Thanks a bunch.

Back in late August through September, there was a huge fire in the Los Angeles National Forest dubbed the Station Fire. The fire was one of the largest in recent history, burning over 160,000 acres before being contained. It just so happens that a couple of the earlier points of the fire were situated near my hometown of La Canada. It was close enough that a handful of my friends and/or their families had to (voluntarily) evacuate their homes. I went home a couple of weeks after the fire had been put out and was overwhelmed with the show of support by the local community for the amazing firefighters who worked so hard.


I wish that I had taken a couple of snapshots of all of the signs in people's front yards, but driving safely ruled over taking photos, so this is a shot from Flickr.

The point that I'd like to make is that it's important to send thank you notes to anyone you meet with for interviews - job related or informational or otherwise. It leaves a positive impression and is a little reminder of you. What's even better is if it's handwritten. Everyone can appreciate a sincere, handwritten note as opposed to a quickly shot off email. It's more personable and shows that you have actually put forth some effort. If you want to take the extra step and create your own cards in the vein of your personal brand, it is that proverbial cherry on top of the sundae.

"This holiday season, give with your tongue."

Happy Holidays from Rosetta


Yesterday, Rosetta (the agency that I am with), released our holiday card which uses augmented reality and facial recognition. It's tons of fun (especially if you have a webcam). Check it out! I've attached the explanation of the game so you can see that you're benefitting the children of New Orleans!

"The bottom line is that we need your help to catch one million snowflakes in this augmented reality game we created called SnowDay. In the game you catch (virtual) snowflakes with your (real) tongue. It’s fun and strangely addicting. [Note: If you don’t have a web cam, the application will automatically detect that, and will offer you a “tongueless” version of the game.]

Please share this with everyone you know. When we reach our one million snowflake goal, we’ll make it snow in New Orleans’ City Park on February 20th from 1 to 4pm. The event is for underprivileged children who have never had the joy of playing in snow before. Not just flurries, either. We’re talking six serious inches of snow—with games, food and a visit from Frosty the Snowman. All you have to do to make it happen is stick out your tongue and spread the word (there are also Facebook and Twitter links built into the site)."

A Charlie Brown Ad Agency Xmas

Ahaaha. Given the season, this made me crack up. Warning: Swearing and drug references. Cover your little ones' ears.

New York State of Mind & Holiday Party 2009

Monday night was the One Club's New York State of Mind & Holiday Party 2009. It was lots of fun and I got some networking done. I met up with a couple of friends - Art, Lazar, and my fellow ex-BBDO intern, Kevin. When Art and I first arrived, it was on the heels of Gerry Graf. There were a lot of other big names at the event, but the one that stood out to me was Andy Azula, the CD from Martin who was featured in the UPS whiteboard ads because earlier in the day, I had just watched SNL's spoof with Bill Hader.

A minimum $10 donation went to the New York City Food Bank AND gained you open bar. Drinks were limited to beer and wine, but the wine was lovely. The h'or d'oeuvres were delicious (of course) and included sliders, kobe beef, coconut shrimp, pear tartlets, teriyaki salmon on rice cakes (actual rice made into little patties), and so much more.

Running the whole night were commercials by NY agencies, which included one of my favorites that has been released in the past week or so - JWT's James Lipton's beard campaign for LG. The walls were also plastered with ads, which I always enjoy checking out.

Pictures from the event can be found on the One Club's Facebook page.

San Diegans in NYC

It's interesting how a lot of my fellow San Diegans from school are coming out to New York City. We're all making a name for ourselves in this city where I first experienced my first snowfall in February of 2009.



The first one that I knew was Art. He's an all around great guy. He first came out here as part of the Most Promising Minority Students (MPMS) - Class of 2008. From there, he garnered a job with Interpublic Group (IPG) for a two year program which was essentially a job where he spent six months at four different agencies.

Brad, Creta, and I were part of the next class of MPMS. Brad was talented enough to enter into the same program as Art and is currently at DraftFCB for another month or so. Creta has decided to stay in San Diego while saving up for the move out to NYC that I think she is planning to do next year. Me? You can see my history by just scrolling through this blog.

While interning at BBDO, I heard about a competition they were hosting for the fall internship program and passed it on to many of my friends. Surprise surprise! My buddy, Lazar won out over thirty applicants. We had graduated together, and he interned with me from January through June at VitroRobertson. He's currently wrapping up his internship, which got extended until January of the coming year.

