Q&A CALENDAR FYI LIBRARY EDUCATION

ISSUE 69 2010

NEWSLETTER

KEVIN O'CALLAGHAN	STEPHEN McCARTHY	BERTOLUCCI	SHOP ADC YOUNG GUNS

Q&A WITH KEVIN O'CALLAGHAN EDUCATOR, DESIGNER, COWBOY		Monumental is an appropriate title for the collection of projects put together by Kevin O'Callaghan and his students at the School of Visual Arts. Pages are full of impossibly large typewriters, telephones made from cars, picket fences made from assault rifles - a whole range of brilliant creations put together from recycled materials and tech garbage. It's an empowering book, documenting how hard work and exceptional teaching can produce unthinkable designs year after year. We spoke with Kevin about his process of designing and educating.
ADC: You work with interesting materials like found objects and reused garbage. Where does that interest come from? KO: Even as a child I always saw things as still being usable. I remember my parents throwing an old couch out, and staring at it at the curb from the window asking myself "why isn't that still okay, that couch? Why can't that still be used?" And I dragged it into the backyard and I made a clubhouse of it. I've always had this sense of things having an afterlife, and things being able to be used again. And as far as the students' exhibitions were concerned, it started with the simple idea of reuse with one of our earlier exhibits, and it's just grown. The class became known for this after a while. I'm always interested in giving students a starting point with these exhibitions. I always feel like everybody starts with an even keel at that point. That's where the found objects starting point came from. ADC: You recently launched the new book - how did it go with the students? KO: We had a launch of the book at the SVA theater with Steven Heller, and I came in on a robotic horse that I created just for the event. This horse comes galloping down the aisle, and when it got to the bottom it reared up, and I went about 12ft in the air. It was a great night because it was all about the incredible hard work that the students have done over the years to create these shows. They all have one thing in common: the monumental effort it took to make it happen. One thing I try to teach my students is that it's one thing to be talented - everybody at the school is talented, that's almost easy - but it's another thing to get people to notice your talent. You can build it, but that doesn't mean they'll come. You have to come up with an idea, make it happen in three weeks, and go out and promote it so people will see it, load trucks, unload trucks, set things up, take it down. That's where the life lesson is on what the world is really about. I think my students when they leave, they feel like they're able to do anything. They really feel like any project is possible and there's a solution to anything they come up with professionally. I think that's what they leave with, and to look out on that Thursday to see 20 years of students there, I thought we're all in common. To each and every one of them, what they were doing was the world.
This is an abridged selection from Kevin's interview. To hear about Kevin's thoughts on working with scale and details of his plan for the ADC gallery, check out our blog.		ADC: You recently proposed a new Hall of Fame Wall in the ADC gallery? KO: I'm very excited about that project, and I hope it sees the light of day because the Art Directors Club has meant a lot to our class. And the Hall of Fame to me is something that we all set our sights for, and I think it's such a big part of the Club. I know just from watching the students while spending a lot of all-nighters there setting these shows up - they would always gravitate to that back wall, where there used to be names of everybody in the Hall of Fame. I saw that as something that should be glorified as much as possible. ADC: I was struck by how fast you put everything together. Could you detail your work process? KO: I've always worked very quickly. I realized a long time ago, when I give myself too much time I just get very confused and I over-design and over-create, so I strike while the iron's hot. Especially with students: I find that students come up with their best concepts and their best ideas almost immediately. So to prolong it... I tried that once many years ago, and gave the students six months to create the pieces for the exhibit. It was a complete failure. First of all, most of them waited until three weeks before anyways, to actually start to create the pieces. Students tend to procrastinate. But all that time created a lot of confusion - they thought about it too much and they over-designed. So I started to get into this whole direction of giving very tight timelines on these things. And I think that it really prepares them for what the real world has to offer. Because in the real world, you're not going to have six months to conceptualize and create a piece. You need to work quickly and be able to think on your feet - keeps it exciting too. ADC: Any new projects? KO: We just did this great piece for Seamless Web, which is a web site you can order take-out food on. We did this giant pastrami sandwich that was 12x12x16ft high. It was one of the best sculptures we've ever done. The funniest thing that happened was we had it outdoors in Brooklyn and this dog took a beeline to it, and was sniffing the sandwich and was looking at it. This dog really thought this sandwich was real, which I thought to be the biggest compliment maybe of my career - I fooled this dog!

