Artist Unknown | Scope Miami, 2011

Contemporary art is a great source of inspiration for graphic designers. Gallery exhibitions and art fairs are full of compelling pieces that may give you ideas on how to approach your next design. You can get inspiration from looking at interesting compositions, textures and color combinations not commonly seen in commercial graphic design.

Shepard Fairey, Comadante | Scope Miami, 2011

In Miami, we are fortunate enough to have the Wynwood Art Walk once a month, where over 80 galleries open their doors to show off their monthly exhibitions. There is a large variety of sculptures, paintings, photography and installations to see.

Liu Bolin, Invisible Man | Art of Asia Miami, 2011

On top of the monthly art walk, there is also a large number of international art fairs such as Art Basel, Scope, Pulse, and Art of Asia who come to Miami once a year. There is an abundance of compelling art from around the world for us here to enjoy. If you are a graphic designer, I highly recommend you take advantage of what the growing Miami art scene has to offer. You will get inspiration that will help you think different about your design. It is also a good idea to bring a camera and photograph the works that inspire you.

Inspiration for design is everywhere; you just need to look for it. You can find beautiful composition and interesting shapes in places you would never have thought to find them. To prove this to myself, I decided to take a 30-minute walk around the area where BlackDog’s office is located to see what I could find.

BlackDog Advertising is located in an industrial district of South Miami. It is full of auto body shops, garages, and metal manufacturing businesses. It is not too pretty at a glance, but when you look more closely, beautiful abstract colors and shapes appear all around you.

Here are some alluring design compositions I found and photographed on my walk. This is a great exercise for graphic designers and I highly recommend you try it.

When walking through the Wynwood Arts District, one can’t help noticing the overwhelming presence of street art. Massive murals and installations, some up to four stories tall, cover the exteriors of galleries, shops and warehouses in the area. Large, detailed stencils and graffiti pieces cover the building walls like a colorful collage. Realistic and cartoonish characters, surreal landscapes and giant words cover the exterior walls. There is a wide variety of different styles and subject matter to see. When you are there, the artwork can seem endless.

Street art by definition is art, specifically visual art, developed in public spaces — that is, “in the streets” — though the term usually refers to unsanctioned art, as opposed to government sponsored initiatives. The term can include traditional graffiti artwork, sculpture, stencil graffiti, sticker art, wheat pasting and street poster art, video projection, art intervention, guerrilla art, flash mobbing and street installations.

Graffiti has had a long history in Miami, but since the first Art Basel in 2002, Miami’s street art scene has exploded. Art Basel has provided an international stage for street artists from around the globe to make themselves known, creating large colorful murals and installations for the public to see. World-renowned street artists such as Shepard Fairey, Ron English and Invader have all left their mark in Wynwood and made a contribution to the Miami street art scene.

If your an art lover or an artist looking for inspiration, I highly recommend you experience the street art in the Wynwood Art District yourself. Whether you decide to go during the popular monthly art walk (the second Saturday of every month) or on a Sunday afternoon, you will be amazed by the large colorful murals that cover the building walls.

As each year comes to an end, I tend to look back at the top stories that made the headlines. Sadly, this year we lost visionary Steve Jobs. As is often the case, we come to appreciate some of these iconic figures more once they’re gone; and the legacy and words they leave behind become more resonant and meaningful. Among the many words that Jobs spoke, none have greater impact on our profession than the following:

“Design is not just what it looks and feels like. Design is how it works.”

I honestly can’t think of a better way to describe our roles as graphic designers and our significant place in society.

Over my past 13 years as a designer, I am asked this question in social situations more than any other: “What do you do for a living?” And inevitably the most frequent words I hear are: “That sounds like fun; you get to play around in the computer.” As a rookie, I found this reaction frustrating. But I quickly learned that these situations were a great opportunity to educate people on what we do.

Graphic designers are above all visual communicators. Whether we carry this out through print or web, our job is to visually represent ideas and messages. We carefully analyze our target audience, what works and doesn’t work for users, and the content and message we want to deliver. In the end, a visually pleasing piece that is equally functional is our ultimate goal. Personally, my proudest moments as a professional designer have been the ones where we take on a challenging project, implement a strategy and the results have contributed to increased exposure and profit to our client.

Thank you, Steve, for illuminating the fact that design adds credibility to the products and services that we help market.

Our team’s creative pursuits don’t stop at the end of the work day. BlackDog’s very own Pete Kirill will have a solo exhibition at Myra Gallery in Miami’s Wynwood Art District from November 4th to December 12th.  The opening reception for the exhibition, titled Communist Dictator Visits Miami, will be held Friday November 4th from 6 to 9pm.

