7ven Ad Agency Survival Tips for the Great Recession

Tip 1: Get to know your CFO – Today the CFO is the new CEO. A great idea isn’t a great idea unless it gets made, so invite the CFO to the creative presentation. Get them involved, get them excited, get the balance sheet tipped in your favor.

Tip 2: Find the Entrepreneur Within – Within you and within your company. We all say it, but do we all live it? Is risk-taking a part of your culture? Are you set up so the next agency/industry-changing idea can come from anywhere? Are you knocking down all roadblocks to great work? Our most important role is to make it easy for brilliant ideas to live. Let the entrepreneurs know you’re about clearing a path for them.

Tip 3: Write Blogs – They don’t cost anything and if you’re lucky, a reputable business publication will pick one up and share your views with the world for free. They’re also a great way to tip-off potential new clients that you’re social-media savvy. Twitter counts as a blog in my book so Tweet away. No CFO will question your spending because there won’t be any.

Tip 4: Check your ego at the door – None of us are beyond questioning. None of us are irreplaceable. We all have to stay true to the habits that made us successful. Smart thinking. Hard working. Good listening. The process to great work will never change. It’s more likely you will. Some very large egos got us into a very large economic mess because of their inflated self-perceptions. It’s probably a good idea to pop yours daily.

Tip 5: Share Supplies – You’d be amazed how far a pen can go. Don’t lose your notebooks. Napkins are still the best idea catchers. So your client doesn’t have the money for that big campaign? Bring ideas they can afford and bring lots of them. When the economy comes back, they’ll remember that you were the one that didn’t just tighten your belt, but used a smarter belt.

Tip 6: Use your free time for good. It’s free! – When the going gets tough the tough should get going in their community. Don’t just look inward. Step out and create something that could make a difference. Ideas are your specialty. Why not share some? Or roll up the sleeves and build a callous or two. You’ll feel great and any negative energy toward the recession can be reverse-engineered into a positive. And not surprisingly, that usually finds it’s way into the bottom line.

Tip 7: Do more with less – I was going to write 10 survival tricks for the great recession but didn’t want to be excessive. In these times that’s bad business and, well, distasteful.

Advertising

While the many advertising and graphic design schools do graduate people with their own degrees and diplomas, there is no degree or diploma in "creative directing". Creative directors often have a strong command of the technical aspects of their business. Styles of creative direction are quite varied, however, with some creative directors being quite hands on while others will maintain a separation. Creative directors who are extremely familiar with graphics software, for example, can personally sit at the computer and achieve a 'look' for an advertisement that is the center of a new strategy for a brand, but is eluding everyone. On the other hand, those lacking this technical ability can sometimes find themselves in a situation where they are unable to manage a team effectively.
Advertising creative directors are usually promoted from copywriting or art directing positions. Familiarity with film-making techniques is also common. Creative directors rise to become executive creative directors, a position with executive responsibility for the entire creative department, and some progress to chairman of a firm.
Creative directors usually possess a VFX Movie, communication design or fine arts degree. Copywriters may have degrees in journalism, language arts or may develop more emphasis on advertising copywriting while pursuing a communication design degree. The discipline of being or becoming a Creative Director is a later-in-the-career phenomenon, a matter of proven experience.

Micromax and Press Ad in Bangladesh by Sayeed Iqbal

Press Ad daily prothom alo

New Zealand tour of Bangladesh 2010 Full Schedule

S.NO.	DAY DATE	TIME	TEAMS	VENUE
1	Tuesday October 05, 2010	09:00 AM (IST) 09:30 local, 03:30 GMT	Bangladesh vs New Zealand, 1st ODI	Shere Bangla National Stadium, Dhaka
2	Friday October 08, 2010	09:00 AM (IST) 09:30 local, 03:30 GMT	Bangladesh vs New Zealand, 2nd ODI	Shere Bangla National Stadium, Dhaka
3	Monday October 11, 2010	09:00 AM (IST) 09:30 local, 03:30 GMT	Bangladesh vs New Zealand, 3rd ODI	Shere Bangla National Stadium, Dhaka
4	Thursday October 14, 2010	09:00 AM (IST) 09:30 local, 03:30 GMT	Bangladesh vs New Zealand, 4th ODI	Shere Bangla National Stadium, Dhaka
5	Sunday October 17, 2010	09:00 AM (IST) 09:30 local, 03:30 GMT	Bangladesh vs New Zealand, 5th ODI	Shere Bangla National Stadium, Dhaka