ADC CORPORATE MEMBERS: STEPHEN McCARTHY BRAVE DOG		Each month we ask a corporate member of the Art Directors Club to share some industry news with the greater ADC community. This month, Brave Dog had us sit down with managing director, Stephen McCarthy, to talk about how he hopes to help creative agencies deal with the administrative hurdle of award shows.
ADC: So Stephen, what does Brave Dog do for creative agencies? SM: We're really highly specialized. We submit to award competitions. We work with most of the major television channels at this point, but primarily cable. The real advantage of the service is that we do all that heavy lifting. The creative people were hired to be creative, but the way it's operating now with budget cuts... You put in your 60 hour work week and then you have to throw another 20 hours in to enter the ADC Awards. They don't have the time, and that's created a niche for us. ADC: And the TV companies you work with find it easier to outsource to you than to do awards in house? SM: Yeah, they're swamped. It's just administrative and kind of tedious to enter. We also do the write-ups and case studies if that's required. We do that with an approval method, to make sure we're speaking in, for example, HBO's voice. We have a feedback mechanism. We will write from scratch if that's required, as well as put together videos and anything that's required for entry. The other advantage obviously, is since this is all that we do, we try to make sure that we're presenting the material at it's very best. We'll make a video even if it's not required sometimes, because a campaign might be brilliant, but it's going to be hard for a judge to read a seven page case study. This has been effective, and it's helped. ADC: How did you learn about the ADC? We entered it! ADC is famous, I think I've known about it - I don't know how long - years and years.
		ADC: So you're trying to move into advertising from TV - I'm assuming the same skills carry over? SM: They're doing similar things, it's really a question of different target and budget. I think in it's essentials, the television creatives are doing similar work to what the broader advertising creative people are doing. And so we already have that understanding, it's just a matter of adapting to a broader reach. We see that as an opportunity. We're currently working with PRN out of San Francisco, and we worked with DMG out of Beijing the first two years we were in business. They did this amazing promotion for Nike (I think they were working with W+K as subcontractors). They took over the Forbidden City and had this NBA-style basketball and the Chinese kids just went insane. They did a brilliant amazing promotion and that's how we were introduced to them, we shepherded that campaign through and did pretty well with it. ADC: You're not just domestic then, you work internationally? SM: Yes, we do. My background is international, I actually set up Promax BDA Europe office in 1999, and I lived there for four years. We have international contacts and enter into international competitions.

CALENDAR
ADC HOLIDAY PARTY Thursday, December 9 Join the festivities with a night of food, drinks and gift-giving. Wine by Verity Wine Partners. Beer by Shmaltz. Food by Grandaisy Bakery. Admission: $20 or a new, unwrapped toy or children's book to benefit The Children's Aid Society. 6 - 9 PM @ ADC Gallery 106 West 29th Street, NYC RSVP here
Bertolucci: 140 Images December 17 - January 10 (Closed December 23 - January 3) In honour of the Bernardo Bertolucci retrospective co-produced by The Department of Film, The Museum of Modern Art, New York and Cinecitta Luce, Rome. Curated by Marcello Garofalo. @ ADC Gallery. The exhibition, entirely dedicated to Bernardo Bertolucci, gathers 140 pictures taken from the back-stages of the most important movies of the great Italian director. A fascinating itinerary that goes across the important movies of the past (Prima della Rivoluzione, Ultimo Tango a Parigi, Novecento) getting through the big productions (L'ultimo Imperatore, Il Te nel Deserto, Il piccolo Buddha) to finally arrive at the recent works (L'Assedio and The Dreamers).
ENTER THE ADC 90 AWARDS AND RECEIVE 10% OFF! Before January 3 Take advantage of the ADC EARLY BIRD DISCOUNT! Enter your work and check out before January 3rd to receive 10% off your ENTIRE order If you wish to take advantage of this promotion please notify ADC by e-mail at payments@adcawards.org upon completion of your entry. If you have questions regarding registration, please contact the Awards Dept. at info@adcawards.org. Reimbursements will be issued 3-5 weeks after ADC's Annual Awards final deadline.
89TH ANNUAL AWARDS TRAVELLING SHOW Every year ADC sends its International Annual Awards Exhibition on a worldwide tour. From New York to Sao Paolo, to London to Beijing, the exhibition of Gold, Silver and Bronze, ADC Design Sphere and ADC Hybrid are viewed by thousands. From January 5-18, the Travelling Show will be visiting Thailand Bangkok University Art Gallery. And from January 13 to February 13 it will be installed at The Art Institute of New York City.