Kirill’s work from his North Korea series will also be featured in the Art Basel edition of Miami Art Guide.

Art Review:

“The Madness of ‘Dear Leader: The subject of ‘dictator worship’ has been probed by practicing artists and craftsmen as early as ancient Persia and the North Americas: kings, pharaohs and emperors have been displayed as gods on Earth, the embodiment of those intangible traits which the ‘masses’ seem to lack against their leaders. Animal sacrifices, epic poetry and strategically-oriented monuments have been offered in tribute to them often with a quiet subversion, a wry wink to onlookers as if to acknowledge that it is the citizen population who ultimately perpetuates the cult of personality. One man, alone, cannot rule by force of arms or will, but those who accept the visual potency of his charisma, his intelligence and his foresight will inevitably spin tall tales surrounding their physical and perhaps, metaphysical capabilities. Miami-based artist and designer Pete Kirill is such an artist who offers this sly hint of dissention in his cartoonish, almost kitschy portraits of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.  Continuing an enduring tradition of visual art acting as a subtle catalyst for social critique pit against a recognized figure from a pointedly anti-aesthetic socio-political realm, Kirill turns politics into comedy and back into tragedy.” -by Shana Beth Mason, M.A. University of Glasgow (Christie’s Education London)

I feel a great loss with the death of Apple founder Steve Jobs. Jobs, like no other in the technology world, was an evangelist for great design. He showed the business community that creativity could actually result in big profits. Certainly there are others like Steve Wozniak that contributed to the success of Apple; however, it was my experience that Apple was much better with Job’s leadership than without.

Good design produces products that are visually pleasing, useful and easy to understand. Poor design spawns irritatingly overcomplicated products. Remember having to enter all those MS-DOS command lines before Mac’s GUI (graphical user interfaces)? Or reading the 100-page manual of your new mobile phone before the iPhone, which is so easy to operate that you don’t need an instruction manual?

My history with Steve Jobs’ products runs deep. In November of 1989, I left CP&B to start my own agency. My business plan was to automate the manually intensive processes of an advertising agency studio with the latest technology. Being a recent college graduate, I was familiar with the new world of desktop publishing that had been invented by Apple in 1985. The idea was to utilize a Macintosh II computer (maxed out with a 20 MB drive and 128 MB of RAM), an Apple Laserwriter, a Canon color copier printer and one designer (me) to do the job of 5 people at a traditional ad agency. I had no money or business experience, so I pitched the idea to my unsuspecting father-in-law. With his backing, our agency was born.

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak (circa 1975).

With the exception of the Lisa and Newton, over the last 20 years I have purchased just about every product Apple has produced… From Claris Works, the Performa and Power Book to Aperture, the iPad and the Mac Mini. My allegiance to Apple products has been tested over the years. During the mid 90’s, the Apple product was not great. I must admit that I did buy a few Mac clones (remember the StarMax?) along with several Windows machines. Not until Steve Jobs was hired back in 1998 did Apple turn things around.

Most professional designers obsess over details – It’s what we do by inclination and training. What separated Jobs from most was his obsession with unequivocally placing the user experience over everything else.

Apple will continue on. But Steve Jobs’ vision will never be replaced.

The ADDY’s is the largest advertising awards competition in the nation and honors the most innovative advertising creative of the year. This year, BlackDog Advertising won ADDY’s in the categories of print, online and video. We received ADDY awards for our work on the overall Key West Steamplant branding campaign as well as their high end brochure, for the new BlackDog Advertising Website and for the BlackDog Web Video.

View our ADDY Award Winning Designs

Key West Steamplant Website
BlackDog Advertising Website
Key West Steamplant Brochure
BlackDog Advertising Web Video

About three months ago I bid a fond farewell to the city of Miami as I embarked on an adventure north. Having spent the past twelve years in Florida, I traded in the warm weather and beautiful beaches for a cooler climate with mountainside views of Maryland to be closer to home and my family.

Moving on up, to the northeast side.

Fortunately for me, the moving process was a breeze, and I did not have to add finding a new job to my list of to-do’s because I got to take BlackDog Advertising with me to the great northeast side of the country!

As of February 2011, BlackDog Advertising acquired the necessary paperwork to operate in the state of Maryland, allowing me to continue working for this Addy Award-winning advertising agency as a multi-platform web designer.