A Little Art History Poster Art

In recent times, many have displayed Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec posters in their homes as decorative wall art. These posters often illustrated Moulin Rouge cancan dancers in white ruffled bloomers, which is fairly tame subject matter by today's standards. But in 1891, when this type of promotional was displayed in the streets of Paris, it caused quite a stir.
At the time, not only was the portrayal of a woman kicking her leg in the air considered indecent, but the poster's skewed perspective and abstract composition distressed viewers with its vivid, avant-garde style. Regardless, the concept of the poster had been born as it achieved its intended purpose: to attract attention to itself and (hopefully) covey a message.
At first, laws were written to protect the innocent from this type of publicly-displayed visual assault. Eventually, these ordinances were relaxed as artfully-innovative posters began to appear in the city streets of Europe. Before long, posters were hawking everything from breakfast muffins to literary journals. Classic posters of this type include Pierre Bonnard's lively illustration for France-Champagne and Maurice Denis' graceful design for the La Depreche de Toulouse newspaper.
From this simple but masterfully-executed beginning, poster art has become a worldwide phenomenon ranging from movie posters to art lithographs to gigantic billboard advertisements. With the advent of computerized photolithographic equipment, just about any type of image or message can now be quickly and faithfully mass-reproduced.
Since the poster tends to affect viewers at different levels, it has also been used throughout the world for patriotic and political purposes. Remember the poster image of Uncle Sam pointing at the viewer in an effort to recruit armed service enlistees? How about the giant images of a provincial despot plastered about the streets (just so you don't forget who's in control)? Currently, no political rally or group convention is complete without sophisticated posters that both touch and inspire their beholders.
Originally, many artists avoided translating their art into posters because it required an unwanted alliance with the printmaker. Other artists explored the new medium in order to obtain a certain type of look that could not be achieved by painting alone. Some struggling artists saw poster commissions as a way to make some quick money while gaining instant mass recognition. Most that contributed to this genre concentrated on the art, realizing that it's the message that's important and not so much the media.
A young Toulouse-Lautrec became excited by the possibilities of this new medium after viewing an exhibition of illustrations by Jules Cheret, who is now considered the founder of Parisian poster art. Inspired, he gained his first commission by winning a poster design contest that was sponsored by the Moulin Rouge cabaret.
From these preliminary works, Toulouse-Lautrec went on to create some of his most famous poster art, including the works that featured the red-haired dancer Jane Avril and Yvette Guilbert, who was usually clad in signature long black gloves. These posters excelled in highlighting the personality of the entertainer, a concept that has successfully transcended into today's celebrity advertising.
In their earliest form, poster prints were created by cutting or etching away material from wood, stone, or metal blocks to produce a relief plate. This plate was then inked by roller and the image transferred to paper by press. Since the relief plate was durable, many prints could be created from one impression, either identically or in various ink styles.
Traditional types of poster relief prints included woodblock, cast plaster block, stone lithography, and linocut. In all cases, the background portion of the image is cut from the material and the remaining relief is inked and transferred to paper. This type of print technique is mostly mechanical and usually performed by hand.
As technology advanced, engraving and chemical etching processes developed into intaglio printmaking techniques. This type of print design allowed artists to create more detailed images that contained extremely fine lines and gradients of color. An intaglio print plate has its relief surface wiped clean (the opposite of relief printing) while ink remains within the fine, incised lines of the plate. When pressed, this pigment is transferred to paper.
Stencil and screen prints have also been successfully used to create poster art. In screen printing, the printmaker attaches a stencil to a screen fabric that is stretched over a frame. Using a flat squeegee, ink can be pressed through the non-stencil portion of the screen to produce an image on the underlying paper. By using different colored inks and multiple screen stencils, many variations of poster image can be quickly created.
Today, most mass-produced posters are made from sophisticated computerized printers. In digital form, images can be taken directly from photograph or film cell and printed. Art illustrations can be created by using advanced computer graphics software that allows the artist to paint images on a computer screen and then instantly print the results.

Whatever the medium, posters are here to stay. Today, they are everywhere that people congregate and travel. You can't find a major airport, bus terminal, or train station that does not have a copious supply of promotional poster art. Even the inside (and outside) of public transportation contains images that are designed to educate, provoke thought, or elicit emotion, etc., from the viewer. Whether you consider poster art a lively enhancement to public space or visual pollution depends upon your point of view.

