Creative Concerns

After studying about so many new ways of advertising, be it guerilla or "viral" or what have you, I feel left in a deep shadow of doubt and urgency. I've felt this way since I was a kid and I would drive by buildings I thought about designing in my head but that some other adult already went out and made. That feeling is that all of the ideas I want(ed) to create have already or are now being created! I want to be out there now creating! I've been waiting since I was 12, drooling over the modern lines of the Adam's Hats Building in downtown dallas, to be a professional creator.



As I've grown, this desire has moved beyond architecture and now encompasses a more nebulous and disheartening realm of many different and unknown things that I want to do, to make, to create. That's the ultimate drive: to be able to pour out all of the ideas roiling around inside my head. But the hardest part is that I feel like I keep forgetting the good ones!



So many times during the day, I'll be composing a little symphony in my head, only wishing I could write it down instead of going to rehearse for 4 hours, during which time I'll definately forget it! Or I'll be sitting in a lecture and think of a great thing to post on here but that's dried up like a puddle in the sun of my mental focus being directed at other things. If these ideas get lost in just one or two days, think of the ideas I've forgotten over the years! I dare not think of it.



But the mind is an amazing thing and can always create new things. So when I look at a poster or an ad, I think, "How did they even think of that?!" How do I even think of anything? It gets created and the limits of creation don't exist! I suppose that's where I have to take solace: in the knowledge that although I may have lost a handful of ideas (which may have largely been terrible, anyway), or other people's ideas are already being created all over the place, my mind has the wonderful ability to generate unlimited and (hopefully) great ideas eventually, once I figure out my job(s).

In the meantime, I guess I'll just keep a journal or something, write down those bad boys.

A Small Poem Collection

Some more of my poems. These aren't close time wise but they had a similar theme. I thought I'd share them. Here's snippets:

I want it to be more, more than it is!
More than a scent, more than a sense!
Experience! Joy! Power!



- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -



My words are held together:
with chewing gum and sticky tack,
band-aids, too.


Check out my reader for the whole poems:
http://ryansshorereader.blogspot.com/2008/02/some-poems-of-common-thread.html

Coke's Creative Side

For a brand that doesn't need any more advertising coverage, their website sure is swanky! Check out Coca-cola's creative webpage:



First of all you're welcomed by this groovy screen (no over-crowded product listing here!)

After choosing your region, you're taken to a regional menu, where simplicity and clarity reign:

What's first noticeable are links to sites about music, sports, and "the coke side of life". The music site for one is awesome! It is a whole community of international, independant artists offering thousands of free songs separated into many different channels or genres, much like iTunes is. I've actually put its mobile player on the bottom of my blog, so go down and listen to some tunes while you read. I've picked out a light piano tune I like on it right now.

Another great feature is in "the Coke side of life" site.There's a wonderful little program called the "Creator" where you can generate your personal Coca-cola artwork from a wide array of backgrounds, coke bottles, multilingual logos, and trendy clip art:

And when you're done creating, you're invited to email your creations to your friends! More coke! Here are some works I made on the Creator just for fun:

Long story short, the website is filled with Coke's new, simple, and wonderfully happy look! It just makes you happy to look around. Coke the product isn't mentioned explicitly but implied everywhere. Instead of advertising the product, the website advertises the lifestlye Coke supposedly creates, which is really effective! It's a creative way to surrepticiously convince you that you need a Coke.

No wonder Coke is internationally and unshakeably popular.

A Yawn is Contagious?

I beg to challenge the old dictum that a yawn is contagious, or at the very least, add to it. A laugh! A laugh is a contagious thing. "viral", you might say.

(Makes you smile, right? If not, you just don't have enough fun.)

