In loving memory of Barbara Jean Culbertson Cobler

My grandmother passed away today.

She went into the hospital yesterday, fell into acoma at noon and passed at 1:56 pm PST.

She is survived by her two children, my mom and my uncle Chuck, her grandchildren, myself and my cousins Misty, Krystle and Joey and her great-grandchildren Krystle's daughter Miss London (who I swear has grandma's facial expressions) and Misty's kids, Angel, Khristian and Aidan.

My grandma was a rebel, she was born in the 1930's and by the 1950's was expected by society to be a housewife. She chose to work. She worked at the hospital in the lab and eventually began to do autopsies. Anytime you were sick or had something wrong, she knew what it was and how to fix it . . . the first time.

She was strong willed and never took crap from anyone. She was the President of the Eagles and enjoyed traveling and doing things all over Iowa.

Her cancer started in her colon and progressed to her spine and eventually to her lungs. This is the exact same way cancer took my grandfather.

There are things about my grandmother I will never forget. The way she answered the phone, she always put an mmm before saying hello. And her answering machine was so choppy, You. have. reached. Barb. and. Chuck. Cobler.  . . . then of course you hear Barren in the background barking.

She decorated for every season. And she had a pair of dorothy's ruby red slippers as a magnet on her fridge and a Mother Mary shrine in her hallway (small and tasteful).

At thanksgiving she boiled the turkey gizzard, liver and heart and then just popped them in her mouth like candy. Always grossed me out.

She loved the old black and white movies. I remember her watching "Murder She Wrote" as well. She had one of those beds with the remote to adjust the head and foot height and angle. I loved that bed.

She was always two weeks late sending your birthday card. She had this keychain that said Barbara and was white with this funky foil that was all different colors. She was always up before everyone, sitting in the kitchen with her coffee. Her nails were always neatly manicured and she always went down to the beauty parlor in town to get her hair done, and that's where she would get all the town gossip. (Yes we are from the midwest and a small town at that.)

She wanted to pass in her own way, she wrote her own obituary and kept telling us she wanted to be cremated because she didn't want anyone looking at her when she was dead.

She loved all of us very much and we knew it. I just hope she knew how much she was loved as well.

Growing up she told me never to focus on getting married. Focus on work and doing the things that I wanted to do. She taught me to be selfish, in a good way.

After I found out she had passed I took a walk, it was weird but I had this incredibly sense of peace come over me. Whatever it was I hope it was her way of telling me she is ok and no longer in pain. I know she will be with me in all my crazy life adventures in the future.

Elf Yourself is back.

Umm yea, ELF YOURSELF is back. Although after the first one . . . not as funny. But still fun.

I fell in the skimmer basket hole.

Visit http://www.a-technologies.com/poolinfo.htm

So this weekend I went back to Arizona to get Leroy's last booster shots! Yay, he's legal now and can socialize with the other puppies around.

He loves my parents back yard and we were running around the pool and I wasn't paying attention and stepped on the skimmer basket cover (aka the access hatch) on the pool deck . . . my foot went right through it and my right leg went in the hole all the way up to my knee. If you don't know what a skimmer basket is . . . please refer to the drawing above.

As stupid as I felt about it, I realize how incredibly lucky I am to have not broken my ankle, knee or the entire leg. All that happened was that I cut my foot on the plastic and have some bruising around where my knee hit the pool deck.

Wonderful.

Hopefully after that the week will be good to me and will fly by. I am soo ready for the holidays, there's something about this time of year that makes spending time with your family so much more enjoyable and all of their faults so much easier to poke fun at with no one's feelings getting hurt easily. Yes in my family everyone makes fun of each other, and it's great.

Friday's A Comin'

Ahh the weeks here go soo incredibly fast! I can't believe tomorrow is Friday already. I am excited though, my best friend is coming up from Irvine, we've been friends since elementary school and it's really nice to hang out with someone who knows everything you have been through.

Leroy is doing better, after his leg pains, I kept him in his crate for a week. Ugh that was interesting. This morning he ate my bracelet from Fiji . . . didn't really make my day. Though by the time we got home from work he pooped them all out. Ziploc should make dog poop bags, I like that they are a little thicker than the regular poop bags. It's amazing how much poop you deal with when you have a puppy.

Update in the HWH realm. I sold my first campaign at the new job. It took me a month. It feels really good.  We have a great team and everyone sticks together, it's almost like a dream, kind of afraid I am going to wake up . . .

Yea I know this post kind of sucks . . . buuut next week will be better.

Meet Leroy.

