it out into a dozen new pieces, sizes, shapes and formats. You collaborate well with other creatives and take direction and input from other designers. You understand the basic tenets of digital, UI/UX, choosing the right dev platform, and can develop and drive a wireframe through to handoff of finished dev assets. You’re incredibly skilled and fearless in Adobe CS and constantly learning newer, better, smarter ways to work. You are fearless with digital thinking and you stay on top of what’s in, what’s out, what’s possible. You make mistakes and just own it. You appreciate process, but aren’t obsessed with it. If there’s a fire that needs putting out, you don’t add more fuel. You’re not into game playing (unless it’s pool, foosball, shuffleboard, darts, or an occasional evening of poker). You’re very good at what you do, but above all you’re a great human.
RESPONSIBLITIES:
Design and create digital assets for various brand & campaign deliverables, including display advertising, social content, web/mobile/app development, and related creative components.
Demonstrate a proficient graphic design acumen with a studied eye for composition, layout, color, typography and use of imagery.
Aid in all facets of digital front-end development, including wireframe, layout, asset creation, and template/platform integration.
Work closely with Art Directors and Creative Director to build out projects and campaign elements.
Ability to multitask and balance project workloads.
Ability to crossover into traditional/print work is a plus.
SKILLS + EXPERIENCE:
A Minimum of an associates (2 year) degree in advertising / communication design, or related discipline.
3+ years creative experience in a professional environment, preferably in an creative or marketing agency.
Well versed in the Adobe suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign) and Web design applications such as WordPress, Dreamweaver, Muse, html language, etc. is a plus.
Able to produce quality work while under tight deadlines and external pressures.
Excellent communication skills, both verbal and written.
Positive, effective team player; with confidence to inspire, persuade, and collaborate. Possesses a “whatever it takes” mentality
Saturday evening, The Rockies happened. As an in-person event. Outdoors.
There was sun, and rain, and wind, and even some lightning in the distance. But Idaho spring weather aside, much credit to the Boise Advertising Federation and Idaho Advertising Federation for pulling off the show, making it comfortable for those who attended in person, and for offering a livestream for those that chose to watch from afar.
Following the Rockies judging, all Gold winners are automatically forwarded to competition at the regional level, and Silver award winners had the option of forwarding their entries as well. Among those receiving ADDY Awards at the regional level were:
Silver ADDY Porter Pro Media Bison Boys, Bison Boys Trailer
Gold ADDY Drake Cooper Drake Cooper, 100% Employee Owned
Regional ADDY Best of Show Against Payette Brewing Company, Payette Can Redesign
If you follow an industry long enough, you start to see the same patterns and cycles repeat themselves every so often. The ebbs and flows of staffing as clients come and go through different shops. The shouting from the rooftops PR pushes, followed by periods of radio silence.
This one is no exception.
Every decade or so, there’s another wave of new businesses that make an appearance. Call them agencies, call them creative shops — whatever label you choose to put on them, it happens like clockwork. Some survive, some thrive, and others wilt away.
Often, those new agencies are formed by senior or experienced staff from other agencies that want to be in charge of their own destiny.
It continued earlier this year with the launch of Against. Founded by former Drake Cooper staffers Jennie Myers and Brad Weigle, Against bills themselves as a creative company that “focuses on helping companies define their purpose and rebel against the norm.”
Collectively, Myers and Weigle have over 20 years of experience, and have worked with clients in myriad industries, from finance and technology to consumer packaged goods, real estate and much more.
After more than a decade in and around the agency business, including a long tenure with Stoltz Marketing Group and a summer fling with Mitchell + Palmer, I decided it was time for a change, professionally. I’d had this nagging feeling in the back of my mind for a while, and it wasn’t going away: The agency business just wasn’t as much fun to me as it used to be. I know it’s not a new story, but that continuous drum beat of clients wanting more, faster, and for less can wear anyone down after a while.
And I was at that point.
So I’ve made a change.
Recently, I took a position with HP in Boise, on a small, newly-created marketing team. Being on the client side will certainly be different, but will be a nice change of pace, I think. After years worrying about clients’ businesses, budgets, timelines and everything in between, it’ll be interesting to be on the other side, and see where things go from here.
But enough about me. On to the really pressing question you have right now — what’s going to happen to this site? Well, for the foreseeable future, nothing will change. I’ll still continue to post – likely on the same infrequent schedule – as I have been for the last several years. One thing that may change, however, is the perspective. Since I’m no longer at one specific agency, I won’t have to worry about a perception of bias one way or another on the things that I do, or don’t, choose to write about.
Don’t get me wrong. I still enjoy this crazy business we call marketing, advertising, or whatever it’ll be known as down the road. That much will probably never change. But for me, it was time for something different. Does that mean I’ll get back into the agency game at some point? Possibly, if the right opportunity presents itself. I’ve got way too much industry and institutional knowledge to completely give up on it.
For now though, the scenery has changed, and it’s on to the next great adventure.