As 2010 (do we pronounce that two-thousand-ten or twenty-ten?) approaches, a new class of Most Promising Minority Students has been chosen. Three of my past classmates were selected to participate this year. Unfortunately, I am only familiar with two of them, Jenny T. and Mike (who incidentally also followed in Lazar and my footsteps and interned at VitroRobertson). The third was a girl named Avishag - whom I cannot recall if I've met. They're coming out in February for a visit, but hopefully a couple of them will end up moving out here to join us.

Who knows how many other AiCASD alumni will migrate out to the big city? It's quite a difference to experience seasons and snow and all which is almost the complete opposite of San Diego, but who doesn't love a little adventure?

It's Out! (In Canada)

A bit more good news for my friend, Brad, and me this past month. Our copies of the Applied Arts annual student awards winners came out and arrived at our homes. The magazine can't be found on newsstands in the U.S. (at least as far as I can find), but it was an honor to be included as one of the winners.

My campaign that was selected was a student campaign for Sudafed that I completed while in school. It is probably one of my favorite campaigns for a variety of reasons. Pharmaceuticals are notoriously difficult, but I wanted to have one in my book. I didn't want to choose a client that would commonly be found in other student books. I've seen some great campaigns for Advil and Dramamine done by fellow students, but I hadn't yet seen a student Sudafed campaign, which was good because I didn't have anything to unconsciously measure it up against.

The campaign can be seen here on the Applied Arts website or on my portfolio website.

(Hopefully) Back From Hiatus!

Well well well... it's been a busy past month or so and there's so much to catch up on. To kick off this post, I thought that I would include a piece that I worked on in school with another aspiring art director, Creta del Llano for CHADD, an organization for Children and Adults with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder.

As you can probably imagine, you can only cold call so many times and it's probably a good idea to not post about it every time too. With regards to cold calling, I find that it's a good idea to keep track of who you're calling and when. In fact, that little notebook that I mentioned near the beginning of my blog? It's completely filled with my notes specifically relating to agencies and cold calling. While a few pages were used for interview notes (for jobs, informational, and reviews of my portfolio), a good 80% of the 70 pages are filled with agency notes. Most of the agencies got back to me and have a hiring freeze or are not looking for juniors, so I folded those pages in to retain the information, but so that I wouldn't annoy the recruiters again for another couple of months.

Some good did come from all that cold calling. I had a handful of job interviews and informational interviews which were all good to practice selling myself. Even if the job wasn't for me, it helped to put myself out there and really work at networking and honing those interview skills.

Since September, I have been freelancing for a handful of days every couple weeks with the Ad Council and doing a handful of other design work. This was through another networking opportunity - a friend's friend. Something that many of us seem to forget is that our friends' networks are excellent resources for jobs. In addition to this, I have been doing some simple design work for family members and getting the holiday gifts that I would design for them out of the way.

I've been fortunate to have been offered an amazing full-time job, which I will be starting in a couple weeks. How did I come across this opportunity? It was through professional networking, of course. Essentially, it was through networking with a creative director that I worked with at BBDO and the people that he was connected to. More on the job details later... (maybe)



On to what I have been doing outside of the job hunt spectrum:
I had to move this month, which is surprisingly difficult in New York City. Luckily, I've found a semi-permanent temporary housing situation that will do nicely until I am ready to deal with hunting again. I have also been taking trips back to California to visit family, friends, and my alma mater. As you can see in the picture above, I hit up the beaches while I was there. (I refuse to pay to go to a beach here in NYC, so I didn't go at all over the summer.) The reasoning for all of these trips is that once I start work, I certainly will not be taking half as many of these trips.

I spent a whole night making these "sushi" to complement my Halloween costume as a sushi girl. They were made primarily from socks and washcloths. Neat, right? Enjoy!

The Big Ad Gig

A new competition popped up this year - The Big Ad Gig. Entry was simple - you had to submit a video declaring "I deserve a big ad gig" via YouTube along with your resume and online portfolio.

All in all, about fifty videos were submitted and narrowed down to 8 finalists. These finalists were invited to attend Ad Week and given one week to complete a creative brief for The American Heart Association. Four winners were announced and given 30 day paid Art Director or Copywriter positions at Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Ogilvy, Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness, and Atmosphere. One campaign was selected to actually be produced thanks to the funding of Microsoft Advertising.

I arrived at the New York Times building and headed up to the 15th floor for the second time this week. Kudos to their elevator system by the way. If you ever have a chance to check it out, it's quite efficient. But I digress... Brad Muramoto met up with me, and we supported one of the finalists from our alma mater, Dan Madsen. I positively adored his YouTube entry and was excited to see his presentation.



