kirshenbaum bond + partners has just hired recent CPS grad Kevin Egan to work his concept and copywriting magic for their clients. Kevin came to school after two years as Account Executive at Richards Group in Dallas, and after graduating with a business degree. But apparently, Account Executives can learn to make great ads too, because Kevin was able to put together a terrific book (with work from all four quarters) and attract a lot of interest from a number of agencies. kb + partners are the lucky folks to get his admirable work ethic, talent, and awesome body on a full time basis.
Turns out there’s a silver lining to the whole global climate change mess. Recent Chicago Portfolio grad Laura Casner’s very first TV spot for Reese’s titled “Global Warming” was voted “AD of the Day” in Adweek Magazine. And her second spot ever done was voted “Most Liked of the Week” by Advertising Age. If you want to watch all of the Reese’s spots, just visit Laura’s web site. And if your curious, check out Laura’s student ads from Chicago Portfolio School at www.chicagoportfolio/lauracasner. Thanks for making us feel a little better, Laura!
CPS 2nd Quarter student Justin Oswald has his own version of financial aid. It’s called winning $25,000 on “Who wants to Be a Millionaire”!! On the April 8th episode, Justin made some nice small talk with hostess Meredith Viera and was smart enough to know that the official language of Hungary has no gender distinctions in their pronouns. No wonder Justin’s favorite campaign is for The Economist.
Digital Bootcamp, our computer school, has a few new additions to the staff. Sarah McCool is now in charge of organizing all the Chicago Portfolio School students into their classes. Please call her in the morning at 312-633-3000 or email her at sarah@digitalbootcamp.com. She is a graduate of the University of Kentucky where she was the Apple campus rep and in charge of the UK Mac Lab. BTW, did you know that CPS students get education discounts at Apple and Creation Engine? Sarah can help you with that, too. And don’t forget to say hi to our new DBC goldfish, Pixel and Vector. Can you tell which one is which?
It didn’t take her very long but recent Chicago Portfolio grad Kellar Williams and former First Lady of our Facebook group, not the real estate company - please note the spelling difference - has accepted a job as an Art Director at Fallon in Minneapolis. She says she’ll be working on all kinds of stuff but we don’t have very many details yet. You may be able to ask her in person, though. Rumor has it she will be having a very big party to celebrate.
“Funnier than Dave Chappelle”
- Dan, Kellar Williams’ sister’s friend
Last night’s stand-up and end-of-quarter party was great! And we have pictures to prove it.
My thanks to all the 4th Q people-Kellar, Bryan, Peter, Ari, RT, Brett, Frank, Tim, Kelly and Natalie, for their wit and charm and jokes. (For those who were not able to be there, hearing Natalie Scoles say !$& grandma *&^%$! in a high squeaky voice will be hard to forget). And a big XOXOXOXOXO to Tim Joyce, the comedy instructor.
Congratulations to Royal Rumble winners, Troy Burrows and Sarah Stickles (4th), Rachel Shirk and Stephanie Powell (3rd) and 1st/2nd place winners Anthony Brooks and Justin Sanders (they entered 5 campaigns-volume, volume, volume) for all their great work.
Lastly, my thanks to Rose Candela for all her help organizing, and Maria, of course. (She has the incriminating photos so look out for extortion emails very soon).
All in all, it was a 6.
-Jeff
Royal Rumble XX creative briefs have been emailed out, teams have been chosen and the trash talking (“you call that an idea? I don’t think so…”) has begun. Student teams are working on concepts for Frontera Classic Salsa, the award-winning recipe from the award-winning chef from the award-winning Frontera restaurant. Each team must create a campaign of three pieces of advertising plus three “+10” ideas (ambient, micosite, guerrilla, etc). First prize is $250 pp and winners will be announced at our end of quarter party, March 21 at Fizz. It’s time time RUMBLE!
Recent Chicago Portfolio School grads Dan Catterson and Jed Moriarity were hired at Cramer-Krasselt, Chicago, as a copywriter/art director team. C-K is one of the largest independent (meaning not owned by one of the mega ad-conglomerates like WPP, Interpublic, or Publicis) ad agencies and home to lots of good work including Rozerem, Hyatt Hotels, Career Builder.com and the new Porsche campaign.
Freelance copywriter and CD Scott Wild will be stopping by Chicago Portfolio School on Friday, March 14 at 5:30 pm to show his print ads and reel to students. Scott’s many, many award winning campaigns include work for Reebok, Nike, ESPN, Burger King. Not sure what else? Look through some recent CA’s and One Show’s in the library.
Check out this month’s HOW magazine and read about Chicago Portfolio School’s stand-up comedy class. Every CPS student earns his or her diploma by doing a five minute stand-up routine at the end of their 4th quarter. This quarter’s end-of-quarter stand-up party will be Thursday evening, March 20th at Fizz on Lincoln Avenue. Doing a five minute stand-up routine is not as scary as it sounds. But it’s still pretty scary.
Apparently, being the beer cart girl at the local country club was a good career move. (Having a terrific book with lots of great samples obviously doesn’t hurt either). Ask Kassie Johnson who recently was hired by San Diego agency NYCA to work on their many golf related accounts including Taylormade and SkyCaddie. And it was only the third interview she went on. You can see her new boss obviously likes Kassie as he allowed himself to be a human desk blotter as she poses for the traditional CPS ceremonial contract-signing photo.
Fourth quarter students Kelly Butler and Natalie Scoles were chosen as one of just five finalists from the WHOLE WIDE WORLD in the Leo Burnet Young Guns student competition. Their entry was a print campaign for Sony Cyber-shot cameras. The campaign was also chosen to be printed in the next issue of CMYK Magazine (by Advertising Judge Scott Wild who is speaking to students on March 14-so it’s kind of a small world, too).
