Changethethought

Well, 2008 was an insane year. So much happened that I did not expect. I set out, very deliberately, at the beginning of last year to start a whole new version of the site and really push myself both personally in my own work, and also strive to hunt down as much content as humanely possible to create a legitimate blog that can serve as a real source of daily inspiration for the modern designer. It wasn’t easy since I work full time as an Art Director at an advertising agency, and it has been straining many times, but it has been worth it. The site has come so far, and I have plans to keep pushing it further.

Just before the holiday I got word that Uptown Magazine will be publishing a special double issue (2 covers) for the inauguration of Obama that feature two of my illustrations. Currently I am also working on a new television spot for the Colorado Lottery . I also re-concepted and art directed along with all of my hard working friends at Cactus, the new version of the Own Your C campaign along with a new version of the website for which I am still pushing for further development. Thank you to my new writing partner Lee for all of his work on the new campaign. The OYC work included 5 new T.V. spots created with the amazingly talented people at Lifelongfrienshipsociety. I had more fun working with them this year than probably any other project I have worked on. NYC is amazing. I cannot wait to go back. I was also asked to contribute a small piece and make some predictions for trends in 2009 by Computer Arts Magazine. You can see and read this in the current issue (also pictured above). I also appeared in the 50 covers/50th issue of Advanced Photoshop Magazine U.K. this month. I am currently working on printing a new series of A3 posters and continue (outside of my day job) working on creating new posters and work (a recent poster is pictured above).

I am still looking for new partnerships both for the site and for new creative projects. I am still seeking a art/design rep to help me secure more design/illustration work and am always looking for new freelance projects. My work at Cactus is going very well though and I feel blessed everyday to be working for such a tremendous agency and be surrounded by so many talented and kind people. I plan on staying there with people I truly care about for some time.

I am just perpetually interested in growing as a creative and a person and that means taking on as much as I can handle. I will also be pursuing my acting career more aggressively this year and will be getting my first head shots soon. Basically, I refuse to sleep until I pass out.

I am also currently shopping for a house and have decided to hunker down for a while in Denver. Its beautiful here. Its an up-and-coming city and I want to be a part of making it a better place to be a creative.

2009 is going to be a big year and don’t let the media get you down. We can make the world better and turn things around. We have before and we can do it again. Stay positive and keep creating. Thank you so much for the support and keep your eye out because Changethethought is going to charge on.

written by Christopher | tags: Cactus, Changethethought, Ctt News, Obama, Own Your C, Uptown

Outside of Changethethought and trying to be a decent husband to a very supportive wife, I also work full time as an Art Director for an advertising agency in Denver called Cactus.

We have been working over 2 years on what I would now call a ‘health awareness’ campaign called Own Your C. The campaign was originally aimed at teen smokers, but we wanted to keep the message broad and empowering versus fear-mongering, polarizing and condescending. We thought if we could make it cool and rebellious to be intelligent and responsible versus being dumb and reckless, we might be able to make a difference in helping young people make healthy choices. We are still knee deep in it, and so far it has been an amazing ride.

This year we wanted to turn a corner and start trying to utilize the campaign to get young people both in Colorado and out of Colorado to start engaging one another and talking about the things that are important to them. We are still in the throes of rolling out that idea and the hub of the campaign is the newly launched ownyourC website. We saw the internet taking a pretty hard shift since the campaign started. The internet is finally emerging as a communication tool that has real power to be something young people can use to communicate and proliferate their own culture right under the nose of babyboom generation. So as opposed to fighting it we decided to go there with them and start steering the campaign in that same direction.

We worked with Lifelongfriendshipsociety to help create some quick 15 second spots that would speak to younger viewers about what they could do at the new website and ‘announce’ that the campaign had evolved. We felt it was also important to do something dramatic to attract new people to the campaign. We decided to transform the old ‘destination’ website into a ‘platform’ where users could create their own space on the site and defend their ideas by sharing their choices with their peers. Agencynet was responsible for building the website and they really poured themselves all the way into the project, as did LFS, and we were so happy to get the chance to work with them both. Amazing talent was represented throughout in terms of the creative.

Like I said the campaign is under constant development and as it evolves we are learning more and more about our audience, their ideas and needs. So far it has been a very rewarding experience and I have been really excited to be a part of it.

written by Christopher | tags: Cactus, Lifelongfriendshipsociety, Own Your C, Ownyourc.com, STEPP