The semi-finalists had a mere 4 minutes to present a complete presentation including print, gaming, web, mobile, and television. Each of the presenters had at least one really cool idea within their presentations and everyone received a XBox 360. Here's Dan presenting:

Here's Matt, one of Dan and Brad's fellow interns when they were interning at CP+B:


A huge congrats to the 4 finalists - Avi Truzman, Jaime Walker, Matt Koulermos, & Anna Lippert.

Each of the judges had something insightful to add. Alex Bogusky was one of the judges, so that was my second spotting in two days. (Chuck Porter was also in the audience.) Afterwards, I went up to introduce myself to Tham Khai Meng of Ogilvy. After all, it doesn't pay off to be shy in this industry.

Afterwards, there was a quote that I caught from Bogusky that really stuck with me in this interview.



"No one who I know who's ever worked to get in the industry wound up not getting in. If you keep working at it, keep getting your stuff out there, and keep doing interviews, you get in. So, 100 percent chance of getting into the industry if you keep at it."

"Baked In" Book Release

As a young advertising creative, I am one of the many that is inspired by Alex Bogusky and his work at CP+B. Imagine my excitement when I refreshed my Twitter and this popped up from @Bogusky:


Felt bad for the poor guy getting bombarded with messages, but I got an invite!


At the release party, they were giving complementary copies of Baked In as well as food and drink. Walking in, I noticed that there seemed to be an unusual amount of young creatives. How did I know? You can usually tell who creatives are. It turns out that they were visiting from Seneca Ad School in Toronto, Canada. I spoke with a handful of them and two gave me their cards - Michael Jae Lee & Bryan Wood. I love to see how other young creatives think, so I was disappointed there were no links on the cards. I also spoke with a handful of other industry people and Twitterers while enjoying the delicious hor 'dourves and drinks.

I'm excited to start reading Baked In and following this recipe stuff on the website.

Alex Bogusky & John Winsor's autographs

I know he didn't write the book, but I still got Chuck Porter's autograph too. And he wrote a shout out to my CMYK necklace!

It's Advertising Week!

Here in NYC, it's Advertising Week. What does this mean? Many events and seminars are taking place all over the city - and many are related to advertising. What does this mean to me personally? I don't quite have the resources to pay to attend these lectures and events, but I'll try really hard to get into wherever I can for free.

On Tuesday, September 22nd, I attended the AAF's MAFA (Mosaic Alumni & Friends Association) Networking Reception. As an alumni of the Most Promising Minority Student Program, Mosaic Career Fair attendee for the last two years, and a newly inducted member of the Alpha Delta Sigma Honor Society, I wanted to go to a MAFA event and meet new people. The reception was hosted by the New York Times, and I met and reconnected with some wonderful people from MPMS and previous networking opportunities. A couple of the MPMS 2009 people that I ran into were Brad Muramoto, Melissa Chen, and Kelly Clark. I was also able to reconnect with a handful of people from different agencies including BBDO and Deutsch.

Networking for me is something that I don't think I'm all that great at. It's fun to meet new people and reconnect with others, but my brain seems to lack the photographic facial memory that other people seem to grasp quickly. Maybe I need more ginkgo in my diet to clear the cobwebs out of my head. Now that's REALLY pushing the connection to the showcased portfolio piece, but it's my blog, so I can finagle that, right? Below is a direct mail piece I completed for Molly Maid, a household cleaning service.

Going on a job hunt.

A parody song of "Going on a Bear Hunt"

We're going on a job hunt! We're going on a job hunt!
We're gonna catch a big one! We're gonna catch a big one!
I'm not afraid. I'm not afraid.
Are you? Are you?
Not me! Not me!

Here comes the interview! Here comes the interview!
I'm gonna catch a big one! I'm gonna catch a big one!
I'm not afraid. I'm not afraid.
Are you? Are you?
Not me! Not me!

We're coming to a big unemployment pool. We're coming to a big unemployment pool.
It sure is high. It sure is high.
It sure is wide. It sure is wide.
Let's climb in it. Let's climb in it.
Well, there's nothing over there. Well, there's nothing over there.
Nothing over there. Nothing over there.
Nothing back there. Nothing back there.
Hey! Wait! I think I see something!!!


It seems like good news is a-coming. This morning, I received a lovely email from Talent Zoo about the current state of advertising jobs (per job postings on their site). It read something like this:

"Hello Talent Zoo Members! We are writing to take a special opportunity to let you know some statistics we've compiled. It's always fun for us to share good news.