I was sitting backstage again tonight, awaiting my turn to act. Rather blankly, I stared across the dark black backstage area, highlighted by the soft blue glows of the assistant stage managers' laptops and a faint warmth seeping in from onstage. One of the assistant stage managers was apparently watching something extremely hilarious. He was silently cackling in his chair, hunched over and heaving with muffled laughs. Wrenching up, he wore a wide, snickering grin across his face, and I must say his laugh was absolutely contagious. Just to see him naturally laughing so heartily at something left in me the desire to laugh, too! Not at him or at the thought of what thing he might be watching, but simply laughing for the sake of it! For the sake of working out my guts with a good (but silent) laugh.

And then I made the connection with this notion to the new trend in "viral" ads! They're supposed to infect their audiences, catching on like a virus and spreading their influence far and wide! Laughing is a viral element as well! Imagine: if a ranting teenager decrying the media's treatment of Britney Spears can entice literally millions of people to take notice, imagine that many people grouped together when one person just starts howling with laughter! It's gonna catch on. I'm not seeing that we should get a couple million people together to have a good laugh, although that sounds like a great thing to me; I'm just noticing how laughter could potentially be really contagious tactic for future viral ads.

Creative Power

I was awed yesterday by the sheer power of creative thought. Really great, creative ideas have a power about them! A force, an aura, an essence-they all convey the same sense: that this thing, this idea, is a great thing.

So here's what me think about this. I was sitting backstage doing some homework waiting for my entrance, just in a chair writing. Putting my pen down, I took a moment's pause and my wandered around my past and focused on an old poem I wrote last year. Mentally I read that old poem, and the power of those words (I'm not trying to shamelessly brag on my poetry either) just made me stop and my breath was cut short. Thinking about those words in that creative order just had power to me! I gasped and thought how profoundly those words struck my soul! I won't share this poem, however. It's a rather personal one. But do you know what I mean?

Sometimes if you see a really wonderfully creative thing, be it a
painting or poem or song or building or tree leaf, it just makes you STOP.

I mean, there's a power there! It's undeniable, even if you maybe don't even like that thing, you still are awed by the power of the creativity it took to make it. Like Guernica, by Picasso (I'll stick to the visual here:)

Or many others. I mean I could post and post but then you wouldn't be thinking of your own examples! But let's find those things that have that creative power!

Let's Get Gehry

Alright. Frank Gehry. For those of you who don't know who he is (you really ought to, though), he's a famous and often controversial architect, and his work inspires me personally!


Controversial, you ask? Let's peek at some of his projects!

First: The Dancing House in Prague, Czech Republic

Second: A hotel in Elciego, Spain

Third (his most famous work): The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain

So clearly his work is astounding, whether or not you like it. Gehry is the master of deconstructivism and is considered one of the greatest innovators in modern architecture, right up there with I.M. Pei and Frank Lloyd Wright in my book. In addition to architecture, Gehry has designed countless and priceless works of sculpture, jewelry, and furniture. All of it follows his organic, fluid design. Here's a sketch of an example of his preliminary plan, from which we builds a model and then builds the building! (It's not the simple, but things move from sketch to reality rather quickly):

Amazing! I'm always floored to see his sketches and then see how his buildings come from them! His designs, to me, are so graceful and hopeful. They seem to elevate humanity with their otherworldly lines and it inspires a sense of whimsy and surreal wonder to be a person inside such a beautiful thing. It's a dream of mine to visit one of his creations, preferrably the museum in Bilbao. To wander through it would be such a wonderful thing!


I'd post more pictures but I don't want to elongate this too much, but please check out more of Gehry's works! Or you can watch a great documentary on him that came out some years back:

Right on Target

Here's a jolly commercial for Target that I really enjoy. I was cruising through people's comments about it and I thought this was rather telling:

SugarQueen96 (4 months ago)
this is the best!!! it makes me so happy, im going to target!!!

Just the song sells the store! At least for this one person posting on YouTube...

But how about that intertextuality? Well...horizontally...the three "resolutions" people with the patches on their arms made me think of all the ads for Nicorette anti-smoking patches and other brands of the same product. Also, the plate of dancing food made me think of the ads, mostly on the sides of their vans, for GroceryWorks.com. I loved those ads! Sadly the company doesn't seem to be around anymore too much, at least here in North Texas. When I saw the woman walking that dog with a smile on his face, I thought about that one car spot some years ago. It was the one that likened each car to its type of owner and would show the front of a car and then show the face of a person that matched that car (another great spot, by the way).

