Updates from December, 2012

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  Nat 3:54 pm on December 14, 2012 Permalink  

  Pinterest GUI PSD 

  On a recent project we needed to create some static comps using the Pinterest UI. So I did what I usually do in these cases and hit Google to see if anyone had already built a Photoshop template. I was hoping to find something along the lines of the exquisitely detailed iOS and Android PSDs generated by Toronto’s Teehan+Lax. No such luck. That left me with the choice of either hacking together a bunch of screen captures (how things are usually done on deadline) or building my own layered file from scratch. I figured the PSDs would be useful later—to paraphrase fashion mogul Jacobim Mugatu, Pinterest is so hot right now—so I went ahead and redrew a profile and pinboard page from the ground up.

  It was a useful design study. With judicious use of drop shadows and about a dozen subtly different shades of gray the Pinterest team has created an interface that is clean and clear but with just enough depth to push users’ pins to the forefront.

  I didn’t redraw every interaction state, but most of what you might need is here.
  Download: Pinterest GUI PSD

  
   
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  Betti 9:00 am on October 1, 2012 Permalink  

  Our Creative Department 

  I often hear, “Creative isn’t a department, it’s a way of thinking.” I agree that CREATIVITY isn’t owned by one group at C+F, but we definitely have a CREATIVE department. I’m eager to talk about it.

  For 15 years I’ve had the privilege of working alongside Jim as Creative Director. It’s been a great run. However, we knew there would come a time for Jim to turn over the Creative Director reins. The question had always been, “Who?”

  Meet Mike Hayward.
  

  What a great choice. What I admire most about Mike is his expansive and innovative thinking. From the Seattle Mariners’ Larry Bernandez, REI’s creatively and measurably successful “Out is In,” Seattle Aquarium’s Edwin the Otter eBook, Seattle Convention and Visitors Bureau’s 2 Days in Seattle campaign, and LifeWise’s Boringly Good, Mike has helped our clients’ businesses grow through these big idea campaigns. And, he’s been recognized along the way through the Mercury Award, National Addy, Communication Arts, One Show, OBIE, and AdWeek.

  

  Happily, Jim is still involved.

  As Executive Creative Director, we have the opportunity to work with Jim more closely in strategic planning for our clients. Having Jim and Mike leading our creative product is, for us, a dream (creative) team.

  Mike is putting together a stellar Creative Department.

  

  Kathleen Grebe is our new ACD/Design Director from Publicis, Adidas and Yankelovich. At Publicis, she worked primarily on T-Mobile and the T-Mobile partnership with the NBA. She’s an obvious talent with great style.

  

  Andy Corbett joins us from Goodby Silverstein & Partners in San Francisco. He produced award winning work for the NBA, Adobe and other high-profile brands. Prior to that, Andy was at AKQA and the Hauser Group. His NBA work is worth viewing and his laid-back demeanor is a welcome respite.

  

  Sitha Ngy comes to C+F with a wealth of experience from global agencies: Fallon, Crispin Porter+Bogusky and Publicis. He’s earned high accolades for campaigns promoting T-Mobile and American Express. His design talent, conceptual skills, and sense of humor are having a significant impact on all of us (for the good, of course).

  We’re inspired by Mike’s leadership. We’re energized by Jim’s continued involvement. The excitement to come will be seeing what this Creative Department will create. I’m looking forward to it.
   
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  Margi 7:27 pm on May 10, 2012 Permalink  

  Stronger 

  Last Saturday, Chris Rumble, a 22-year-old leukemia patient at Seattle
  Children’s Hospital grabbed a camera and filmed this astounding music video
  featuring the hemoncology floor singing and dancing to the song Stronger, by
  Kelly Clarkson. Five days later the video already has over 600,000 YouTube
  views, 1,300 inspiring comments and a video response from Kelly Clarkson
  herself.

  Here’s the video along with Kelly’s response to the kids. This moving
  grassroots piece is another reminder of the incredibly important work being
  done at Seattle Children’s Hospital every day.
   
