A Portrait of the Artist as a Young... Artist
My love of advertising started at age seven when I produced a 30-second TV commercial for my pink and purple Huffy bicycle ("Pinky, the Bicycle for All Your Needs"). It continued through an elementary school assignment in which we were meant to write short essays about ourselves; I crafted an ingenious print ad (and was yelled at, because we were supposed to be writing essays). In my high school French class, it was a commercial, all in French, for the Guillotronique, a handy, portable, suitcase-sized guillotine that was a companion piece to the Noose-o-Matique. Act now, and you'll get a free pair of Oedipus Rex sunglasses. I'm not sure why we included those.
Fast forward to college, following an embarrassingly lousy audition for music school that put me off a professional music career for good. Lost and adrift in a university with fully 125 undergraduate majors, I pored over the catalog. "Hold on," says I. "There's actually an advertising major?"
The educational pursuits following that discovery, of course, ruined me for watching television. My friends can't sit with me through commercials.
Since then, I’ve written brochures, television commercials, print ads, billboards, postcards, booklets, folders, videos, posters, Web copy, holiday cards, shorts, feature articles, multimedia slideshows, and the occasional t-shirt. I've written an entire magazine, and I've re-written an entire student recruitment campaign (twice, actually). I write for students, alumni, doctors, patients, the community at large—I write a lot, and I feel comfortable in saying that I'm good at it. I've discovered a passion for collaboration and teamwork and a talent for finding the interesting in some dismally boring subjects. I'm also a skilled juggler, firefighter, diplomat, and that guy on the tarmac at the airport with the flashlights.
I have never been asked to answer phones, fetch coffee, or make copies. Even in the beginning.
Other potentially useful skills: I play the piano. I make a veggie frittata so fluffy you'd think it was fanned by angels' wings. I do a mean rendition of "Son of a Preacher Man" at karaoke night. I can get myself lost and/or arrested in 89 countries. I've made people cry in three separate interviews. I know when and why to use an intravenous tissue plasminogen activator and what it sounds like in a cool Russian accent. I can successfully program a VCR. I hold the household record in Wii Fit ski-jumping. I am aware of all Internet traditions.
Poke around. Like what you see. Really, like it. It's good. If you don't like it, it's probably a sign that you're wrong.
Fast forward to college, following an embarrassingly lousy audition for music school that put me off a professional music career for good. Lost and adrift in a university with fully 125 undergraduate majors, I pored over the catalog. "Hold on," says I. "There's actually an advertising major?"
The educational pursuits following that discovery, of course, ruined me for watching television. My friends can't sit with me through commercials.
Since then, I’ve written brochures, television commercials, print ads, billboards, postcards, booklets, folders, videos, posters, Web copy, holiday cards, shorts, feature articles, multimedia slideshows, and the occasional t-shirt. I've written an entire magazine, and I've re-written an entire student recruitment campaign (twice, actually). I write for students, alumni, doctors, patients, the community at large—I write a lot, and I feel comfortable in saying that I'm good at it. I've discovered a passion for collaboration and teamwork and a talent for finding the interesting in some dismally boring subjects. I'm also a skilled juggler, firefighter, diplomat, and that guy on the tarmac at the airport with the flashlights.
I have never been asked to answer phones, fetch coffee, or make copies. Even in the beginning.
Other potentially useful skills: I play the piano. I make a veggie frittata so fluffy you'd think it was fanned by angels' wings. I do a mean rendition of "Son of a Preacher Man" at karaoke night. I can get myself lost and/or arrested in 89 countries. I've made people cry in three separate interviews. I know when and why to use an intravenous tissue plasminogen activator and what it sounds like in a cool Russian accent. I can successfully program a VCR. I hold the household record in Wii Fit ski-jumping. I am aware of all Internet traditions.
Poke around. Like what you see. Really, like it. It's good. If you don't like it, it's probably a sign that you're wrong.