AreYouExcited.com

Esuvee Website and Info-tainment Game

The message “SUV Safety” was a hard sell so we had to come up with an inventive way to engage the young male target. We created a very visual site that made clear points about SUV safety and then lead you on to play the 3D shockwave game where you could ride the Esuvee creature around the landscape and up into the mountains. The game is designed to subliminally drill the safety considerations firmly into your deeper consciousness. As long as you retain the information it doesn’t matter that your having fun.

The Axe Launch Campaign

My basic creative strategy is Engage – Inform and Inspire Response with a clear Call to Action. If you can generate interest through entertainment or utility then you can make something fly – but it needs the instant gratification ingredient. Without that all the social media in the world won’t help you. This is the kind of thinking that informed the breadth of very successful work that launched Axe from an unknown Brand in a non-existent category (deodorant body spray) to the fastest product to reach 100 million units sold ever (USA). The work won a whole slew of creative awards and most importantly and Effie for the impressive sale results.

Underworld by Kaz

I’ve always loved good animation ever since I saw Ralph Bakshi’s “Wizards” when I was a kid. I loved that movie. These days I’m constantly bedazzled by the likes of Pixar and particularly Studio Ghibli’s Miyasaki. I’ve always enjoyed animating ads and games but now I’m attempting to take a step beyond into content creation by directing and producing a series of shorts based on Kaz’s Underworld daily comic strip. If the world at large enjoys watching them half as much as we’re having fun making them then the series should be a big success.

The Axe Pitman Game

Games are complex things. There is the strategy, the game play, programming, Interface design, animation or perhaps a live action component, Illustration and or photography, prizes, backend management etc. The reality is no one shop is going to be excellent at all these things. Divide the job into a series of parallel productions each being produced by specialists. This Pitman game was created by co-coordinating the various skills of 6 different vendors. This method guarantees quality results and also timely deployment.

Mini Chan

I have designed characters for my own comics, for TV commercials as well as brand logos. This is one of my recent favorites – my version of Hysteric’s Mini character (originally designed by Nobu Kitamura). Shortly I will be posting a whole character and comics sub section on this site.

In the beginning there were Comics

I started out into the world as a comic artist and illustrator and still love to keep my hand in when the right opportunity presents itself. Currently I’m regularly designing tees, fabrics and merchandise for Japans’ infamous Hysteric Mini for their ongoing seasonal collections.

Creating Happiness

The key to good identity design, I think, is to be able to clearly capture the essence of a brand and communicate that idea within the simplest icon or type flourish. For Serena Bass we didn’t want to just create a new logo type for the company we wanted to reposition them beyond catering as event makers or “Creators of Happiness” and capture a sense of their stylistic flair for the flamboyant. Part of the brief was that the logo should be an attractive t-shirt design in of itself.

I like a good Banner!

Well every now and then anyway. Banners can be great! Particularly with Axe we’ve managed to attract some really impressive click through stats simply by really making an effort to make the banners entertaining and eye catching.

At the end of the day girls (and boys) just want to have fun. So if you’re looking for creative, gag driven, animated or otherwise, stimulating banners – then do like Debbie Harry says an’ “Call me”.