• 

  Jim 4:37 pm on April 10, 2012 Permalink  

  Jamie Moyer turns back the hands of time. 

  

  Perhaps the most compelling story of the young baseball season is the improbable comeback of 49-year-old pitcher Jamie Moyer. Old enough to be the father of most of his Colorado Rockies teammates, Moyer missed the entire 2011 season to reconstructive elbow surgery. Against all odds, he’s worked his way back to the starting rotation and is playing in his 25th Major League season.

  He’s the baseball equivalent of Picasso who pushed the boundaries of art well into his eighties.

  Or Philip Roth, writing powerful, intricate novels in his seventies.

  Or Bruce Springsteen, still leaping and sweating through 3-hour concerts in his sixties.

  Our ad agency has had a long association with The Seattle Mariners, the team Moyer pitched for from 1996 through 2006. During that span, Moyer won 145 games for Seattle—and promoted Mariners baseball in a dozen commercials our agency produced during that time. We got to know Jamie well, even volunteering our company’s services to The Moyer Foundation which he founded with his wife, Karen.

  We observed many Moyer personality traits during that time that may provide an insight into the secret of ageless creativity and productivity—lessons we can apply to our own careers.

  Never Stop Learning Your Craft
  Moyer’s fastball tops out at 80 miles per hour—the speed of a decent high school pitcher. His success is a result of guile, not power. His pinpoint control, wide array of pitches and ability to outthink hitters are the keys to his success, along with his fastidious preparation. Craftsmanship is the careful tending of talent—and can keep us productive for decades.

  Be Curious
  Jamie was always asking questions. He found the film production process fascinating and was one of the few ballplayers who took the time to ask about technique, look through the camera, talk to the crew. Intellectual curiosity keeps us fresh, young and constantly learning.

  Stay Fit
  Sure good genes are helpful, but Jamie is fanatical about physical conditioning. Even if we’re not professional athletes, a healthy body often contains and active, healthy mind.

  Be Confident, Be Humble
  Jamie Moyer has immense self-confidence. He’s been dismissed and released by baseball experts many times over his career. But he always finds a way to bounce back, never doubting himself. Yet he’s one of the most unassuming and approachable athletes you’ll ever meet. To know how small we are often makes us big.

  As of this writing, Jamie Moyer has 267 career victories, 33 short of the exclusive 300-win club—a guarantee of baseball immortality. My guess is that Jamie is focused on that seemingly impossible goal. Don’t bet against him.

  I’d like to leave you with two of my favorite Jamie commercials from over the years.

  “The Change Up” celebrates Moyer’s exasperatingly slow but effective off-speed pitch.
  

  “Tribute” is a tongue-in-cheek jab at his age. It was produced in 2006. We thought he was old then.
  

  Take a moment this season to marvel and tip your cap to the amazing #50. He deserves our admiration.
   
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  Jim 1:37 am on December 23, 2011 Permalink  

  The C+F Top Ten 

  It’s the time of year for Top Ten Lists: movies, books, albums, even Republican debate bloopers. In this Lettermanesque spirit, we present the Copacino+Fujikado Top Ten Moments—the news and events that made 2011 a memorable year for us.

  #1: Bernandez Mania
  In March, we introduced a Mariners commercial about Felix Hernandez’s alter ego “Larry Bernandez.” The creators, Mike Hayward and Kurt Reifschneider, knew they had a fun spot, but nothing prepared us for the frenzy that followed. Larry went viral—a Facebook Page, Twitter account, a Bobblehead Night, and scores of lookalikes at the ballpark. Advertising is fun when it turns into pop culture.

  #2: Kickball Kingpins
  C+F won the citywide Co-Ed Kickball League Championship with a thrilling come from behind victory in the final game. The champagne flowed freely in the post-game celebration—which lasted several days.

  #3: World Visionaries
  In June, we were awarded a major assignment from World Vision, the global humanitarian organization with headquarters in Federal Way, Washington. We created two compelling TV campaigns, encouraging viewers to sponsor poor children in emerging countries.

