I had a chance to talk with Creative Director and Copywriter Mike Allen about his career in Advertising and get some of his thoughts on branding and creativity.  Here are 10 minutes from that discussion.

As this embedded spot for American Airlines demonstrates, Mike gives voice to a brand’s essence.  This spot and two others in the campaign ran shortly after the 9/11 tragedy.  Worried that the country didn’t need a reminder of plane flight or the of who’s company mark was stenciled to the side of the terrorist weapon, American Airlines was on the verge of canceling all Advertising for 6 months.

The alternative was to show the emotion of what plane flight means to those who chose to travel; don’t show planes, show what planes can do besides fly into buildings. It’s easy to see how the “We know why you fly” campaign was born from these early spots written by Mike.

Additional 30 sec. spots in the Campaign from American Airlines 2001:
“Friends”
“Family”

Summery of Mike Allen’s Advertising History:

His 24-year advertising career includes creating brand-building work for American Airlines, Bank of America, Nortel Networks, Subaru of America, the U.S. Air Force, Bell Helicopter, Terminix and Bennigan’s while at Temerlin McClain in Dallas, TX.

From 2003-2009, He was ACD, then VP/Managing Creative Director at Rockett, Burkhead & Winslow (RBW) in Raleigh, NC, overseeing work and writing for BB&T, Biscuitville, Wavecom, Queens University of Charlotte, CORT Furniture and Old Dominion Freight Line across all media channels.

“You don’t know who they are but they are doing things that are changing your mind about your life”  – John Updike.

According to the Bio on the Goodby Silverstein website, Jeff Goodby is a thinker, writer, illustrator, printmaker and director.  He grew up in Rhode Island and attended Harvard.

He worked as a reporter in Boston, wrote for The Harvard Lampoon and has had his illustrations published in Time, Mother Jones and Harvard magazines.

Mainly, Jeff Goodby is the Creative Director and co-Chairman of Goodby Silverstein and Partners one of  Ad Age’s 10 Agencies of the Decade.  He was the principle guy who made you “get” milk.

Jeff Goodby:

“Try to see the work through the eyes of the client and yet still maintain your own faith in the stuff.  If you can do this, you can sell it to them. If you can’t, then it’s probably not the right idea in the first place. I also advise people — constantly — to start over rather than lopping edges off their ideas. Oftentimes, this results in clients asking you to go back to your original idea.”
[via: IHaveAnIdea.com]

Kevin Kelly of BigBuzz.com interview Jeff in Part One here:

Digital is edging out analog because it democratizes craft. We’ve greased artistic expression and access to talent with the speed of friction-free physics. Evidently neither technology nor egalitarianism does anything to stir the soul. Common sense leads us to expect an artistic tornado of stunning art. It’s a numbers thing.

The Moog Synthesizer had switched on Bach yet Moog Music isn’t an enduring listen. Rauschenberg erases beauty thus inspires – or provokes – the heart of an artistic movement. The contrast lies in communication – one way or two way; a cry for attention or a deep conversation, hobby or conviction.

Art is poetry when “poetry” is an emotionally rewarded aesthetic banter with our senses. Reduce craft to a one button push, the poetry now includes a lackluster effort to engage – similar to a street passing of two indifferent relations. There is no strength in laziness. A case for the enduring slog: Willem de Kooning to Rauschenberg, “I want to give you something very hard to erase.”

Genius lies in understanding that art involves the consumer’s world view, the context in which it is consumed, the collaborative nature of the work and the commitment of the artist. With his erased de Kooning, Rauschenberg proves that great art works don’t necessarily involve the tools of great skill. Our democratized digital renaissance proves similar; great tools don’t necessarily produce works of great art.

North light streams through a bank of windows. A lone figure, standing quiet in the middle of the large colorless room, surrounded by photographs from the last year of his life, he suddenly whispers, “What does it all mean?”

Ludicrous.  That doesn’t actually happen. Yet, stereotypes emerge from somewhere so what’s the origin of this scene? Quite simply: it’s the artistic search. Tell the story however you want, it comes out the same.  Artists chase personal expression but never quite pull it off, but never say die.

Listening to Ralph Gibson speak, and reviewing his work, something hit me. Yes, his work is simultaneously complex and simple. Its complexity is hidden by simplicity. His chosen frame is the disguise. But moreover, his work over five decades is astonishingly consistent in point of view and that, to me, is especially remarkable when bearing in mind that I consider changing my approach daily.

The strength of Ralph Gibson’s work comes from a unique viewpoint and not necessarily unique subjects, as with the work of countless others.  He knows himself well.

Ralph Gibson’s lesson to me is: viewpoint first.

Point of view is what it all means. Generate your own. Dominate your subject in the nicest possible way.

For five decades of photography visit: Ralph Gibson Photography Website

Ralph Gibson Biography [via Biography Page on RalphGibson.com]

Ralph Gibson studied photography while in the US Navy and then at the San Francisco Art Institute. He began his professional career as an assistant to Dorothea Lane and went on to work with Robert Frank on two films. Gibson has maintained a lifelong fascination with books and book-making. Since the appearance in 1970 of THE SOMNAMBULIST, his work has been steadily impelled towards the printed page. To date he has produced over 40 monographs , his most current projects being “State of the Axe”to be published by Yale University Press in Fall of 2008 and “NUDE” by Taschen, 2009. His photographs are included in over one hundred and fifty museum collections around the wrold, and have appeared in hundreds of exhibitions.