So ever since I finished grad school I have wanted a dog. That was in 2008. So finally, now, in 2010 I found the perfect puppy. Enter Leroy. Leroy is a boxer pup and he is incredibly puppy like. It's been a week and we are slowly getting into a routine.

Leroy found his shadow this week. He tries to attack it, and it's REALLY funny. He also has learned to go up and down the stairs and get up and down off the bed. He's doing decently well with potty training, since we are in an apartment complex he isn't allowed to go outside until after his 16th week final shot we have the potty patch. It's basically a patch of astroturf with a huge ass diaper underneath.

I can not wait to be able to take him outside and start playing and running and anything else to get all that puppy energy out.

As he gets older I will post more pics and videos. He's a wild man and fits his name.

My new home.

Photo by szeke 

So it's officially been two weeks on the job. This place has no shortage of tomfoolery, laughter and great teamwork. Click here to see pictures of our space.

Moving into my new apt was a little weird because the apt I was supposed to move into ended up being 200 sq ft smaller than what the lady promised me. Then she tried to hussle me into a first floor apt on the corner of Maxella and Glencoe . . . REALLY busy intersection with a fence even I could jump over. It was just shady all together.

So I hopped into my already jam packed car and drove over to the apts I used to live in down here in hopes that they would have something available. Just like any good fairy tale, they did. Though, when I was looking at the space, an evil villan wanted to come and steal the apt away (Really someone else just wanted to see the space and rent it). I ended up taking the apt, and love it.

Venice. is. amazing.

Yea that pretty much sums it up.

ASU RUGBY

I played rugby in college and even though that was a while ago, I still talk to my coach and go watch the games when I can. This year I played in the Alumni game and really wanted to give back to my team. So I started working with one of the copywriters at work and started to develop recruiting posters for the girls.

We really wanted these posters to grab the attention of everyone on campus not just possible players. After completion we learned that bars are now paying the team to have a set of these posters and reprints are in the near future. This project is leading to other great things including a complete web redesign and possibly other media executions.

Blair Bunting, a dear friend of mine did the photography for us on a 115 degree day in Papago Park in Phoenix, Arizona. David Wilson was the writer on the project and I couldn't have asked for a better writer on the project. Plotter Doctors and Competition Printing helped us with the printing making it affordable to print enough copies to make a statement on and around campus. To all of you, thank you.

Below are the posters.

    

Headlines:

- Turning women into men since 1994.

- Be part of a family that likes to hit each other.

- See new places. Meet new people. Kick their asses.

- It takes balls to play. Technically, only one.

- PMS isn't a curse. It's an advantage.

Subhead on all posters: 

- Join the ASU Women's Rugby Team. Visit asuwrfc.com for team info.

Best image of the day . . .

So there is a gay man that sits diagonal from me at work, and he is awesome. He is one of the reasons I get up and go to work everyday. He is vulgar and inappropriate and incredibly funny. I am going to miss him when I move down to Venice, but there is always IM right?

So anyway, staying on track. We spend most of the day laughing . . . and today this image provided about 20 minutes of comments and pure immobile laughter. Enjoy.

Means I'm Dropping You From My Fantasy League . . .

Juuust saw this commercial during The Closer. It made me laugh, the restaurant version is a lot weaker than this one.

New Adventures

I am starting my last week with Young & Rubicam San Francisco and then moving back down to Los Angeles to start my new adventure at High Wide & Handsome.

I've decided to continue what my original copywriter and I started, so anything before this post is a brain child of us and anything after is my attempt to soldier it on my own. I really want to stay playful in an industry that can swallow you whole. I want to be as excited about advertising when I am 65 as I was when I was 25. I want to document the crazy times, the late nights and the stuff that was left on the cutting room floor but I felt it should at least see some kind of sunlight.

So here it is, my adventures as a creative.

Schools Killing Creativity . . .

 

Really like the story about Gillian Lynne, it's soo true. Kids are shoved in this little box and mostly taught just to pass tests so that the school districts could get more money . . . UGH!

Take time to be a Dad. . .

 

This is one of my favorite PSAs of all time. 

ABSOLUT & JAY-Z Collaboration

 

So this video is definitely worth watching. I love the way the whole video is shot in black and white, and just the calmness in Jay-Z's voice. Beautifully shot and wonderfully edited. One of my favorite quotes from the video is, "You can't make art with business in mind."

TED Tuesday: How I fell in love with a fish.

I chose this video today because it talks about what people are doing right. How they are utilizing the things that Earth provides and not trying to force things to happen differently.