Vertically...well, the woman with the biceps holding the baby's cradle made me think of the tv show, Desperate Housewives. I don't necessarily watch that show at all, but the woman looks like Eva Longoria and the shot behind the woman looks surreally beautiful, sort of like the world of the show. Also, I thought about the movie Amelie when I saw the "color-coded" shot because of the strong color-codes from that movie, predominately the use of green. Also, the older gentleman at the end of the commercial reminds me of Gene Autry, the singing cowboy! In addition to these, I thought of a smattering of memories from my own life and also bits and pieces from many different songs I like. But in total, I love this commercial! It's quite happy, don't you think?

GroupThink-the Positive One

Words are limited at expressing the absolute outpouring of energy and excitement that come from a completely packed house before a performance. It is a vibrant and living force that grows as the lights go down and then blooms in the performers as they feed from the people watching. The force is a fuel that moves like no other and it combusts into such a communal sense of joy. It's really an amazing thing-and it doesn't always happen, either.


Tonight was just such an occasion. It was our last performance of Urinetown, a wonderful student-directed musical I've been involved with for some time now. We've been having full houses all weekend and have had to turn people away because of lack of seats, but tonight we let everyone we could in the house. There were people everywhere! On the floor, in the corners, even up in the theatre's catwalks where we act several parts of the show. It was such an exciting house and that collective energy really grew. It is during those times that I have absolutely the most fun living sometimes that I have doing anything.


So this communal energy is like groupthink but in a good way! The whole group is sharing the same mentality, going in the same direction, and, to some degree, blinding their discomfort or perhaps other negative impulses with the idea that they're having a great time. World-reknowned playwright/actor/director/author Peter Brook refers to this phenomenon in his book The Empty Space. His reference is to the "Rough Theatre", which is created out of this communal energy but usually happens at a show that in reality is bad theatre but the group's excitement makes everyone in the group feel like they watched a great performance. This wasn't the case in Urinetown, however-certainly there were criticisms and small complaints, and even some dissatisified audience members, no doubt. However, the group mentality of tonight's performance left everyone with a sense of joy, excitement, and happiness-they had just had a good, fun time, and there's never anything wrong with that. It was a fantastic time and I regret that more people couldn't have fit into that theatre. The group was thinking positively tonight!

The Childish Things

I found this video delightful, for one thing. It really harkens back to an element of childhood whimsy we all feel but usually cover up with our older, "wiser" sensibilities. I realize this can be said of many things, but I found this little snippet very enjoyable.

That's what we need to do sometimes, especially in advertising: we need to go back into that part of our imagination that believes two pairs of scissors really can fall in love with eachother, you know? The part that delights in sliding down a stairway banister or jumping in a puddle. I always watch advertising geared toward children (an already delicate area since they are so impressionable) and wonder what types of people have the creativity to appeal to children, to think like them to some degree.

So that's what it takes then-to approach life with the heart of a child but with the mind of an adult? That might be one way. Certainly that opens us to up to the more creative impulses we have. If we allow ourselves to overflow with childish exuberance and imagination, then the best creative ideas have a chance to flow and our adult minds can narrow those ideas down! This video certainly helps me open up and just let those silly, whimsical things fall out of my head.

Transformation of Reification

Reification: the transformation of an experience otherwise intangible into something "consumable" that leads to both a revolutionary and reactionary response.

Think of the Rolling Stones, for an example. When they debuted way back when, they were the leaders of a movement of rebellion, of defying authority in a new sense. So as fans listened, they believed in the idea of the revolution of the Stones, but in reality, they were also stricken by a reactionary desire to not do anything about it. Vietnam era-some fans of this musical time period actually got up and went to the streets and college quads while everyone else agreed with the movement only in talk.

