Hi And Welcome To My Website

I’m a former big agency creative with over 20 years experience. I’m fast, efficient, and I think I’m pretty good at what I do (at least my mom tells me I am) but I’m sure you’ll want to decide that for yourself.

Over to the right and up above you’ll see buttons that will lead you to areas of my portfolio. If you like what you see and maybe think we could work together, the contact button (also to the right and above) will help you get in touch with me. Just give me a call or send me an email. For instance, you might email me with a message like, “Gosh Rob, you’re really good.” Or, “Smashing good work, I’ve got a project for you!”

See how easy that is? Thanks for visiting, and I’ll be in touch.

Week Of Free Ideas Winners

Just wrapped up our Win A Week Of Free Ideas contest. It was a lot of fun, thanks for your suggestions. We’ve actually decided to work with three non-profits.

First is the Child Advocacy Center. They do great work investigating child abuse in a way that doesn’t cause the child additional trauma. You can visit their website here.

We’ll also be working with the Dickerson Park Zoo, redesigning their quarterly magazine. You can visit their website here. We’ve already done a little work on it – here’s a work-in-progress illustration where we tried to draw four animals with one line.

Thirdly, we’ll be working with the Well Fed Neighbor Alliance. Their website is here. From their site -

“The Well-Fed Neighbor Alliance is a grassroots movement working to restore resilience and sustainability across the Ozarks.

“We specialize in fostering independent neighbor-to-neighbor partnerships that are united by a single vision.  We have a road map for bringing back a main street economy, re-localizing our food supply, and establishing energy independence.

“The 1000 Gardens Project, the Well-Fed Neighbor Farmer’s Co-Op, and the Ozarks Local Cuisine project are just three of many activities dedicated to achieving these goals.”

We’re actually trying to help everyone who sent in a request, but it may take some time to fit it all in. Will post more work as we make progress.

Will Design For Food

My buddy needed a logo. I agreed to design one for him if he taught me how to fly fish. Good trade.

New Client

Good Idea Group was just chosen as agency of record for Ecological Food Manufacturing Association. EFMA is a non-profit trade association whose aim is to help companies learn to produce foods that are healthy for the consumer, healthy for the planet and financially healthy for the company, and to provide marketing support for its members.

Art & Copy

Saw “Art & Copy” last night, you can watch the trailer here. As someone in the advertising field it was exciting to see and hear the best minds in the industry tell war stories about their best work. It left me inspired to get back to my pad and pencil and mouse and monitor and do great work myself.

The creatives portrayed in the film are truly fascinating and are all expert communicators – I could listen to brilliant/gruff/foul-mouthed George Lois all day. Likewise the work portrayed is fascinating. Groundbreaking, trendsetting stuff that has had profound effects on our entire culture. (My favorite part of the film was when Lee Clow said that every ad for every computer brand had probably been created on a Mac.)

The film is a celebration of all things great in advertising, and the campaigns highlighted are great, no question. But other than a few brief captions citing number of hours we spend watching TV and thousands of ad impressions we receive, the film never addresses the negative impacts advertising has had on society. For every great ad, there are thousands that do nothing but contribute noise and irritation to our daily lives. That intrude with their false claims and empty dreams. That make us feel incomplete and diminished.

You may be surprised to hear such criticism from one in the industry, but we should hold ourselves accountable for the messages we manufacture. We have the potential to inform, educate, enlighten and entertain. We can build great brands, and we can help consumers make informed decisions. Too often we stop at good enough. We should follow the lead of the brilliant men and women in this film and do everything we can to rise above the pale monotony of bland messaging.

So, what can I do as an advertiser, and what can you do as my potential client? First we need to make sure that we have something worth saying. Then we need to say it in a compelling, thought provoking, original way. Certainly there’s more to it than that, but if we follow these two points we’ll be about 90% of the way there. Now I may not be as talented as Wieden & Kennedy, and I’m sure you don’t have the deep pockets of a client like Nike, but I bet that if we try, really try, we can craft advertising that will be worth listening to.

Give me a call and we’ll get started, 417-839-5133.

Our First And Totally Altruistic Promotion

Do you have something that needs a little design lovin’?

• A new business trying to get off the ground.
• A non-profit in need of some identity.
• A project you just can’t find time for.

During the month of December, Good Idea Group is giving away one full week of whatever you need – ideas, concepts, graphic design, website work.

Leave a comment to this post and tell us what you need and why you need it. Or use the contact page to send a confidential email. (Or call us with a paying job at 417.839.5133) Priority will be given to non-profits and the week may be divided among more than one entity based on scope of work.

Good luck, hope we can give you a Good Idea.

Logo Of The Day

Had the honor of having a logo I created for Spectrum Accounting being selected by Logo Of The Day. You can visit their site here.

Take A Deep Breath

Relax. Close your eyes and visualize with your inner eye this design I did for a yoga meditation CD. I alternated between a warm and cool duotone throughout the pieces of the CD.

Hot Off The Press

Here’s a logo that was just approved this afternoon. I presented six logos, of which this was my favorite. The client asked for one small change, which actually made it better (way to go Krystal). Stationery, website and ads to follow.

Before And After

I did an ad recently for Sam’s Club Catering, and wanted to show you the comp and the finished piece. It’s wild how close the two are. Not that that’s necessarily a good thing – often we use the comps as a starting point and the project grows and evolves as we produce it, but in this case the comp nailed it. We scooted the girl into the frame so you could see the merchandise on her cart, and wardrobe changed some (not the color of her shirt), but other than that, the two are virtually identical.

New Logo

Here’s a logo we just finished for the American Issues Project, a conservative political group. Their stated goal is to present issues in a clear, non-biased format so that people have all the information to make up their own minds. As a metaphor for “looking at both sides of the argument,” I separated the states and put them back together in a different order – Texas next to Florida, forcing you to look at them in a new light.

The globe adds dimension and creates a unifying effect, suggesting that we’re all in this together.

I thought it was a unique and memorable logo. Hope you like it.