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11 24 2004

All work viewable for free in large format, zoomable PDF. Click images below to view full campaigns.

	PRINT: The Tucker Partnership Wines it Up
	COLLATERAL: Russ Feingold Spines it Up
	PHOTOGRAPHY: Godiva Rides the Painted Pony
	PAPER PROMOTIONS: Domtar's Wonderful World of Black & White
	ILLUSTRATION: Joe Simko Rolls Out a Derby Winner
	EXHIBITIONS: Serbian Art at the One Club
	QUESTION OF THE WEEK: Rate the Ad
	CALL FOR ENTRIES: Creativity's April 2005 Ad/Design Annual

Georges Duboeuf wine ads from New York's The Tucker Partnership spare us the copy hype in favor of a hard-to-miss visual statement.

"The assignment was a two-parter: highlight the unusual bottle design and convey that the wine is delicious," explains writer Sam Mazur. "The first part was easy Ñ we made the bottle really big. The second part was more difficult. By personifying corkscrews, we let them illustrate how good the wine is." In another Tucker wine campaign, for Yellow Tail, "this Australian wine already had great word of mouth, so the challenge was not to mess things up with the advertising," says Mazur. "Fortunately, their name gave us the ammunition we needed, and allowed us to avoid using Paul Hogan, Ayer's Rock or headlines with words like g'day, mate and barbie."


Client: Georges Duboeuf/W.J. Deutsch & Sons Agency: The Tucker Partnership, N.Y. CW: Sam Mazur AD: Tom Kane Photographer: Chris Collins Photo Illustrator: Butch Belair

Wisconsin Democrat Russ Feingold was re-elected to the Senate earlier this month, and the particular piece of political posturing seen here may have had something to do with it.

Feingold's advertising for the past 12 years has been handled by Eichenbaum + Associates, whose work, points out CD Steve Eichenbaum, "is more than just TV spots. It's a unified campaign consisting of everything from fundraiser invitations to T-shirts, radio, signs, buttons, print, web design and other media." Though Wisconsin went to Kerry in a squeaker, "in an election where the Democrats pretty much got beaten across the board, we managed to win ours by 12 points and garner the largest total number of votes for any candidate in Wisconsin history." Nor is the T-shirt the usual load of empty political hype. Feingold, after all, is the only Senator to vote against the Patriot Act in 2001. "The 'backbone' tee became enormously popular, and was a hugely successful fundraiser," says Eichenbaum. "Most staffers wore one, and eventually Feingold began referring to his staff as his 'backbone team.' The vertical signage [see the PDF] was designed to underscore the 'Standing up for us' message, and to stand out from the sea of other horizontal yard signs."


Client: Feingold Senate Committee Agency: Eichenbaum + Associates, Milwaukee CD/CW: Steve Eichenbaum AD/Designer: Jerry Hayes

With a touch of Jackson Pollock and some tasteful nudity, Godiva lives up to its namesake Lady with a new campaign for the U.K., Hong Kong and Japanese markets.

According to agency HHCL/Red Cell, "The creative aims to reflect Godiva as a rich, decadent, sensuous indulgence for women who enjoy being the focus of attention." The photography, which goes to great lengths to distort focus in order to attract attention, is by acclaimed Brit shooter Nick Knight (see his collaborative art site at www.showstudio.com), working in what the agency calls "a three-step process that involved 'melting' separate images together in weeks of postproduction." If there's something smearingly surreal about these models atop their horse models, as ECD Steve Henry notes, "Hyper-successful luxury brands have a way of communicating that is emotional, irrational and instinctive."


Client: Godiva Agency: HHCL/Red Cell, London ECD: Steve Henry Creatives: Andrew Lloyd-Jones, Mark Dickens Photographer: Nick Knight

Domtar Paper's (www.domtar.com) latest edition in its Answer Pack reference series for designers is "Domtar Answer Pack D: On Black & White." In the words of Domtar, it "presents eye-catching design scenarios that prove blending black and white photography with various surfaces, colors and textures can produce a symphony of tonality and contrast." Concise tutorials cover the likes of basic black halftones, double-black and color-biased duotones; "kiss-fitting" positive and negative images; and enhancing images with colored and textured papers Ñ all demonstrated with loose-fit design cards, "perfect for side-by-side comparisons of each technique and paper variation. Each card features a different effect and explains what paper stocks, ink sequences and special techniques were used to achieve it." The Answer Pack was designed by Chicago's Petrick Design, www.petrickdesign.com.

Domtar Answer Pack D

We don't know if it's a harbinger of a full-blown retro-trash renaissance, but it's certainly an encouraging development Ñ women's wrestling on wheels has come back to New York in the form of Gotham Girls Roller Derby. And you know these chicks are tough, 'cause they have names like Venus Demolish, Sybil Disobedience and Margaret Thrasher, and their debut event a couple of weeks ago was held in the South Bronx. The poster for this auspiciously vicious occasion is the work of Joe Simko, whose rockin' comix-inflected art can be seen in this PDF showcase and at www.sweetrot.com. "My style formed while I was growing up with Saturday morning cartoons in the '80s," says Simko. "Bright, punchy colors and big feet. But nothing inspired me more than the art of '70s underground cartoon genius Vaughn Bode. His style takes two directions at once Ñ it's sweet and friendly and at the same time it's rude and raunched out." Hence Simko's Sweet Rot homage.