TED Tuesday

One of my friends @krystha_tweets introduced me to something we like to call Ted Tuesdays. TED is a non-profit company that focuses on the spreading of ideas mainly Technology, Entertainment and Design. Starting to see where the name came from? Well I want to continue the spreading of ideas and will feature a video each Tuesday.

This week I will stick to something short around 3 minutes to get you started. Enjoy!

CPB Fearless QA

moleskine drawing by lordmx

So @bogusky posted a new video for his Fearless QA project today and it is definitely the best one thus far. He pulled in a couple old school creatives and just really talked about the importance of technique for art directors. Actually having thumbnails before you jump on a computer and start executing, the fact that some people don't even know what visual hierarchy is . . . it's kind of embarrassing for my generation.

Design has always been a part of my life starting with my great grandfather who was a typographer and illustrator (personally invited by Walt Disney to be an illustrator on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs). I still have the sketch books of type he created for his clients and all the squirrel hair paint brushes he used to hand letter various types of signs.

With architects, designers, typographers, interior designers and illustrators in the family it was hard to not follow in the footsteps of the family business. Once exposed to design, it's possibilities and the ability to influence society it is hard to go on any other career path.

I went to Arizona State to get my BS in graphic design and I am so grateful for the professors that I encountered there. The first two years were spent studying the craft and it was LONG LONG hours and countless bottles of plaka and gesso. We spent semesters training our eyes to be able to kern from 20 feet away and be able to tell a half millimeter just by your eye (thank you Andy Weed). Also included is a whole semester packed with handmade books and portfolio boxes.

The professors are hard, trying to get you to quit, just like one of the CDs mentions in the FQA. We even had a professor tell a student that she should find anothere major on a post it note. . . I think it's though good because if you don't have the passion or the drive you won't make it anyway.

I really saw the benefit of my education when I went to grad school, I chose to go to Texas instead of portfolio school because of their creative program and consistant competitive nature. When I got there I saw people in the creative program that wanted to be ADs though they didn't have the design background, a lot of them didn't make it. Some did though, I have to give credit to those who have a natural talent and the ability to learn fast.

Now as an Art Director, I was incredibly lucky to find a great mentor. He has kind of taken me under his wing and has/is teaching me things that are impossible to learn in school. I think the last year has been such an incredible learning experience that has helped me expand on the skill sets I learned at ASU and UT.

I am somewhat nervous about the generation that comes after mine, because I see so many jump on the computer before concepting and developing an idea. Until Adobe creates a program that generates ideas for us, I feel very strongly about concepting with a piece of paper and a pen (I really don't like pencils). Another topic they touch upon is drawing . . . even if you suck at drawing just do it. . . there is a saying "Practice Makes Perfect" not sure if you've heard of it. Hopefully there will be people in the future generations that feel the same.

Wow. ok just needed a little rant. Here's the link to the video

FearLessQA video interview with CP+B CDs @bwright303 and @Davesz1 http://post.ly/N1Mm

Super Bowl Monday.

So football season is over again . . . and that just sucks. Let's talk about those commercials . . . they also sucked. As a female who loves football I was kind of (alright completely) turned off by all the stereotypical high maintenece women tricking their boyfriends into not watching football. REALLY ANNOYING.

Also, assuming that the creatives on these commercials are male, I am starting to think they have inferiority complexes. Why?! are there all of these hot women (hot women are not the issue) in these commercials and then they put all of these balding over weight men (ugly men are the issue) in the remaining commercials. Thanks a lot, I now think of your brand and ugly hairy white man legs. My money will stay in my wallet or go to your competitor. Definite SB spot fail.

All the hoopla around the Tim Tebow commercial, lame. The gay meeting company that CBS wouldn't air, be happy that you aren't associated with this year's spots.

The E*Trade Babies, kind of getting bored with them. . . that's all I have to say about that.

Budweiser, your agency has a Longhorn Alum working there and I like it! hook 'em horns.

Doritos, definitely think you hit one out of the park with the Dog Collar spot. The other spots, don't really even remember them.

For the most part I was disappointed with the spots. But who dat think they gonna beat them saints . . . Congrats Saints on successfully completing the Cinderella story and winning the Super Bowl!!

Lemonade on Hulu

Picture from PleaseFeedTheAnimals.com

Click on the image to view the movie on HULU

Lemonade Movie is about advertising professionals that have been laid off and their exploration into a new life beyond advertising. It is a great movie, really inspiring. <-- With that said, go watch it.

Click on the image above to go to Hulu and view the 35 minute movie, or watch the trailer below.

BEAT BAMA!!

Today is the Day for the BCS Championship game between Texas and Alabama. All I can say is HOOK EM HORNS!! BEAT BAMA!!

A Day in the Life of a Creative