Portfolio Center was represented from the podiums of the meeting rooms of the huge Austin Convention Center ,with Dave Werner, Creative Director and Portfolio Center alum from San Francisco’s Minor Studios, seizing the dais on Thursday and speaking on Video Games and design in relationship to brands and discovery. It was music to my ears as he was sounding like he wasn’t so far away from Portfolio Center as he connected the value of storytelling in case studies of brands in the grocery store to the realities of current media and where it might go into the future. I was really proud of Dave as he has showcased his education well. You can see him in a couple of the images below.

Other Portfolio Center alumni and new Austinites were Portfolio Center alum Bryony Gomez-Palacio and her husband, Armin Vit, who hosted the Mano a Mano: Design History session, where they tested everyone’s creative knowledge. But fear not — they provided copies of their brand-new design bible book just hot off the presses, “Graphic Design Referenced.” Bryony and Armin have authored some amazing books recently, including one of my favorites, Women In Design.

Here designer Debbie Millman of Sterling Brands works frantically to discover answers in the contesting…. .. and, Bryony fires questions to the contestants.

My talk was titled Aesthetics without Ethics and addressed to young people… and that is just who came… hardly anyone in the packed room had been in business over 5 years and many were students who had just finished a month ago a college or university… what was important to get across, to share is that today companies, in little towns or big ones, are looking for special talent to help them find unique solutions to complex problems— solutions that will make a real difference in society, and those solutions are going to come from the ‘y-gens-to-the millennial’ generation and they are going to drive our economy into the future— yes! you will go in to work at noon one day. People that can think and, moreover, that are brave enough to think and put their ideas out there.

It was a commentary for young people to hear about how being PERSONAL is the most important aspect of storytelling. And, that in a certain sense IT’S ALL ABOUT YOU: YOUR ideas, your experiences, your values, and your voices. Things that are superfluous, important to structure, i.e., elements as typography, or even conceptual ones, like storytelling– yes they are important, but they mean very little without a grasp of the most essential aspect of GREATNESS in anything.

And, most importantly, the most wonderful aspect of being a creative person today is you have an opportunity to confirm your own integrity. You are the intermediaries between information and understanding— when you interpret this way, you then become the author from the process and you contribute a little more than you take away. And, yes you can change your world.

It is a very powerful position to be in, really, and it represents such large opportunity. You absolutely can impact and determine societal values by the work you do.

Great art of any kind demands RELATIONSHIPS. And, that is the most important aspect of why we do what we do. And, if you think of the audience and your clients as your friends, people you wish to help and support. You want to do whatever you can to make their lives easier, more pleasant, and more effective. Well, you have the power to do that as creative people. I’d even argue you have a responsibility- particularly a social responsibility. In this madcap economy, the old rules just don’t apply. Ideas matter more that ever.

To give you an idea of the great speakers and presenters, there was San Francisco designer Michael Osborne opening the sessions, talking about Joey’s Corner and design that matters (Joey’s Corner); DJ Stout of Pentagram talking on the art of magazine design (DJ Stout | Partners | Pentagram); Jonathan Gouthier, of NYC had a great session on how creativity can grow businesses (Gouthier Design: a brand collective); Ed Brodsky, past president of The Art Directors Club/NY, who started in the advertising and design biz when he was 8, talked about keeping creative control with difficult clients; and Alexander Isley spoke on what’s going on in design today… from Georgio Armani to the R&R Hall of Fame, from MTV to Chevron and Scholastic as case studies (Alexander Isley Inc.: Shameless Self-Promotion); and Trish Meyer showcased some amazing thinking techniques around creating motion with AfterEffects from their now famous book series; Felix Sockwell talked about Logo design from Texas to NY (Felix Sockwell Inc: home page); and Typographer Thomas Phinney, formerly heading up Adobe’s Fonts (Phinney on Fonts), talked about things you didn’t know fonts could do.

Mark Randall, delivering the closing keynote address, talked about how he and his partner Andrea Pellegrino have fused entrepreneurship to a new standard and how ‘Design Ignites Change’ is spreading meaningful messages and actions all over the globe. I want to thank Mark for giving Portfolio Center such a huge call out for our work with World Studios.

The conference was great and here are some candid shots (just below) of some of the people and events over the week… .. Huge kudos to HOW, F&W Publications, Bryn Mooth and all her various complement of support teams, Publisher Gary Lynch of Print and I.D. Magazines, and the many designers, business people, and participants who came together from around the world for a great and very ‘hot’ week of learning, camaraderie and some amazing Austin, Texas hospitality.

At the 2009 Cannes Lions 56th International Advertising Festival, A Bronze Cannes Cyber Lion was awarded to the Durex Condom “Get it On/Balloon Animals” viral video.

The winning video was created by Eddie and his team at his former agency, Fitzgerald + CO - The Team: Eddie Snyder, Christine Sigety, Jerry Williams, and Fernando Lecca .

The video was produced by Superfad in New York.

The Durex Condom “Get it On” viral video has been viewed over 12 million times and was ranked as one of the top most watched viral videos by Ad Age.