  #4: St. Paddy’s Day Part-ay
  Our erstwhile interns, Peter Orr and Cliff McLoe threw a St. Patrick’s Day party that included leprechauns, an Irish feast and a wee-bit o’ the grain. For an Italian-Japanese agency, we did Irish pretty well.

  #5: LifeWise Outdoor Prompts 911 Call
  We created a large downtown mural for our “Boringly Good” LifeWise campaign that featured a dummy, dangling from a harness, to simulate his “painting” the message. The dummy was installed at a bit of an angle, prompting a concerned citizen to call 911 and report a “lifeless man” dangling from a downtown building. That’s Lifewise, sir, not lifeless.

  #6. Responsive Design
  We introduced responsive design to our agency website. This is a new technology that allows web content to automatically configure to any browser—whether on a computer, tablet or smart phone. The result? A better user experience across all platforms. We’re pretty good at this—call us if you want us to build responsive web site for you.

  #7. Taking Our Pulse
  The first annual American Marketing Association Pulse Awards were held in Seattle and C+F was a big winner—with recognition in multiple categories for clients Symetra, LifeWise and the Seattle Mariners.

  #8. Ping Pong Pandemonium
  The paddles were scorching all year long at the agency Ping Pong table. Shawn Herron is the reigning champ, but a group of hungry young upstarts are challenging for the crown.

  #9. Selling Seattle
  In the fall, we were named agency of record for Seattle’s Convention and Visitors Bureau. To generate holiday tourism, we created the Seattle Snow Mobile—a glass truck featuring a holiday cityscape complete with falling snow. The Snow Mobile toured Spokane, Portland and Vancouver, B.C. with brand ambassadors singing the praises of a holiday getaway to Seattle.

  #10. Let it glow, let it glow, let it glow
  How’s this for a bright idea: We created one of the largest blacklight posters ever to promote the Seattle Aquarium’s glow-in-the-dark jellyfish. Check it out for yourself: Moon Jellies Video

  Thanks to all of our fantastic clients, vendors, staff and friends who made 2011 a year to remember. Let the 2012 fun begin! Happy New Year.

  
   
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  Chris 10:25 pm on October 10, 2011 Permalink  

  C+F’s Top Five Baseball Movies 

  With all the hullaballoo around Moneyball, we at C+F took a moment to ponder our favorite baseball movies. As the longtime agency for the Seattle Mariners, we know a little something about baseball entertainment. (We gave birth to Larry Bernandez, after all.) So we implemented a detailed survey of popular baseball movies—with several criteria, all with a different numerical weight that was then put into Google-esque algorithm to determine our favorites. Okay, it was basically a straw poll. Regardless, here are our top five favorite baseball movies in order of staff (read: expert) preference:

  1. Major League: A hugely entertaining depiction of an under, then overachieving group of cobbled together Cleveland Indians misfits. The characters of this movie are memorable, from overpaid giant ego Roger Dorn, to tire salesman-turned-skipper Lou Brown, to washed-up and lovesick catcher Jake Taylor. Throw in great performers Wesley Snipes (Willie Mays Hayes), Charlie Sheen (Rick Vaughn) and buffed-up Cuban slugger Dennis Haysbert (Pedro Cerrano) and it’s a movie that you can watch over and over again while reciting all of the great one liners (i.e. “You put snot on the ball?” or “It’s too high.”). We almost dropped this movie down in the rankings on account of the inept sequels Major League II and Major League: Back to the Minors, but the original shines and gets top billing from C+F.
  2. Bull Durham: Kevin Costner is as believable as it gets with his portrayal of Crash Davis—a lifetime minor league catcher who has seen it all and is enduring long bus rides in the Southern League for one last longshot at the “show”. Written by former minor leaguer Ron Shelton, no baseball movie better tells the story of what bush league baseball is all about. Tim Robbins—despite his dubious athleticism—shines as a big ego prospect with an invincibility and sense of entitlement complex. The entire movie is great, but top scenes are Costner’s epic “What I believe in” speech, the interview cliché lesson and Crash Davis waxing longingly about his time in the bags. This would get argument in some circles as the best all-time baseball movie and it was a close call in the C+F survey.
  3. Field of Dreams: 22 years later, this movie can still make any grown man get downright misty. (There is crying in baseball after all. See below.) Playing on the romanticism of baseball, Kevin Costner is present again as an idealistic, unsuccessful Iowa farmer who builds a baseball field in the middle of a prized cornfield because some eerie, yet prophetic voice told him to do so. James Earl Jones is awesome as a J.D. Salinger-like scribe who gets pulled into Costner’s quest and delivers the greatest single speech in any baseball movie ever. Bar none. The movie culminates in Costner having an opportunity to play catch with his estranged ghost of a father, which is about the time we claim dust in the eye or oncoming cold sniffles to cover up the fact that even though we’ve seen this movie 49 times, the poignancy and nostalgia of this baseball story still makes us weepy. The other thing this movie makes you think is: what the hell happened to Ray Liotta?
  4. Sandlot: Baseball nostalgia pulls at us again in this movie about a group of kids growing up in Southern California one summer playing baseball on the neighborhood sandlot. (A casualty of suburbia.) A cast of great child characters makes this movie endearing and James Earl Jones shows up again to provide some real baseball movie cred to the picture. Looking past the ill-casting of Dennis Leary as the intimidating stepfather, this movie is a nice story of how baseball ties diverse people together and how special shoes can help you prevail in any athletic feat. Thanks Benny.
  5. A League of Their Own: What do you get when throw Geena Davis, Rosie O’Donnell, Madonna and Tom Hanks into an historical baseball timepiece? Cinematic gold. The story captures the Rockford Peaches of the All-American Girls Baseball League which became popular during WW2 when the country’s men were away at war. Regardless of gender, this movie has genuine baseball chops and the baseball sequences are spot on. Hanks delivers a perfect performance as a washed-up and perpetually inebriated ex-major leaguer who has been tapped to bring validity to the league as a team manager. The girls’ talent and grit turns him from grumpy skeptic to a heartened believer who cagily steers the Peaches into the championship game. If for nothing else this movie cracks our top five for the immortal statement “There’s no crying in baseball”. Or advertising for that matter.

  Once the recency hype dies down, it will be interesting to see where history (or C+F) ends up ranking Moneyball in the pantheon of great baseball movies. Our guess is that it will have staying power and be discussed in the same conversation of the above. Let us know what you think—it’s a great debate.

  Here’s to a hopefully riveting post-season because among other things, We Are Baseball Fans.
   
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  Kris 5:11 pm on September 13, 2011 Permalink  

  A Pioneer’s 90th birthday. 

  It’s not often you get a chance to hang with a pioneer, let alone have one in your own family, but I’ll go ahead and brag that I had the honor of attending the 90th birthday for Hollywood television writer and our own “Nanny” Ann Marcus. Ann was a pioneer for women writers starting her career at the New York Daily News and then Life Magazine at a time when there were no women writers on staff. She continued on to become a successful Hollywood television writer for Peyton Place, General Hospital, Knots Landing and even won an Emmy Award for her work on Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.

  Ann has been hugely influential in my pursuit of the glamorous world of media and production. She told me to stay as far away as I could from this industry as I was too nice to survive. I didn’t listen. She is an amazing example of a woman who broke through the glass ceiling of a male dominated industry to gain respect and accolades all while maintaining a loving home as a wife and mother. Beyond our family connection, we have a professional connection as she wrote for Fernwood2-Nite which was the launch pad for Fred Willard, who we recently had the pleasure of working with on three videos for Symetra. Her birthday party guest list included some well-known beautiful actresses; Michelle Lee, Joan Van Ark and Donna Mills and even a cameo (on her tribute video) from the great Norman Lear. But most importantly Ann was surrounded by her adoring family. Happy Birthday Ann. We love you.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Marcus
   
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  Mike 7:09 pm on August 10, 2011 Permalink  

  5 reasons I’m happily afraid to fail. 