FYI
SHOP ADC YOUNG GUNS Just in time for the holiday shopping season: links to art prints, art books and other well designed give-ables made with love by ADC Young Guns! Check it out!
GIVE THE GIFT OF MEMBERSHIP What if you could gift-wrap: Discussing the best ads of the year with Richard Wilde and Benjamin Palmer? A lecture on design from James Victore or Emily Pilloton? The opportunity to ask Matthew Carter and Dan Wieden about the creative process? It's the gift of membership at the Art Directors Club. The best creative professionals, the highest quality work, the greatest opportunities. For that special student, peer or employee whose talents you want to develop to the fullest.
CORE77 COMPETITION: THE POWERS OF TEN Entry Deadline: January 9 Core77 and the Eames Office present the Powers of Ten: Video Response Design Competition. We're inviting designers to submit 2-minute "response videos" to the Eames's seminal film Powers of Ten. The videos can respond to the film in any form; from reinterpretations and mashups, to tributes and reflections. There is no fee to enter. A portion of sponsorship and prize money will go to support to the Eames Foundation, whose mission is to preserve and protect the Eames House and to provide educational experiences that celebrate the creative legacy of Charles and Ray Eames.
NEW DESIGNISM AWARD ADC Designism explores the responsibilities of creatives to drive social and political change through their work. Any work you enter into any of the non-profit categories can be considered for the Designism award for an additional fee upon registering. We've also added a range of new digital tools, technologies and media that are starting to drive the latest interactive marketing campaigns and now warrant their own entry areas. The changes include: An expanded section for Mobile entries An interactive Games section A separate Social Networks section New Online Content subcategories
TYPE DIRECTORS CLUB Call For Entries Enter the elite ranks. Enter TDC's competitions in communication, typeface, or movie title design to be featured in the most prestigious design annual of typographic glory. Early Bird Deadline 12.17.2010   |   Final Deadline 1.7.2011
MY EMMA Discounts for ADC Members Emma is a Web-based service that helps organizations communicate and market in style. Designed for small and midsize businesses, nonprofits and agencies, Emma makes it easy to create attractive email campaigns and online surveys, send them to large opt-in audiences and track the response in real time. Launched in 2002, Emma currently powers the emails of the ADC, French Paper, Uppercase and more than 30,000 other organizations around the U.S. and abroad. Learn more at www.myemma.com Emma has generously contributed a 10% discount for ADC Members, please mention your ADC affiliation when signing up!
WOLDA '09 PRINTED ANNUAL ON SALE Wolda, the worldwide logo design annual, has just released its 2009 printed annual to purchase online, featuring 186 winning logos from around the world. Wolda 2010 competition is up and running with a subscription fee of just 21 Euros per logo and participants to select the winning entries! Go check it out.

FROM THE LIBRARY
KEVIN O'CALLAGHAN: MONUMENTAL Kevin O'Callaghan is a design wizard and Monumental is his manifesto, featuring hundreds of beautiful and useful design objects made out of obsolete, useless, cast-off technology. Since 1985, O'Callaghan has taught a now-legendary 3-D design class at New York's School of Visual Arts, where students solder, rivet, and weld the flotsam of mass-produced consumer culture into new, different, and, most importantly, functional objects. For "Yugo Next," an exhibition that toured the United States--and mesmerized the media wherever it went--students transformed so-called "useless" Yugo automobiles into a piano, a barbecue, a shower, a confessional, an accordion, a gigantic telephone, and a toaster that actually popped, among other things. O'Callaghan is a philosopher, comedian, entrepreneur, and social critic who shows how design can make the world a better place.

EDUCATION
SATURDAY CAREER WORKSHOP The Fall Saturday Career Workshop has been super successful! Students have designed CD covers with creative director Elisa Halperin and Graphic Designer Karen Cohn while graphic designer Michele Gorham introduced the students to guerilla marketing. Isabel Warren-Lynch, executive art director at Random House also lead the students on a project. Students also visited the International Center of Photography where they saw the exhibitions The Mexican Suitcase and Cuba in Revolution featuring work by Robert Capa, Gerda Taro, Chim, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Raul Corrales, Constantino Arias, Burt Glinn and others Check out the photos!