From August 1st - September 15th, we have seen a 53% increase in job postings for the advertising/marketing/digital/media fields over the prior 45 days. And, compared to the January 1 - February 15 2009 period there has been a 160% increase in new job opportunities. We still have a long way to go, but things are headed in the right direction. Not surprisingly, the healthiest sector remains digital marketing and media."


In keeping with the "Going on a Bear Hunt" outdoors theme, here's another piece from my portfolio. This one was done about two years ago for REI, an outdoor enthusiast's store. In general, the feedback has been that you either get it or you don't. Go enjoy the outdoors if you do. Cheers!

Cold Calling Day

I started cold calling agencies on my New York agency list today. It's funny because I'm a huge fan of technology, so I have the list on an InDesign file. I also love writing things down with a pen and paper (plus I don't have a printer right now), so I have all of the agencies on their own page in a little notebook that I carry around with me.

It was really important for me to do my research on each agency and the work that they have done rather than just going off of a well-known name, so before I called each place, I created a form that I forced myself to fill out beforehand. In general, it was as such:

Agency name
Address
Phone Number / Fax Number
Website(s)
Parent Company (if applicable)
Mission Statement (if found)
History of Company
Recent News
Recruiter Names & Contact Info
Established Contacts At Agency
Current Clients (and particular spots that I might remember)

I know what you're thinking. "Gosh. That's a lot of information to pull on each agency that you're interested in." Yes. Yes it was. Quite a few hours went into my search sessions.

Obviously, not every agency has easy-to-find information for each field, so it was a lot of pulling from a variety of websites. I know that a lot of other juniors and students are doing research on agencies (or at least I hope that they are), so below are a couple of sites that I pulled from - besides agency sites of course.

• Advertising Age
• Advertolog Advertising Archive
• AdWeek
• Coloribus
• Creativity Magazine
• LinkedIn
• Wikipedia - just be careful of the information that you garner from it.

As a reward to myself for making a chunk of the cold calls, I decided to pick up my package from the post office. This is my nerd-shirt I've been craving for months, but that I was finally able to order from Shirt.Woot . Huzzah! There's no Gameboy on the shirt, but there's plenty of controllers!

Inspiring videos

One of my favorite webisodes, The Guild, recently came out with a rocking music video directed by Jed Whedon and featuring Felicia Day and the other guild members. The music video is entitled "Do You Wanna Date My Avatar?" Since it has come out, the YouTube video has garnered over 3.5 million hits as well as countless views and downloads on other websites and iTunes.



Many clients now-a-days are clamoring for viral videos that will help to position their brands in a favorable way. While this is not specifically one of these videos, Sprint and Microsoft have sponsored the webisode series. As a young creative, I feel that it is important to follow well done viral videos to understand what is popular on the web. It can only help when it is something that I enjoy as well.

The Horn Corp

I was just forwarded this story done by NPR about a wonderful agency in SoHo called The Horn Corporation. Apparently, they are gracious enough to share their extra office desks with out of work advertisers. You can use the time to send out resumes and network with other ad people who are looking for jobs. It leads to interesting job leads, discussions, and more. BYOL (Bring Your Own Laptop).

This sounds like an amazing opportunity to meet some other people, so I might need to swing by and give this a try sometime after this weekend.

A couple days of relaxation

With the long weekend, I decided to take a couple days off from job searching and just relax. This is the first real time I've had off in quite a few years. While in school, I was juggling classes, homework, and work. For the last six months of school, I also tackled an internship. Normally, I would have had time to relax a bit after graduation, but I ended up graduating on Friday, packing up and moving to New York, finding a place to live, and starting my internship on the Monday right after graduation.

In keeping with the relaxing / unwinding theme, I'm posting one of my portfolio pieces I created for Lipton Tea. This particular one is a direct mail piece which simulates the way a tea bag opens. It was part of a campaign I completed which won the People's Choice and Bronze award at the 2009 San Diego ADDY's.

My last day!

Today was my last day at BBDO New York as an Art Director Intern. It was an experience I will never forget. I was fortunate to contribute to multiple clients and work with a bunch of creative teams. I am excited to see what comes out of the agency next. Who knows? Maybe one day, they'll invite me back.
What's in store for me now? Cold calling and pounding the pavement.

One of the wonderful people at BBDO, Patrice, got me a little going away present for my last day - cupcakes from Magnolia Bakery. Yummmm!


I've never really been into blogging, so this is new to me. Please bear with me. :) I was contemplating blogging primarily about my job search, but we'll have to see. It may become merely about my New York experiences from the eyes of a laid back Southern Californian.