  The prevailing wisdom goes something like this: If you’re afraid to fail you’ll never succeed.

  This looks great on a book jacket in the self-help section. So no successful person has ever been afraid to fail? Good for them.

  When it comes to advertising, I’m afraid to fail. It’s not a paralyzing fear, but a slow burn, a voice in the back of my head that says, “What if you’re out of good ideas? What if this campaign bombs?” It’s a decent-sized list of fears actually.

  Granted, this is advertising. My failure isn’t going to cause a plane to crash. Still, the fear is there every day. And I love it.

  Here are five reasons why:

  1)     It pushes me.
  With every new assignment, I feel pressure to succeed. I know the only way to avoid failure is to work really hard until I come up with something good. Hopefully great. Without any fear, it’d be easy to kick back and think “I’ve done this before, I’ll do it again, no problem.” Then give half the effort.

  2)     It makes me scrutinize my work.
  This is a dicey one. I know I have to ask myself the right questions, like “Is this REALLY the best it can be?” or “Will this strike a chord with the audience?” or even “Is it kind of funny or very funny?” The wrong question is “Is it possible somebody might not like it?” (ads that go unnoticed never get hate mail.) But taking a long, hard, objective look at my own work forces me to find the flaws and hopefully fix them before I produce something I’m not completely proud of.

  3)     Fear encourages me to share my ideas.
  We have talented people here whom I trust. When I have an idea I think might be pretty good, I ask them what they think. If it is pretty good, there’s a good chance they’ll make it better. If it’s bad, they’ll tell me that too. If I’m supremely confident in my work all the time, there’s no need to get anyone’s opinion on anything, right?

  4)     It keeps me focused on every single client.
  Our job is to help each one of our clients build a brand, sell products, and put butts in the seats. And as most of us know, an advertising failure tends to hang around longer than a success. So that tinge of fear makes me want to do everything in my power to ensure success for each and every one of our clients—for them and us. And that happens one assignment at a time.

  5)     It makes me an eternal student.
  I know I absolutely have to keep up with emerging and popular technologies. How do I know? My small nagging fear of falling behind is there to remind me, morning, noon and night. Which is why I try to study and use every potentially useful social media and mobile tool I can, and I’m constantly looking for the next big thing that might translate to the next big advertising thing.

  I don’t confuse being afraid to fail with a lack of courage or aversion to risk.  I also have a fear of doing humdrum work that’s invisible. I have to channel fear to drive me to do better. So here’s a quote about fear that I prefer:

  “To fear is one thing.  To let fear grab you by the tail and swing you around is another.”

  And I’ll certainly always learn something from my failures too. But that slightly frightened voice in my head will make sure I do everything possible to succeed first.

  I wouldn’t have it any other way.
   
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  Jim 11:30 pm on April 26, 2011 Permalink  

  Digital Firms Face the Music 

  For the past several years, advertising agencies that built their reputations by way of traditional media (read TV commercials) have been harshly criticized for not fully embracing the digital and mobile worlds. Even the mighty Wieden & Kennedy was publicly called out by flagship client Nike for being slow to build up its new media capabilities.

  Some of the shrillest critics were the upstart digital shops who dismissed mainstream agencies as clueless dodos, doomed to extinction in a world of UX, CMS and API’s.

  There was certainly some truth to their charges. Many agencies went through an awkward period of retooling as they struggled to grasp new digital opportunities. And marketing heads, always in search of a panacea, diverted large portions of their budgets to interactive initiatives through digital-only agencies.

  So it was somewhat surprising to read a recent ADWEEK article entitled, “Marketers to Digital Shops: Diversify or Die.” It cites results from a survey conducted by RSW/US of 174 marketing executives. “More than two-thirds…said the digital shops need to offer more traditional services to remain relevant, while just a third thought digital-only firms could survive long term.”

