LG - Give It a Ponder.

We know that Aristotle had a thick one.  Sigmund Freud frequently stroked his when he found himself in a quagmire.  Al Gore finally grew one and won a Nobel Peace Prize.  Clearly having a beard has aided some of the greatest minds in finding their moment of clarity.  And in this age of immediacy, teens are in desperate need of that moment of clarity when comes to texting and photo SMS. It’s all too easy to send a text in lieu of the paper note to start a rumor, shake down Bobby for lunch money, or blow up your boo with a racy sext.  All to have your indiscretion show up on Twitter, Facebook, youTube, and if you’re a cast member of High School Musical, TMZ.

As one of the world’s premier cell phone makers, LG tapped Y&R and VML to shed some light on this growing situation. The result was a campaign that reminded teens, before you text, give it a ponder. VML jumped in to create an effective online presence that was designed to hit teenagers where they lived. Instead of reinventing the wheel by creating our own video, chat, and commenting system, we attached a new chassis to the existing wheel by keeping our content in the areas where teens were already browsing.  Whatever path the user takes, they are in familiar surroundings with our pondering beard.  Start stroking.

Roles: Interactive Associate Creative Director, Grand Animator of Beard, Hand Model
Awards: 2011 Gold Effie, 2010 One Show Bronze Pencil, 2010 IAC award, Best In Show - Online Campaign,

Press: Entertainment Weekly, brandchannel.com, viralblog.com, Shout out from Lee Clow

Headroom - Gene Marcus: Studio Whisperer

Headroom Digital Audio came to us and said simply, "We want to raise our profile a bit." Our answer was to create an blank canvas for them to step in and do what they do best. Create music, sound, and mix it all up for film. We wrote a script for a film that centered around a fictional employee at Headroom named Gene Marcus that can commune with sound, then channel that sound through his mouth. This gave Headroom ample opportunity to do their thing with a quirky and memorable character. I came up with the idea for Gene Marcus and Tom Pastore wrote the treatment and preliminary drafts of the script. From there, I wrote the last couple of drafts then cast two performers from the Upright Citizens Brigade to help improvise the script a little on the fly. The amazing Tim Martin for Gene Marcus and the awesome Alden Ford at Bart Caltran (a name he came up with as an homage to the commuter train in California) both came through in a major way. And to round out the duties, I also played Darren the intern. Why the hell not?




Roles: Writer, Director, Actor, Creative Director

agdaar - portfolio.video.08

The first thing you should know is that I have become hopelessly addicted to The Universe on The History Channel.  It's amazing because it goes a long way in attempting to define the thought of infinity and existence from nothing.  I draw a lot of parallels from that to creativity. It also goes a little further in blowing your mind. Second, I heard the song "Living a Dream" by Dr Dog.  If you have not listened to Dr Dog yet, stop what you're doing and buy the album, "Fate".  I'll wait.

Office Depot Racing

2009 was an exciting year for Tony Stewart.  Not only did he win three races, seeding him second in the chase, but it was his first year as a driver and team owner.  As a new business owner, there was is no better sponsor than Office Depot.  Both Stewart and Office Depot couldn't have been more excited to work together and it was our job to carry that excitement into the site. The site featured elements that brought fans closer to Stewart, his crew, and the races, as well as sweet deals from Office Depot.  I felt like every other racing site out there was too serious.  The driver and his crew standing there, mean-mugging the camera with their arms folded.  When I met Tony Stewart, he was a fun, free-spirited guy, that liked to mess with his crew.  I wanted to balance that fun side of his personality with his legendary competitive spirit.  The result was a site that was unlike any other in the space.  Ch-Check it.

Role: Associate Creative Director

Office Depot - Survival of the Smartest

With the economy on everyone's minds, Office Depot decided to create a hub of helpful, money-saving information and tools for small business owners.  Office Depot was very adamant about this not just being an e-commerce hub. They also wanted it to drive foot traffic into stores.  Since they provided many of tactics and content, it was our job to reinforce this notion visually.  We decided the best way to do so was to give the user the feeling that they were inside of a store shopping for ideas.  We created a 3D in-store experience that melded real-world Point of Sale tactics with basic web design ideals.  This gave each section of the site it's own store shelf.  We worked with the characters, Matt & Matt, to greet you at the door and encourage you to look around and start saving. Get to saving, sucka.