Thomas Knoll and photoshop

http://photoshopnews.com/feature-stories/photoshop-profile-thomas-john-knoll-10/In the fall of 1987, Thomas Knoll, a doctoral candidate in computer vision, was trying to write–as a diversion from his doctoral–computer code to display grayscale images on a black-white bitmap monitor. Because it wasn’t directly related to his thesis on computer vision, Knoll thought it had limited value at best. The code was called Display. Knoll wrote it on his Mac Plus computer at home. Little did he know that this initial code would be the very beginning of the phenomenon that would be known as Photoshop.
Thomas’ program caught the attention of his brother, John, who worked at Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) in Marin County, California. ILM was the visual effects arm of Lucasfilm, the famous motion picture company founded by George Lucas. With the release of Star Wars, Lucas had proved that really cool special effects, combined with heroic characters and a “shoot-em up script,” could produce a blockbuster motion picture. To that end, John was experimenting with computers to create special effects. He asked his brother Thomas to help him program a computer to process digital image files, and Display was a great starting point. So began their collaboration.
John arranged to purchase a new Macintosh II, the first color-capable model, through his father, a professor at the University of Michigan. Before it was shipped to his brother, Thomas got hold of it and rewrote the code for Display to work in color. In the ensuing months, Thomas and John worked on expanding Display’s capability. At John’s urging, Thomas added the ability to read and write various file formats, while John developed image processing routines that would later become filter plug-ins. Thomas developed the unique capability to create soft-edged selections that would allow local changes. He also developed such features as Levels for adjusting tonality; Color Balance, Hue, and Saturation for adjusting color, and painting capabilities.
In the summer of 1988, John thought they might have the basis of a commercially viable product. Thomas was reluctant: “Do you have any idea how much work it is to write a commercial application?” he asked John. But with his naive optimism, John convinced Thomas it would be worth the effort. “I’ll figure out how to make money with this,” he told his brother. Well, John was right, but so was Thomas. It did take a lot of work.
Thomas changed the name of their software several times. Each time he found one he liked, it had already been taken. ImagePro, and even PhotoHut were considered. Then, during a program demo, he confided to someone that he was having problems naming the program. The confidant suggested PhotoShop, and that became the program’s working name. To this day, neither Thomas nor John know for sure who first said the name “PhotoShop”. Note: in it’s first iteration, the ‘S’ of shop was capitalized. Later the inter cap was removed.
John started shopping around for a company to invest in Photoshop. Thomas remained in Ann Arbor, Michigan, fine-tuning the program, while John traveled all over Silicon Valley giving program demos including a company named Adobe Systems, Inc. John kept pushing his brother to add new features. John even wrote a simple manual to make the program more understandable.
Finally he succeeded in attracting the attention of somebody–a scanner manufacturer. Barneyscan decided that the program would be of use to people who owned their scanners. A short-term deal was worked out, and the first public iteration of the software was introduced as Barneyscan XP. About 200 copies of the program, now in Version 0.87, were shipped with Barneyscan scanners.
Around this time, John demonstrated the program to engineers at Apple computer. It was a huge hit. They asked John to leave a couple of copies. There followed the first incident of Photoshop pirating. Seems that the Apple engineers shared the program with some friends, a lot of friends!
Subsequently, John returned to Adobe for another demonstration. Russell Brown, Adobe’s primary art director, was blown away by the program. He had just signed an NDA disclosure agreement with Letraset, to view their new image-editing program, ColorStudio. He was convinced that Photoshop was better.
Timing is everything. With a great deal of enthusiasm, Adobe decided to buy the license to distribute Photoshop. It was September 1988 and the Knoll brothers and Fred Mitchell, head of Adobe Acquisitions, made the deal with a handshake. It would be April before the final legal agreements were worked out.
The key phrase in that deal was “license to distribute.” Adobe didn’t completely buy-out the program until years after Photoshop had become a huge success. It was a smart move on the Knolls’ part to work out a royalty agreement based upon distribution. After the legal agreements were signed, Thomas and John started developing a shipping version. Adobe decided to keep the working name “Photoshop”, but not until an exhaustive attempt to find a better name provided nothing better.
Thomas wrote all the code for the application in Ann Arbor, while John developed and wrote plug-ins in California. Some of the Adobe people thought John’s features were gimmicky and didn’t belong in a serious application. They viewed the product as a tool for retouching, not special effects, so John had to find a way to “sneak” them into the program. Those plug-ins have become one of the most powerful aspects of Photoshop.
Between April 1989 and the official release of the program in early 1990, development continued, with no official beta testers. At Adobe, Russell Brown and others worked with the program and made suggestions. Thomas would write and then rewrite the code, while John, Russell, and Fred pushed him to add features. John was particularly good at coaxing Thomas to make improvements.
Finally, in February 1990, Photoshop 1.0 shipped. The rest of course, is Photoshop history. . .