  So it turns out that being a pure digital play is just as self-defeating as ignoring the explosive growth of the Internet and mobile. This little corner of cyberspace has a response to this startling revelation:

  Duh.

  What sensible professional working today thinks (a) technology alone is the answer to marketing problems or (b) the Internet doesn’t matter? All but the brain deadest among us long ago understood that the best IDEA wins—and that a great idea straddles traditional and digital media.

  No wonder, as the ADWEEK article points out, digital shops are hiring creative directors and strategic planners “from the traditional world.” Hello. That’s how you compete in a multi-platform marketing arena.

  The creative high point of 2010 was almost certainly the Isaiah Mustafa Old Spice phenomenon: a sparkling idea, brilliantly executed. Thanks to traditional TV commercials, it exploded instantly on to the pop culture stage, with the speed and scale only broadcasting can achieve. Once established, it became a social media sensation through innovative and intimate real-time, global conversations that only the Internet can support.

  It wasn’t a traditional win. It wasn’t a digital win. It was a victory for creative storytelling. So let’s stop firing salvos across a digital divide that doesn’t exist anymore. The traditional/digital war is over. Inspiration is the clear winner.
   
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  Nat 4:49 pm on March 25, 2011 Permalink  

  Notes from SXSWi 

  Last year South by Southwest Interactive outgrew the music festival that spawned it, and this year expanded to 11 “campuses” spread throughout downtown Austin. It has rapidly evolved into the biggest event of its kind. Some old-time conference-goers grouse about the increasing crowds, expanding footprint and incursion of big brands into their hallowed ground. I was a SXSW newbie this year and wouldn’t be able to tell you if the conference has jumped the shark. I was simply excited at the concentration of smart people all discussing the issues I am most interested in. Here are some of the themes I picked up over five days.

  Serendipity
  Lots of people are concerned about the loss of serendipity in our lives now that we have the ability to get exactly what we want whenever we want it. Referral engines like those behind Netflix and Apple’s iTunes Genius mine our preferences and figure out exactly what we are going to want next. Search engines are seeking to capture as much of our data as they can in order to better refine searches based on our preferences, proclivities and current state of mind. With all this computational power figuring things out for us, are we losing the opportunity to stumble upon random new things? Is it possible to change our perspective when outside news and views come in a pre-selected feed? This concept of serendipity is occupying computer scientists as well as marketers and came up repeatedly through the weekend.

  Content vs. Journalism
  There seem to be two poles when it comes to the current failing state of the newspaper business model. On one side are people who worry that failure on the business side threatens the future of original, sourced, fact-checked journalism. On the other side you see a bit more ambivalence. Builders of ad-blocking and text-parsing apps blame online publishers for creating layouts that are unfriendly to readers. They provide tools to strip out the ads and links that form the basis of the publishers’ business model. Though this seems vampiric, you can hardly blame them. One anecdotal review of an LA Times article page found that just 12% of the page was dedicated to the article itself. Of the rest of the page, 12% was ads, 8% was core navigation and 68% was cross-links and noisy junk dedicated to driving additional page views. The current system isn’t working very well for publishers, their readers or their advertisers. Better page layouts and stronger advertising are needed in online publishing, and soon.

  A Third Era
  Someone has yet to come up with a dumb name like Web 3.0, but it is clear that the surge of smartphone adoption combined with the potential of location services has brought us to a third era of creative potential on the web. In one speaker’s formulation, creativity in Web 1.0 was characterized by the swoosh logo and a clever domain name, in Web 2.0 it was rounded corners and dropped vowels. Today’s great creative web work is going to be all about giving people the ability to do stuff. It is less about aesthetics and more about granting wishes. Having a smartphone in hand gives a person a powerful form of extra-sensory perception. Brands that can find a way to tap into that power are going to win.

  Free Tacos
  Free tacos were huge at SXSWi. Whether it was a branded taco truck or a company using social media to direct their fans to a taco-fueled promotion, tacos are very hot right now.