NEW MEMBERS
WELCOME! Sef Akins, Browns Summit NC Najeebah Al-Ghadban, New York NY Manuel Aleman, Jersey City NJ Rebecca Alvarez, New York NY Brittany Antos, New York NY Michael Appuhn, Brooklyn NY Chris Arce, Sunrise FL Artem Artemov, New York NY Yoshie Asei, Brooklyn NY Graciela Bernal, Woodside NY Justine Brilmyer, New York NY Nicolette Cantillo, West Milford NJ Kimberly Capers, New York NY David Castillo, Port Jefferson St. NY Tommy Chan, Oakland CA Gin Chen, Brooklyn NY Eva Cheung, Flushing NY Won Jin Choi, New York NY Min Choi, New York NY Jayeon Chung, Brooklyn NY Joseph Cofone, New York NY Kiara Dee Curbelo, new york NY Keith D'Mello, New York NY Danielle De Biasio, River Vale NJ Danielle DiCosimo, Washington NJ Lyanne Dubon, Elizabeth NJ Nils Eberhardt, Sydney Australia Alison Eng, Mahwah NJ Sophie Erskine, Bend OR Jeffrey Felmus, New York NY Anna Fine, Mt. Pleasant SC Kim Foster, Lees Summit MO David Freiman, Sea Cliff NY Vincent Garbellano, Poughkeepsie NY Roza Gazarian, Brooklyn NY Yong Geng, New York NY Daniela Gill, new york NY Gabriel Gonzalez, Monsey NY Vera Gorbunova, Metuchen NJ Ben Grandgenett, New York NY Deborah Gruber, Cedar Grove NJ Minji Hong, New York NY Jeffrey Iacoboni, New York NY Motoko Ishii, New York NY Gianna James, New York NY Yoon Deok Jang, New York NY Yi-Chieh Jen, New York NY Soobin Jeon, New York NY Bona Jeong, New York NY Rochelle Jiang, New York NY Byeolyi Jin, New York NY Connie Jun, New York NY Jae Sung Jung, Jersey City NJ Alla Kaba, New York NY Jamie Kakleas, Staten Island NY Felicity Keane, Birmingham AL Hyui Yong Kim, New York NY Jae Yeong Kim, Brooklyn NY Minah Kim, La Crescenta CA Erica Knauss, New York NY Dominika Kramerova, New York NY John Michael Kuhn, New York NY Sherry Hsin-Ting Kuo, New York NY Margot Laborde, New York NY Greg Lakloufi, Plano TX Ella Laytham, Keyport NJ Linh Le, Landing NJ Seoyeon Lee, Edgewater NJ designates a CUBE member.	Seo Jeong Lee, New York NY Heesang Lee, leonia NJ Tahui Lee, Moonachie NJ Narae Lee, NEW YORK NY Jaedon Lee, Astoria NY Hyun Hwa Lee, Woodside NY Sherry Leung, Fremont CA Brittany Liszewski, Astoria NY Ian Liu, brooklyn NY Ai-Lin Lo, New York NY Sandra Love, Alpharetta GA Yi-Wun Lu, Hoboken NJ Stephanie Macchione, New York NY Tal Midyan, Aptos CA Christopher Mills, Sparkill NY Timothy Min, New York NY Hae Jun Moon, New York NY Jennifer Moore, New York NY Kerry Murdoch, Brooklyn NY Erin Murphy, North Brunswick NJ Shahzad Nawaz, Karachi Pakistan Laura Ng, New York NY Wanqin Nong, Astoria NY Mariam Noureddin, Ridgewood NJ Jillian O'Brien, Westwood MA Sol Oh, Sunnyside NY Kony Oh, New York NY Jonathan Ong, New York NY Guewon Park, New York NY Chan Young Park, New York NY Nari Park, New York NY Soo Bin Park, Township of Washington NJ Kimberly Pasqualetto, Hazlet NJ Amie Paszel, Flushing NY Rheesa Persaud, Hollis NY Erica Peters, West Babylon NY David Petrucco, New York NY Alex Place, New York NY Jose Antonio Ramirez, San Jose Costa Rica Filip Redelius, Vetlanda Sweden Ren-Julius Reyes, North Arlington NJ Jonathan Robbins, Calabasas CA Daniel Rodriguez, Brooklyn NY Naomie Ross, Staten Island NY Jaron Rubenstein, Brooklyn NY Samantha Russo, New York NY Adrian Salajan, Staten Island NY Kira Yee Seul Sea, New York NY Heather Seksinsky, New York NY Larissa Shames, Chicago IL Kelly Shami, Rutherford NJ Aemin Shim, Jersey City NJ Hannah Song, New York NY Scott Steidl, Garfield NJ Yulsoo Ethan Sung, Brooklyn NY Yu Ting Tan, New York NY Alexandra Thiel, Congers NY Eddy Tsai, Gaithersburg MD Michael Ungano, New York NY Bruce Viemeister, Brookhaven NY Justin Walsh, Brooklyn NY Deirdre Waski, Leonardo NJ Heather Wetzler, Los Angeles CA Tony Yoo, San Francisco CA Erika Yost, Crofton MD Zipeng Zhu, New York NY Sofia Zimmerman, New York NY

CONNECT | PROVOKE | ELEVATE