Hawkins Creative

Green Revolution

2009-06-20T10:52:00.000-07:00

As anyone with more than a few followers on Twitter will tell you, green is the color of the moment. More and more people are coloring their Twitter photos with a green tint in solidarity with the supporters of Iran’s defeated presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi.

The movement is being branded on-the-fly with the use of green in all kinds of protests from soccer players wearing green arm bands to striking images of hundreds of yards of green cloth snaking through the protesting crowds in Tehran, all picking up on Mr. Mousavi’s political party’s color. These images are being delivered to the world in real-time through tweets blogs and texting (as well as the traditional media) so sympathizers across the globe are staging protests in their home countries picking up the green brand along with laser-printed “where is my vote?” signs, so that short of the racial differences, the protests look like they could have been back in Iran.

But why green, where did it come from and why has it become such a powerful tool in branding this protest movement? A little research shows that the color green has been associated with Islam for centuries, in fact the decoration of mosques, the bindings of Qur'ans, the covers for the graves of Sufi saints, the flags of various Muslim countries all feature the color green. Qur’an says that the inhabitants of paradise will wear green garments of fine silk and even the crusaders would never use green on their armor so as not to be mistaken for Muslims in battle. Color theorists suggest that green represents life, renewal, abundance in nature and the environment. Green is also considered a restful color with a calming affect that comes from feelings of balance, harmony, and stability. Of course green has recently come to the forefront of the world’s pallet because of it’s association with the environmental movement and it has in fact become a noun as we all “go green”.

So, what does green mean to you?

Where's the social media beef?

2009-02-23T20:10:00.000-08:00

Now, I've been on Twitter for a few months and I feel so fortunate that there are so many social media "experts" out there to guide me through this big scary 2.0 world. I'm so impressed that people have been able to spend years of in depth study and have worked for so long in this field to have earned this distinguished title of "expert". Unbeknownst to me, there MUST me some intensive training curriculum out there, some Doctorate of Social Media (PhSM) that I don't know about, that produces these visionary people. How else would they be able to call themselves Social Media Experts, or 2.0 Guru (that must have included study abroad in some south Asian Twitter monastery), or twitter maven. They MUST have some credentials, right.... right?

Design Vs SEO, Can’t We All Just Get Along?

2009-02-21T19:00:00.000-08:00

IN THIS CORNER, designing with Flash animations, using cool fonts (or anything other than boring old arial), and of course lots of lovely white space, we have THE DESIGNER!

IN THE OTHER CORNER with a mission to sell sell sell, a need for ROI, and a primal fear of wasted real estate on a web page, we have THE SEO MARKETER!

In this never ending war for design control of the client’s web site, battles are fought every day over aesthetics vs. sales; brand vs. search rankings. But, it doesn’t have to be that way. Can’t we all just get along? Yes we can.

As painful as it is to admit, the days of not having to worry about SEO unless you’re working on an online retailer site have passed. The reality now is that any brand’s importance is perceived to be in direct correlation to where they rank on Goolge. Ask yourself, how often do you even go to the second page on Google when doing a search? The fact is, conversion numbers plummet for each page your site drops on the search engines. So the challenge now is that designers have a new set of restrictions to work under, and really, we should be used to working under certain restraints, that’s what we do. Every design assignment is fraut with restrictions, (style guides, budget constraints and client preferences) so think of SEO restrictions as an opportunity to be that much more creative.

A few design guidelines to make sure your site is ready for SEO
1. Standard fonts only. Your navigation, content areas, calls to action and special offers are all opportunities to ad search terms so be creative with placement proportion and color, but use the standard fonts.

2. live text in all areas with searchable content. Don’t cheat by using non-standard fonts and make them images! Search engines can’t read it unless it’s live.

3. Flash or no Flash: the days of 30 second Flash introductions are long over. Use Flash to bring attention to certain areas on the page but make sure it doesn’t interfere with down load times and doesn’t include key words that need to be searchable.

4. call to action: There should be a strong call-to-action on each page of the site, no one should have to scroll to the bottom of the page to find your phone number.

5. Share share share: each page should have a bookmark button that allows visitors to share your site on Del.ico.us, Digg, Facebook, Stumbleupon, Twitter etc. etc.

Amy's Story

2009-01-10T17:31:00.000-08:00

This is a story first published at Foundation for Art and Healing www.artandhealing.org/ written by my wife. Her art work is here www.amyhitchcock.com

I am a self-taught assemblage artist (B.A. in art history), living in Jamaica Plain Massachusetts with my husband and 9-year-old daughter. In 2001, I was 37 years old and experiencing what would be my first symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis. My body below my ribs was partially numb with a pins-and-needles sensation throughout. Eventually, my hands had the same symptoms. I was incredibly tired, and had great difficulty doing such simple things as walking, putting on socks and holding a pen. More distressingly because of my lack of balance, I could not safely hold and carry my daughter. In 2002, I had a relapse, and was officially diagnosed with MS.

I have always dabbled in the arts, but it was during this period that I started to take my art more seriously. My assemblages tell stories based upon such items as vintage photographs, discarded toys, postcards, and other paper ephemera. I believe that these found objects can bring about memories of one’s past and family history. Though my artwork is personal, it is my hope that by using these materials, my assemblages are interesting and accessible to the viewer.