In the case of the roller derby poster, Simko says these particular big feet originated with Gotham Girls founder Karin Bruce (aka Chassis Crass), who requested "a take on Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, which I think is very fitting for this league." No doubt. Click here to catch all the tat-packin', clavicle-crackin' action at the Gotham Girls site, where they boast some muscular recruitment copy: "We're looking for fierce women who have what it takes to join our ranks and crack some skulls."

Big Hot Wheels

Since 1993, a Serbian collective called FIA Art Group has been creating, in conjunction with Belgrade printer Publikum, calendars in a project intended to "reinspire the Serbian arts community during their nation's most troubled time of isolation, war and poverty," according to FIA. For the first time, art from this project is being shown outside Serbia, in a "Publikum Calendar Exhibition," themed "12 years of creating something out of nothing in Serbia," at New York's One Club Gallery (www.oneclub.org). Moreover, the show, which runs through Dec. 10, features the 2005 calendar, created by New York design studio Karlssonwilker, whose principals went to Belgrade "to explore 'live' Serbian design and culture, process it and offer a modernized image and interpretation to a Serbian and international audience," they explain. "Not only did they bring an innovative approach to the traditional medium, they came up with a new creative genre altogether," says the show's guest curator Laetitia Wolff of design consultancy Futureflair (www.futureflair.com). "It's called 'performance design.' It requires that designers go to Serbia, see what happens, follow their guts, hunt from the chaos and find 12 concepts, one each day during 12 days, for a 12-page calendar." Art from the exhibition is seen here. See www.artkalendar.com and www.karlssonwilker.com for more.

Publikum Calendar Project

Hey, how about this: It's a laddie-mag Old Spice Red Zone body wash foldout, and inside is a scent strip so you can savor that manly Glacial Falls aroma. Is this ad pecking its way into your heart or is it getting your dander up? Rate it on a six-degree taste scale of excellence on the Sweet Meter, with 5 being the top score: 5 Very Sweet, 4 Sweet, 3 Semi-Dry, 2 Dry, 1 Extra Dry, 0 Sour. And feel free to offer your comments on the art direction, the photography, the concept, the packaging, whatever. Click here to play.

Last week's Rate the Ad. We were under the vague impression that when it comes to pop culture, anything with sapphic attractiveness in it has got to be good. Maybe this is Madonna's fault, but we thought the zeitgeist was telling us that everyone likes lipstick lesbians, they're the Sara Lee of sex styles. Well, the zeitgeist is whistling another tune on this week's Sweet Meter Ñ a dirge. These charmingly delightful iRiver babes took a worse drubbing than a gay marriage referendum in Wyoming. With a 31/69 Good/Bad ratio Ñ comparing the top half of the Sweet Meter to the bottom half Ñ and a booty-collapsin' 48% in the bottom tiers of the meter known as the Grimace Zone, iRiver's levee done broke. Here are the results.

5 Very Sweet 8%
4 Sweet 10%
3 Semi-Dry 13%
2 Dry 21%
1 Extra Dry 18%
0 Sour 30%

And here are some of our fave responses.

1 I just can't believe their claim that "the future of entertainment" will be a perfect union of portable music and hot lesbian love. Although I would really, really like to believe that.

1 It's just sad when companies resort to imitating the competition's product names. Have some creativity or at least a little dignity.

0 Looks like the opening act in a sex show in Amsterdam.

3 The photo is worth a thousand words. Too bad the copy is a complete disconnect.

0 Oh, please! Has it come to this?

2 "Whoops. I went and left the house and forgot my iRiver Ñ and my panties."

0 Meaningless generic eye candy. Have these creatives even touched the product?

5 The dynamism created by the composite of facial expressions and gaze, body angles, props, product and product name move the viewer's eyes completely throughout the ad. Excellent composition.

0 Reminds me of a bad porn movie.

1 This ad makes me feel awkward and uneasy.

0 iFeelnothing.

0 I would only hate it more if they were twins.

5 No matter what the product, no matter who the audience, I wholeheartedly endorse all advertising that even vaguely promises girl-on-girl action.

0 The future of entertainment? Are these robot prostitutes?

3 The kind woman in her underwear is sharing an uplifting entertainment device with the poor woman who can't afford underwear. A heart-warming ad for the holidays!

3 I always enjoy a good partially-exposed-butt ad.

4 Very smart ad. Not too creative, but I spent five minutes staring at it, wondering what these two hot chicks have to do with anything.

2 Put an iPod in an ad by itself and it's sexy, it doesn't need models. But put this clunky, poorly-designed piece of hardware between two models and it looks even more cumbersome.

5 The confidence of the woman on the right, and the coy behavior of the girl she shares music with makes this a great ad that says: It's more than the music. And sweet art direction with minimal copy. Nice!

1 I must have missed the connection between the image and the copy. But the chemistry between the girls is totally creeping me out.

Red Zone in Sweet Zone?

oyRiver

This special edition of Creativity will feature the best print and design work of 2004, covering print advertising, posters, outdoor, graphic design, package design, corporate identity, annual reports, collateral and self-promotions. Send e-mail submissions to terryk@crain.com or snail mail a CD to Print/Design Annual, Creativity Magazine, 711 Third Ave., New York, NY 10017. We accept jpegs only, 1000 pixels wide at 72 dpi. E-mailed jpegs must be zipped or grouped all in one e-mail, we accept unlimited attachments. Jpegs must be accompanied by e-mailed complete credits and a few lines explaining the project and the creative strategy. Please paste into the body of the e-mail or attach as a Word doc. We do not accept Pdfs or .sit or .sea files. Thank you. Deadline for submissions: Dec. 20, 2004. All work must have appeared in calendar year 2004. International submissions are welcome. There is no entry fee.

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