BlackDog has several clients in the Northeast, so the move to branch out is perfectly logical. Currently we maintain relationships with Belman Klein and Associates, Boston Tea Party Ships and Museum, D.C. Duck Tours, Trolley Tours of Boston, Trolley Tours of Washington D.C., and more. We look forward to continuing our personalized service with the additional ability to offer face-to-face meetings and conferences to them. We also will be able to do this with potential clients in the tri-state area.

(digital) Face to (digital) Face

Due to the amazing world of technology, I was able to relocate and settle in to my “new” office without skipping a beat. I still continue face-to-face meetings with my BlackDog team members and the Art Director on a daily basis. Instead of meeting with them at the BlackDog Advertising headquarters in Miami, I meet with them via Skype. I enjoy that I can still work in an agency atmosphere where I bounce ideas off my coworkers and charge my creative juices by feeding off of the brilliant minds of my colleagues.

Skype is a great, free tool that allows people to stay connected despite the miles between them. The ‘About Skype’ Blog declares, “Skype is for doing things together, whenever you’re apart.” We love this resource at BlackDog Advertising because of its ability to keep us connected. It improves our communication with each other and our clients- wherever they may be.

I am looking forward to the possibilities that expanding BlackDog Advertising will bring- for us as a company and to our clientele. Having the opportunity to grow while still maintaining the same working relationships with the staff and clients is a privilege that technology offers us in today’s modern working world.

What are your thoughts on technology today and how it helps bridge the gaps between companies, their staff, and their clients?

Google Search continues to dominate the search engine market. Approximately 80% of online searches are performed on Google. Therefore, appearing on Google searches is a vital aspect of establishing a strong online presence. BlackDog Advertising uses the tools that Google offers to better your site’s presence, and we have the experience, training, and certifications to prove it.

BlackDog Advertising provides clients with Analytics tracking on every website we create or manage. In order to track paid ads, phrases people search, and see how many visitors clients get a month, we utilize Google Analytics. Using our knowledge and expertise, we use these statistics to ascertain strategies to perform search engine optimization and expand your reach on the internet.

Google’s online advertising program, Google Adwords, is another way to target customers with your website. Users who click these online ads are customers that are ready to buy, and getting this specific kind of clientele will boost sales. Ads of various types are placed on Google’s search page, Youtube, and other pages within Google’s network. The program only shows your ads when a user searches related content, and you can even choose to pay only when users click on your ads. Ads can be geo-targeted to your city, the area you serve, or wherever else you choose.

The best way to capitalize on the advantages Adwords and Analytics provide is by hiring an experienced Adwords Certified Partner and Analytics Certified agency to manage your account. While the programs might sound simple, their intricacies are many and an educated partner can help.

BlackDog Advertising is an Adwords Certified Partner, Google Analytics certified, and has over five years of experience in managing Analytics and Adwords accounts for hundreds of clients. Contact us today about starting a Google Analytics or Adwords account!

The presence of social media in our daily lives is now almost unavoidable. From popular sites like Facebook and YouTube to location based sites like Foursquare (did you know that an astronaut just checked in from outer space?), social media is making a significant impression in how we communicate, make purchasing decisions and much more. But perhaps the biggest impact this era has made is in social good. Following are just some examples of campaigns that have made a difference for the better.

Spreading the message of Malaria
According to the World Health Organization, there are an estimated 250 million Malaria cases and 1 million deaths per year. Ray Chambers, special envoy of the Secretary-General for Malaria, founded Malaria No More in 2006. Through this charity, Chambers raised money to purchase $10 insecticide-treated bed nets. In April 2009, he contacted Sarah Ross, head of digital at Ashton Kutcher’s Katalyst Media. And together, they raised Malaria awareness through the race to 1 million Twitter followers between Kutcher and CNN who each donated $100,000 for bed nets. In addition, by urging others to use twitter to spread the word, they were able to reach 174 million people and counting, a feat that would not have been financially possible by means of traditional media.

Online project raises funds to build a home for children
To Mama with Love is a website setup to help Mama Lucy Kamptoni raise funds to build a home for Tanzanian children in her village. Users can visit the website and make a donation in their mothers’ honor by creating an art project that consists of a heart. It can be personalized to include text, photos and videos. So far $16,910 has been raised.

Red Cross text donations aid 2010 Haiti earthquake victims
In just the first 10 days following the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, the Red Cross raised more than $30 million via text messages. With the simple act of texting the word “Haiti”, millions of people instantly donated each $10 to help in this worthy cause.

Though social good is still a fairly new concept, positive change is already being felt in communities around the country and around the world. With just a simple click, each and everyone of us has the potential to make change for the good. So what are you waiting for? Google the words social good; you’ll be surprised at all the ways you can help change the world.