And how about today? The Stones are all over merchandise: pajamas at Target, playing the Superbowl, backpacks and keychains. For better or for worse, the institution they revolted against eventually accepted them and turned onto their side and, in a reactionary move, took the once-"revolutionary" music back to the traditional "status quo" of capital gain. The original art was reified into a diluted, marketable "thing", no longer a pulsing, intangible idea.

Alright then. So where does advertising play in? It seeks to be revolutionary and reactionary at the same time: to sell things in new ways but still sell things...right? It isn't just one thing-advertising reifies the creativity and work of those who create it for it to be "consumable".

But what if some advertising was only revolutionary?

What would that look like? the "truth" advertising campaign is a good place to start looking. But there's got to be more...more action, more chance for re-action, and less reification of powerful ideas. We'll have to wait to see what's to come! Or do it ourselves...

Custom Cups

So here's a fun idea which is really applicable to Starbucks (or any other mass-consumed brand of coffee served in post-consumer waste recycled cups with similarly processed sleeves). It's a sort of further step in the trend of individualization advertising seems to be taking nowadays.

I was drinking some coffee (Starbucks, I'll admit) the other day and got to looking at my sleeve. Now I know Starbucks usually decorates their sleeves, mine, being a generic school purchase, was decorated. So: I decorated that and another sleeve above.

I think this concept is really cool-individual sleeves! I think Starbucks drinkers could go online and draw their own sleeves of have materials at the store available to draw with stencils or something nearby. I realize this may seem a waste on something that just gets thrown away. HOWEVER-what if we made the sleeves out of a similarly recycled material that was reusable? Or if online, there was a sort of forum or contest for the best sleeve designs? Somehow the personalized sleeve, following in the footsteps of the personalized gift card, should be incorporated into the Starbucks (or coffee-to-go) experience.

Check out my sleeves I sketched in theatre history above!

Sunsets, Please

Lake Ray Roberts, December 2006

You know, sometimes sunset is my absolute favorite part of the day. Sunset and/or sunrise. Other than the fact that those always beautiful times in my opinion, what is it that marks those moments as special?

I suppose it's the fact that both sunset and sunrise are the transitions of the day into night and vice versa. One flows into next with a setting or arising of the very thing that gives each its identity, perpetually.

Sunset makes me stop and watch. Sometimes it startles me, takes my breath away, makes me think, makes me sigh, makes me cry, makes me jubilant, or makes me just plain happy. Perhaps because it's the promise of night and then the promise of the next day too? Or, more like, a sunset is a daily performance when everything gets to put on its best colors and show off: trees, clouds, people, everything! Whatever the sun is doing that day, the world gets to reflect it beautifully at sunset. That's pretty amazing!

So why do people rush off to dinner or to evening class or rehearsal without looking up and out of the window!? I mean, just glance at the sky! That's all it takes for the human in each of us to leap up and say, "That's a beautiful thing". I like that: The Human in All of Us. So stop and watch the sun set. If only 10 seconds, watch it! Appreciate it. Remember it later in the evening.

p.s. check out some of my favorite sunset pictures from my life at my Reader:
http://ryansshorereader.blogspot.com/2008/02/sunsets-please-my-favorites.html

Autopark

Man I'm just full of ideas lately! Just full of em.

So who hates people who double park? (Raise hands) How about people who park at a terrible angle the juts right out into the next space so they are double parking anyway? (More hands) So how about the worst offenders, people would park horizontally into 3 or so spaces? This happens, I promise (All hands should go up-except those jerks at the back who know they double park).

I was watching someone park their car out of my window the other day and I cringed because she zipped into her spot a very acute angle and was half-car in and half-car out. It was a really bad job, you know? So I got to thinking about cars being parked, and I know that some cars today can be put into 'park mode' where, thanks to computers and cameras, the car essentially parks itself.