Gibson’s awards include fellowships from the John SImon Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as the Leica Medal of Excellence and the Silver Plumb Award from the Landmarks Preservation Committee. He is an Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France, and holds honorary doctorates from the University of Maryland and Ohio Wesleyan University. In 2007 he received The Lucie Award for Fine Art Photography. He has worked exclusively with the Leica for almost 50 years.

” I have been a photographer all my life….and have made photographs of many things and for many reasons. But one thing that becomes more and more apparent is that I am simply only as good as my next photograph. That’s the one that counts the most….For this reason I find it a delight to face a new day, and to develop that new roll of film. It’s a great way to live.”

Henri Cartier-Bresson

Henri found surrealism in his painting early in life. The miraculous jump came at age 28, when he stumbled upon a 35mm Leica camera after being inspired by Marin Munkasci’s photograph of African American boys playing at the beach. [For those who are unfamiliar, the Leica was the camera of choice in photojournalism for nearly half a century designed for durability, light weight, speed and flexibility.] From that point on we’d know Cartier-Bresson as one of the worlds greatest photographers.

Henri was held by the Nazis as prisoner of war in 1940. Three years later he became an escapee after three tries, followed by 2 years of underground activity helping prisoners and other escapees.

At the end of the war, in addition to photographing a newly liberated Paris and traveling extensively,  Henri produced a documentary, “The Return”.  Henri’s most notable collaboration however, materialize in ’47 when he, Robert Capa, George Rodger, David Seymour and William Vandivert founded Magnum Photos which remains one of the premier photo agencies.

His first book of 126 photos titled,  “Images à la Sauvette” was published in 1952.  Translated to “The Decisive Moment”, the book’s title would help distill Cartier-Bresson’s work into words for generations of young photographers.

Cartier-Bresson returned to his original creative outlet around 1968, removing himself from the mainstream of Photography to devote more time to drawing and painting.  As he’d explained, the camera is another tool for intuition and spontaneity.

Cartier-Bresson’s work defines photography.  It’s not made or manipulated; it’s taken – formed out of a nearly involuntary snap of emotional judgment when composition and humanity meet in the frame.  There is a purity of communication in those frames; more than a moment captured, it’s a intuited moment felt by both subject and photographer.

Henri’s original moment in photography happened as he viewed this photo by Munkacsi.

“The only thing which completely was an amazement to me and brought me to photography was the work of Munkacsi. When I saw the photograph of Munkacsi of the black kids running in a wave I couldn’t believe such a thing could be caught with the camera. I said damn it, I took my camera and went out into the street.”

His frustration with surrealist painting – he destroyed most of his early works – was relieved through photography.  Cartier-Bresson is quoted by the Washington Post in 1957:

“Photography is not like painting. It is a creative fraction of a second when you are taking a picture. Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera. That is the moment the photographer is creative,” he said. “Oop! The Moment! Once you miss it, it is gone forever.”

That moment of decisiveness, according to Cartier-Bresson, can’t be taught. Its sensitivity, you have it or you don’t.

To my eye, the work of Cartier-Bresson is the essence of simplicity, geometry, tone, and emotion; composition, design, and intuition.   Never too detailed, it raises as many questions as answered.  It’s nostalgic the moment after capture.

“The simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as the precise organization of forms which gives that event its proper expression… . In photography, the smallest thing can be a great subject. The little human detail can become a leitmotif.” — Henri Cartier-Bresson

Henri Cartier-Bresson’s work can be found at Magnum Photos.

Part II of this video HERE.

Additional Links:
Cartier-Bresson Foundation

NPR Story on Henri Cartier-Bresson

Quotes were obtained from Wikipedia

In 1948 America added a future iconic graphic designer to the population.  Paula Scher. Most would recognize her work from her years with CBS and Atlantic Records in the ‘70’s before her move to Time Inc. She later shingled her own design firm – Koppel & Sher and since 1991 has been a design leader at the NYC office of Pentagram Design Consultancy.

Paula Sher is a Hall of Fame designer and Grammy winner (not for singing but album design) – a designer’s designer if you will – who has contributed to the collection of MOMA and the Cooper-Hewitt National design museum.

So now that we’ve established her worth as a design spokes person, you are now free to watch her TED presentation:  Great design is serious (not solemn).

Also, if you want more, below the video box are links to a two part  interview on the influence of NYC on her creative output.

Paula Scher: The Geography of Design (Part 1) Video

Paula Scher: The Geography of Design (Part 2) Video

Like his work or not, Neal Young is fearlessly devoted to his creativity.  He does what he wants without looking back to check for followers.  He is singularly devoted to his creativity; it’s his life not his work.  He doesn’t think about being different so that his work is easily marketable.  Instead, he is genuine and protects his authenticity, therefore he’s different by design.

Passion.  Neil Young is an owner of his passion who fearlessly shares it with others through his craft.  He is creative in a way no one will commoditize. You don’t get this from Crowd Sourcing over the internet.

Your creative source is unique, it’s your  experiences and your emotions about those experiences.  Tap into those and communicate it well, your creativity will lead to innovation that is impossible to commoditize.

Referring to dry periods, he says they’re relief, don’t fight it, walk away.  Talking about his inspiration he says, it’s going to happen if you stay open; If he feels it, he’s open to it.  Don’t think about it, accept what happens.  Respect the gift; respect the source.

Neil Young has a direct line to his emotions, his creativity is not over-thought, over-prepared or forced.  He ignores everyone.  He’s the prototypical creative soul.

Video taped from May 20, 2009 discussion with architect Frank Gehry.  The entire interview is great but if you only have 15 minutes instead of 30, start at the 15 minute mark: Charlie asks about Mr. Gehry’s thoughts on creativity.