Role: Associate Creative Director

ESPN College Gameday

What started as a simple site design turned into a ground breaking experience for ESPN. We decided to push ESPN to allow the web home for one their best rated original programs to be part of the conversation of the show rather than just be a place to "look at stuff."  Being a fan of the show for years, I wanted the site to become almost required reading for the live broadcast on Saturday morning as well as capture the same elements that made the show so popular: Chemistry of the on-air talent and the crowd. We allowed users to vote on who they thought would win the game of the week, which was frequently referenced on air.  As a part of the overall campaign, visitors came to answer questions posed by the TV spots, "How Well Do You Know Gameday?" Along with favorite sign voting and the ability to "interview" the host in lieu of written bios, users could also watch original content created as a joint effort from our team and the show's executive producer.

Roles: Associate Creative Director, video post
Awards: 2009 IAC award, Gold Regional Addy

ESPN Euro 2008 Website Intro

When ESPN came to us to design their 2008 EURO site, I originally concepted a site where the navigation elements floated in space around the players in the field. The client liked the look, but wanted to use it as an intro to the CMS driven site.  Watch it in action.

Roles: Associate Creative Director, effects design
Awards: 2009 National Silver Addy, 2009 Webby Nominee

Xerox Frugal Color Campaign

It started as a healthy creative shootout at Y&R for Xerox's new affordable color campaign. Two other guys and myself were up against the creative mainstays on the account, which, I guess made us the underdogs? Next thing you know, we're shooting Beth Littleford with Joe Pytka and animating computerized goats with a Russian guy named Alexi. Mother is proud. Meet the goat yourself.

Roles: Associate Creative Director, Music Composition

Awards: 2008 Webby Honoree, 2008 New York Festival Award, 2008 WebAward, W3 Gold, 2008 IAC Gold

Microsoft - Blackberry Jam

In the summer of 2005, Windows Mobile declared war on BlackBerrys.  This piece was developed to be shown before a keynote speech, rallying the troops.  Every item in the film was either shot in my office or ripped directly from the internet.  The song used in the final cut was "Ballroom Blitz," but I always liked this cut better.  Frank Black's "Whatever Happened to Pong?"

Roles: director, animator, sound + effects design.

MSN Reality Fame

In 2005, MSN was ready to release it's ninth version of MSN Messenger and really wanted to push the ability to create content within the messenger itself.  We presented an idea that included user submitted photos to be used in a fictional reality TV show created by super producer, Matthew Stanford Nash (MSN, wink wink). An idea that, at the time, was unheard of considering brands were not really into user submitted content.  It was a tough sell to a stiff client that wasn't really into "funny" stuff like this. I figured the only way to sell him was to animate the man himself dancing around the Microsoft courtyard rapping to MC Breed's "Ain't no future in yo frontin'."  The earth stood still and the guy actually cracked a smile.  Humbled, he greenlit the project.  Check out the full video after the jump.

Role: Art Director

Awards: 2006 Best in Show Regional Addy, 2005 AIGA A2 Award, 2006 Cannes Cyberlion shortlist

Dr Pepper - There's More To It Campaign

Then Y&R ECD Matt Eastwood stopped me in the hallway and asked if I would join some of his creatives in coming up with Dr Pepper's new brand campaign. We pitched a 360 campaign of life being a mashup just like Dr Pepper's 23 bold flavors mashed up into one bold taste.  Although the spots never aired, the print and tagline, "There's More To It," ran for a good while.

Roles: Campaign Concept, Print and Interactive Art Director

Check out the never before seen TV spots after the jump.

Burger King - Seek the Silver Surfer

To celebrate the release of Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer, Burger King teamed up with another agency client, Dr Pepper to create an advergame so awesome, it completely defined the "Contra-style-side-scrolling-shooter-online-game-featuring-a-pixelated-Jessica-Alba" genre. Look it up. You're welcome.

The above is a little trailer I cut together and presented to the entire agency as an unveiling of sorts.

Role: Associate Creative Director

Awards: 2008 IAC Award, Gold Regional Addy

Burger King - The Apprentice Season 3

The third season of NBC's The Apprentice kicked off with a season premiere featuring a Burger King challenge.  Locked in a room (literally) for about a month, we came up with a site that put you, the savvy common man, in the same place as the savvy contestants on the show.  Create, market, and serve your own Burger King creation.  Then be judged by BK's executive chef, the CMO, and ultimately the CEO for a chance to win prizes from American Airlines.  Walk away with a brand experience and a smile.