However, citing the costs and the just plain non-universality of this amazing feature in just about all of today's cars, I propose a different and fool proof parking method: parking grooves. Think of those car wash things that grab your tires but operated instead by your car's tire turning the tire grips and cranking a chain that pulls the car forward! It's a two-way chain so you can reverse, too. It's pretty genius, so I've included completely copywrighted sketches of the product below:

If you can't tell, the width is wide enough to accomodate any conventional tire size and also the graded entrance ramp flares into a wide angle to allow cars to enter from all sorts of different angles! How great is that?

I know these are just one step ahead of the day, but you know, that's why they call me a forward thinker, a visionary, if you will. One day, we'll see these autoparkers (hopefully) everywhere, between every white or yellow line. No longer will double parking be an plague upon us honest drivers but all will park equally and equally greatly.

Phewture of Advertising?

Well, aside from my shameless attempt at a humorous title, I think it aptly describes an idea I had (though it may not be that surprising or original).

So:

First of all, it's important to know about me that I am very much smell-driven, if there is such a thing. Ever since I was a young lad I've always been interested in the way things smell! Be it potpourri or soap or just the air outside, I frequently would smell things so much all the time that my nose was constantly burning and I usually had headaches (soap is the worst with the burn! Don't try it-I think it's the glycerin that gets up in there). Naturally, I grew out of this painful habit but still it is the primal pleasure of good smells that makes me really excited, especially the smell of the air outside in just about any condition of weather or atmosphere. I can't desribe the elation or joy I feel in taking in a good whif of the air outside. It's an unspeakable wonder to me.

This being known, then, today when I was outside smelling the late afternoon warmth I thought about the power of smell because the smell I smelled today brought back a very strong wave of memory-think of it! Small particles of scent in the air flew into my nose and landed on a nerve pad and then sent the information to my brain in the form of a smell which then triggered a memory to play itself out vividly in my head! A memory that landed me into a rather emotional state of nostalgia. So think, then, of the power of scent in advertising!

I know it's being developed to be able to send smell through the TV somehow-think of how effective Burger King could be finally if somehow you could smell their chargrilled patties as you watched them on screen! This is a simple example using the basic (and not ineffective) psychology of hunger. But what about other smells to evoke a certain response to a more intangible product, like insurance or FedEx?

What kinds of smells trigger impulses in consumers to buy a thing because that smell tapped into some part of their brain and convinced them to make a purchase? And is it ethical to tap memories or aut onomic, psychological brain processes? I suppose we'll just wait for techonology to improve-and I for one am pretty excited about a multi-sensory television, which in my mind is just one step closer to that food-producing maching on the Jetsons. You know the one:

Commercial Idea #1

Driving the other day I looked up into the many glass office buildings I passed by and thought about, as I often do, the things going on in those buildings. I always do! I think about the meetings being held, the work being done, faxes being sent, phones being talked on, coffee being drank, elevators whirring up and down-all the busy life of an office full of people simply working together. And then I had this commercial idea based on some of these thoughts. Its application is still a mystery to me, however. It could be applicable to several business situations. Here's a basic retelling of the idea, I suppose:


So there's this office building long shot and the camera zooms into a window and several shots cruise by of the office teeming with business meetings. Except these aren't just regular business meetings, these are 'secret-club' meetings like kids might have when they're five or something. On the doors of the meetings a placard reads out the meeting titles, e.g. Girls are Gross Club, Super Best Friends Club, and the like. So you have these serious businessmen and women sitting in these conference rooms with graphs and figures all about these secret club matters, like a stockmarket-esque line graph going down showing a downturn in latest contact with cooties or a flip-chart with acronyms like "F.U.N." or something juvenile-looking.



So that's the basic idea I had which made me laugh! I think it could apply to a consulting firm or some business catering to other professionals or businesses in some way. Like I said, it's a flexible idea and a fun one, I think.

A Cold Weather Poem

Please read this poem of mine. I left a taste here:

Tonight my breath
Sings icy, silent rhapsodies
To the stars:

Visit my reader for the whole thing:
http://ryansshorereader.blogspot.com/2008/02/cold-weather-poem.html

Driving with Jon- Pt. 2

Mornings are a different time for Jon and I's commute to the theatre; usually they are a silent time.