In a recent article in Adweek, titled Hot (or Not) at Cannes / On the subject of Lust, this Year’s Ads Run Hot and Cold, advertising critic Barbara Lippert wrote:

“The agency manages to be open, clever, inclusive and far more expressive and human than the Calvin Klein board…No shame here as the blue and pink [balloon animals] happily go at it from every angle, complete with squeaky-rubber sound effects… “Get it on” is the double-entendre tagline—a great way to combine “Just do it” with a health message. It’s poignant and timeless, a thing of beauty. Give it a gold, I say.”

“Well, it didn’t win a Gold,” said Eddie. “But I’m more than happy with a bronze. The Cannes competition is incredibly tough, especially in the cyber category. And after winning five Cannes Finalists, it’s nice to finally win some metal.”

But this isn’t the only metal that Eddie has won with the video:

• Art Directors Club of NY / Silver cube

• Clio / Gold + Silver

• One Show / 2 finalists

• AICP / Four Honors / the commercial will be Archived @ The MoMA in NY / Celebrating the Art of the American Commercial

• D&AD / a coveted nomination for a pencil (only 167 out of 22,000 entries received a nomination)

Congratulations to all who competed. You guys worked really hard and every presentation made us proud. We’d like to thank all of the panelists who participated in this critique/selection process. It took an enormous amount of your valuable time and energy, and we very much appreciate your input:

Wade Thompson, Son & Sons; Kevin Byrd, Armchair Media; Scott Runkel, Carters; Albert Whitley, Moxie; and Elise Thomason, Iconologic.

MODA Board Members: Brenda Galena, Steven Krueger, Jim Hackler, Hank Richardson, Ben Friedman

Now, for Kendra’s note:

After eleven short weeks of hard work, client meetings and endless design and content refinements, the MODA writing and design for web class critique and final client presentation was last night. We are thrilled to announce that it’s over, it went swimmingly, and that we have a winning design!

Thanks - Kendra & Witt

MODA Home Page


MODA Exhibitions Page


MODA Donors Page

The video won honors in four categories: Humor, Sound Design, Low Budget, Next Viral/Web Film. The total makes it one of the the most honored works in the show, which pays homage to the art + technique of the American commercial.

Over 300 judges from across the country, and a blue ribbon Curatorial Committee comprised of distinguished members of the industry from advertising agencies, production companies, editorial companies, and many others, selected the honored work.

A separate panel of leading-edge creative practitioners, chaired by Jamie Barrett, Partner/Creative Director at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco, judged the Next categories.

After its debut at MoMA, the Show goes on tour across the United States and abroad. The Show will screen in Los Angeles, on July 22, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The Show will be in Dallas on October 21st; in Miami on October 30th; and in Chicago on November 19th. Tour dates for San Francisco, Minneapolis, and Richmond, Va., are to be determined.

To view the work honored for 2009, click here .

Other awards that Eddie’s won for Durex/”Get it on” are:

The New York Art Directors Club; Silver CUBE One Show: 2 merits Clio: Gold + Silver D+AD: nomination Archive, latest issue, page 151

The AICP honorees + the work will be in the permanent collection @ The MoMA in New York.

Gold record artist Dionne Farris portrait by Nathan Stoan

Still, notice how enthralled they all look, how ‘in their element.’

Here are Amelia and Artem and their images flanked by professors Jerry Burns and Michael West.

We got to hear about Cooking Light, the magazine and the digital/ video side of it; Southern Living, the 14th largest magazine in the country, with 26 editions, which is equal to producing a full magazine from scratch every 2 weeks; and Coastal Living. We saw how a magazine makeover happens and what you have to consider in designing the same…from typeface consideration- Requiem to Bembo, Didot to Chronicle; how the content has to work to bring in an audience; how the designer and writer of today is tomorrow going to have to be able to practice their craft live on a broadcast; how you have to consider so many elements in a magazine design planning— flow, thumbnails, ideas, conceptual thinking, photo shoots, video shoots, issue makeups, fact checking, color, paper, cmyk, column widths, typography, the flow of the well stories, shipping and production.

We learned about food shoots and how the food itself is handled and how you have to be obsessed with an overstated case of aesthetics-to-understanding, how the story has to have visual legs. How important CONTENT is to the editions > HUGE in the designers’ world today. How the experience differentiation is most important. How the least decision you make can result in millions of dollars of expenditure, which is why it is so important to understand your audience.

Howard Greenburg, one of the country’s leading design directors, having worked and come to Southern Living from Elle Decor and House Beautiful formerly, met with the students personally, as did Jennifer Madara, the design director of Coastal Living, and Leigh Corra, design director of the SPC digital studio (Southern Progress Corporation), and Carla Frank working with Time, Inc., who shared her time, coming out of a session where she is working on redesigning a major magazine there.

The complex was super as an environment and place to work. It is like being in a forest with a three-story staircase of wood, and waterfalls, and everything growing in green, and natural settings of stone mixed with culture.

This opened the students’ eyes about alternatives to working in a large urban environment—showed them another lifestyle and culture, just one of many possibilities.

These are high points, as the day was loaded with new things to know and experience.

And as always, the students were amazing—asked great questions and were just so sharp, making me very proud.

Dieline is the number one site read and referred to by the packaging industry and designers all over the world.