Role: Art Director

Awards: Future Marketing Nominee, 2006 How Design Interactive Annual, Lester Wunderman Award

Burger King - Have It Your Way Nation

Remember when forums were for CERN lab workers and dungeons and dragons? Remember when social networks were a beer and a mistake? I'm speaking of a time when user generated content scared the finely tailored trousers off of our clients. It wasn't that long ago. That's when HIYW Nation existed. Long before anyone knew it was okay to let your audience interact with your brand, we were opening the lines and letting the people talk. All we asked was for you to tell us your problem and we'll solve it with food. Or if you had a solution to one of your fellow nationalists' problems, you solve it, we'll animate it.

Roles: Art Director, Music Composition

LG - Red Couch Canada

The US had a version of this site that our friends to the north wanted to make their own.  We went in and reskinned the site with very little access to assets.  We had to get down like MacGuyver when it came to creating motion graphics with four flat images.  Using the now common 2.5D technique, we were able to keep the feel of moving around the room.

Roles: Associate Creative Director, Visual Effects

LG - Kitchen Series

The client wanted a kitchen configurator. We knew that the product features were the selling point.  So, we met in the middle.  Configure your kitchen to look like yours and we'll show you how awesome works inside of it.
You try it, tough guy.

Since the walkthrough above had no audio, I decided to add the track Captain Kelly's Kitchen by the Dropkick Murphys. It's a first person narrative about a man that has an affair with Captain Kelly's wife in and around her kitchen. Perfect backdrop for the LG kitchen configurator.

Role: Associate Creative Director

Associated Tennis Professionals

ATP knew that people were having a rough time getting into tennis doubles play.  Seriously, how are supposed to ogle Andy Roddick's ass when Pete Sampras' eyebrows are blocking your view? You know? Eh? Anyway, ATP decided to change some rules and create a campaign to let everyone know they meant business. This sort of pissed off the elitists. We felt a little like rebels.  Rebels start revolutions.

The first part of this video was shown to the players and media to get them excited.  The second half is a hand full of print and collateral that was produced. Other ideas that were produced was an outdoor campaign where we hired a couple of graffiti artists to tag up walls around different venues with their take on our campaign.

Role: Senior Art Director

Smirnoff - Raw Iced Tea Partay

Smirnoff was doing a roll out of their new Raw Iced Tea using the Northeast as a test market. Enter the Prep Unit. The Prep unit was a group of highly privileged trust fund prepstas from Connecticut. Their rap video caught fire on the youTubes then wound up with their own site.  The site featured the rap video and a prepsta handbook. After the success of this site, there was eventually a coast war between the east and the west. Luckily, no one was hurt except Diddy's ego for not figuring out a way to capitalize on it. Too early?

Role: Senior Interactive Art Director

Crown Royal Racing

Back in the day, Jamie MacMurray used to race for Crown Royal Racing. I happen to know that Tony Stewart has switched to Crown from Jack Daniels. Could it be because of these wonderfully designed emails for Crown Royal Racing? Or could it have been because it doesn't shred your soul like Jack does?

Role: Senior Art Director

The Grills Come Home

Very early on in my career I learned the importance of selling an idea by any means necessary. The team and I came up with an idea for Burger King's new (now completely old and probably forgotten) brand positioning of "Fire Grilled Flavor" or "Cooking Over An Open Flame" or something like that. Our idea was that grills all over the country were "coming home" to Burger King. To illustrate the idea, we went out shot our own spot, complete with Spike Jonze inspired special effects. The idea was never bought because the brand positioning was quickly killed, but I still love that we went out and did this. It was my directorial debut. Fun fact: My car's radiator exploded during the shoot.

The Chinema

This was actually the precursor to what eventually became Have It Your Way Nation.  Where as HIYW Nation was about solving user submitted problems with food, the Chinema was about upside down faces solving problems with, well upside down faces.  To show how funny the idea could be visually we shot this lost spec ad.  I played the insane doctor. This was my acting slash directorial debut. BTW, if you're wondering why the doctor grimaces when he laughs, you should know that it's really hard to smile upside down.

2002 College Reel

I was moving some things around on the old hard drive and came across this video. It's my old college portfolio I did back in the fall of 2002, right before I graduated. It took me back to the good old days of late nights at Kinkos and early morning critique sessions.  I think this is a good representation of how the insanity started.

Enjoy friends, enjoy.