With the air of nameless business drones heading out to their daily grind we climb up the highway, eyes gazing unflinchingly forward. Words don't seem necessary.


My favorite part of the drive, especially the morning, is a certain curve where 75 north exits onto a high bridge curving west onto 635. At the crest of the turn we are always greeted by the horizon laying stretched out before us with the sky's expanse of buildings, clouds, and sun.

The sight of it always puts me into perspective: My problems are no longer
insurmountable, my worries transient, my fears cowards. My God is bigger
than those things.

That's what I think every time we make that curve. And then we plunge back to the surface and the day is begun.

Rain-Feelings

Today there was an absolute downpour of rain!

First of all, I love rain and I realized as it coldly soaked through my shoes how much I rather missed the feeling of it! Do you ever do that? Realize that you haven't felt something so natural and simple in a long time?

Like grass: the other day I was walking to class and I realized that my feet hadn't felt grass in a long time! So long that I couldn't determine when I had last gone barefoot. As a hater of shoes anyway, I was taken aback and immediately removed my sandles. I stood in a cool swatch of grass and enjoyed the luxurious blades engulfing my feet with their dewy fingers. And then I went to class-I didn't want to be late.

So back to the rain with this grass story in mind. It was raining and I remembered a video I had watched about a British advertiser/father recalling when his son introduced him to the concept of opening your mouth and feeling the rain fall onto your tongue. Upon thinking of the video, I too felt like that father: I hadn't felt rain on my tongue in ages! So I opened my mouth wide toward the grey sky and several large drops splashed onto my tongue and tickled the roof of my mouth. It was wonderfully refreshing and I felt the glee of a child enamored with the wonder of life we so often forget in our scheduled, oppressive lives.

Don't forget the feel of grass on your feet! Or the squish of mud between your fingers! Touch it, feel it, experience the earth.

Life as a Drawing?

The other day in costume class we were discussing the importance of the skill of drawing. Naturally, in my mind I harkened back to Gregory's Creative License. I remembered the emphasis he placed on looking at the world through a new set of eyes, paying attention in a new way to our environments.

So I did it! I was in the mens' dressing room at the time and so I began to observe the room with a new eye of detail. Pieceing together the room together like a veritable quilt of drawings, I observed each angle, shadow, light saturation pattern. Each one, like a single plane in a cubist work by Picasso, was an individual perspective of the room. Every square inch, then, was its own perspective, its own drawing!

Suddenly my eyes were appreciating every intricate piece of my world as a vital part of my enviroment's collective art work.

The Empty Road

I stood in the middle of the street tonight, feeling the damp wind swirl around me up and down that asphalt strip blinking with the carnival-corridor late-night lights. Deserted of its usual travelers, the road seemed at ease, free somehow: it had become just like the rest of the earth-a surface. A roach skittered by, unaware that he trod upon a man's road.

I suppose what struck me was the thought of how unimportant the road seemed when unpopulated by the one thing that made it purposeful. And yet still walking across it, I remained apprehensive, tense; I considered it somehow dangerous even though there were clearly no cars coming or going. It's funny how something can hold that power over us even when we know in the current circumstances it poses no threat. It was a rather entrancing feeling.

A short story

I finished this short story recently. I'd like some feedback! Here's a taste:

He walked into the door frame with the official stiffness of a military officer, the glorious morning rays of the sun bursting through the door and encasing his gray-suited build in an effluence of hazy, golden light that shifted slowly around him as if they were slender fingers mapping his outline. In his left hand he clutched his simple black leather attache, and on his face he wore an immutable grin of silent appreciation. Indeed, it did seem a hopeful morning, even glorious to him as he gazed rather longingly into the unfolding morning sky, the warmth of the sun and the thick and moist grassy scent of the air inspiring in him a refreshing hope.'This is it', he told himself, 'Today is the day'

Read the rest on my Reader page: http://ryansshorereader.blogspot.com/2008/02/man-and-sky.html