A 1950’s black and white photo inspired my first assemblage. It is a photo of my Aunt Ruth (my mother’s sister). She is a beautiful young woman sitting in her backyard. On the back of the photo, she simply wrote, “ain’t I healthy looking;” a sentence that was loaded with sadness and fear. At that time my Aunt was experiencing her first symptoms MS. Several years before this photo was taken, her father was diagnosed with the same disease. And in the 1960’s her sister Rosemary also was diagnosed with MS.

I found myself drawn to this photo of my Aunt, (A women who died the year I was born, and at the same age of my diagnosis.) and her words haunted me. Yet this photo also changed the way I looked at art and at myself. I needed a way to explore my new connection with my Aunt, and my own feelings towards MS.

And so my first assemblage, Ruth (ain’t I healthy looking), was made from a wooden wine box and an assortment of found objects. (Vintage doll legs, fake butterflies, magnifying lenses, and photos of my Aunt, and a photo of me as a child) There were times, making this assemblage, that I felt anger, frustration, and sadness; emotions that I usually would have denied. But in the end, I felt as if I was able to somehow “know” my Aunt, and have an appreciation of those words “ain’t I healthy looking”. I also felt I had a better understanding of my diagnosis and myself. I felt calm and centered. (Within nine months my original symptoms all but disappeared, and I haven’t had any new significant symptoms since 2002.)

What I wasn’t expecting was the need to make more assemblages! Some 6 years later I have made over 50 assemblages, and have shown and sold my artwork throughout the Boston area. Yes, MS is part of my life. There are days that I need to pace myself so I don’t get overtired. And often at the end of a day, my legs feel like lead. But more importantly each day provides an opportunity to create art, which helps me feel energized and relaxed. At first, a way cope with my MS diagnosis, my artwork now is an integral part of my life that I’m extremely thankful for.

— Amy Hitchcock
amy@amyhitchcock.com

How Did You Think of That?

2009-01-01T16:21:00.000-08:00

Originally written for www.451heat.com

“How do you creative guys get your ideas?” I hear that question a lot and my answer is usually that it’s a process. Sometimes you get the “ah ha!” moment in the shower then pretend to spend all day working on it, but unfortunately those are few and far between. Most of the time we actually DO have to work at coming up with a creative idea and I’ll share some of the techniques that work for me.

I find being present at initial client meetings helps, that’s obvious, but paying attention to the details can help spark an idea that the client might not realize they mentioned, but is right on target. Taking notes helps, but I find making quick sketches of ideas that jump out immediately is important because when you go to the next meeting or the phone rings those potential good ideas just disappear.

Leave some time for day dreaming. There are usually a few key messages that the client is trying to convey and you need some quiet time to think hard about a creative way to make them come to life. Make sure to write down all your ideas, especially the bad ones. Once you write down the bad (or tired and cliched) ideas you get them out of the way and you can move on to the good ones. They’re there; you just have to dig them out.

Don Draper, the Creative Director character on the TV show Mad Men, once suggested to a colleague to think hard about a problem then just forget about it, then the ideas will come. I totally agree, once you plant the seed and you let your brain go on to something else you tend to have ideas pop up. Just be sure to write them down! It will take a few cycles of hard thinking and forgetting, but you’ll be amazed at what comes up.

Keep a pad and a pen handy by the bed. After a long day of work your brain has been processing all kinds of information with no time to rest and make sense of it all. The only time that it gets a rest is when you sleep. I find that the time just before you fall asleep can be a very fertile time for creative ideas. If you take that time to let your mind wander to your project (in a non-stressful way) great ideas will make their way to the surface. In that time between sleep and consciousness I usually come up with my best ideas. I tell myself that I’ll remember the idea in the morning, but if I don’t force myself to write it down then it’s gone and I spend the rest of the day scrambling to figure out what it was!

Finally, whether you have a pressing project or not, a good habit to get into is to be aware of things around you. Take a close look at buildings, ads, magazines, movies etc. and store them away. There are a ton of great ideas out there if you keep an eye out for them.

Sol Lewett

2008-12-26T19:18:00.000-08:00

Anyone who enjoys art or appreciates architecture should pack their bags for North Adams, Massachusetts. Tucked in an old tired Berkshire town there are a series of old mill buildings that have become one of the best contemporary art centers in the world.

Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (Mass MoCA) is now home to a life time retrospective of wall drawings of Sol Lewitt. Mass MoCA has been showing challenging art for a while now in the old Sprague Electric Company buildings but have now actually refurbushed an entire new building to showcase this new exhibit. Three stories of gigantic walls covered with lines, diagrams, and intense color fields make up the highlights of Sol Lewitt's work from the 1960s until his death in 2007. This space is the only exhibit area large enough to carry the entire works and I was blown away today as I spent a few hours making the rounds and planning my next visit.

http://www.massmoca.org

My First Post

2008-12-24T11:54:00.000-08:00

I'm a creative director in Boston and I'll be posting recent work here for now. This is a new blog and I'll see how it develops.

I'd love to hear from other advertising and design pros from Massachusetts and beyond to share thoughts, frustrations and generally hold forth on the state of the creative scene.

Here's a site we created at 451 Marketing for a wind energy company, General Compression. This was one of those times when the concept hit me immediately after leaving the initial client meeting. The founders of GC are huge fans of anything Mac related, they bought all their senior officers iPhones and hold virtual meetings via iChat, so the idea is to give the site the clean crisp look of the Mac environment and add a fun interactive facet to it. My idea was to have "video pods" be interactive by having them move upon rollover and feature seasonal video in each pod. I then relied on my design team to execute, together we came up with a fun solution and won a couple of awards. Check it out www.generalcompression.com