Last week I had the opportunity to speak with local design students about life after graduation. AIGA Charlotte asked that I join other local design leaders including John Phietrafesa of MODE, Brady Bone of LKM, and Emily Walker of the Mint Museum in their popular panel event series called Design Unplugged. AIGA Charlotte student group coordinator Giulio Turturro moderated the discussion at The Art Institute in south Charlotte.

We discussed what Charlotte’s advertising and design businesses are really expecting from recent design graduates. While we did cover aspects of what it’s like to join an agency or design firm straight out of school, the conversations naturally focused on the best way to present and market yourself to get your first job.

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When Studiobanks first landed the Bojangles’ account, we knew one element of the digital platform would test our problem-solving skills: the menu. If you’re from the South, you know Bojangles’ is famous for its chicken and biscuits. All told the menu includes over 30 different entrees, 10 types of side items, 12 drink choices and countless meal, dinner, box and combo combinations. It’s a lot to choose from and even more to content manage.

It wasn’t the number of menu items or even organizing them into categories—we’ve done that before—that proved to be challenging. No, it was the nutritional values (of all things) that would become our nemesis. The nutritional values needed to display accurately for all menu items, including all possible meal, dinner, box and combo combinations. To up the ante even further, it’s common for Bojangles’ to tweak its recipes, thereby changing the nutritional values on a fairly regular basis. The digital platform would require a database and content management strategy that would allow for an easy, scalable approach to the way nutritional values are recorded. Challenge accepted!

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Each summer, District 3 (D3) of the American Advertising Federation (AAF), comprised of AAF clubs in Asheville, NC, Charlotte, NC, Greensboro, NC, Raleigh, NC, Charleston, SC, Greenville, SC, Midlands, SC, Hampton Roads, VA and Roanoke, VA, holds a leadership conference to engage and prepare incoming board members for the new club year. These annual leadership conferences typically draw between 75 to 100 attendees, and AAF Charlotte had the pleasure of hosting this year’s conference in early August.

The first night of each conference features a large-scale, icebreaker game that allows attendees to mingle with other clubs. The responsibility of planning and executing this game falls on the conference’s hosting club, which in turn was my responsibility as an AAF Charlotte board member. I quickly recruited talented copywriter Katie Fisher of Balfour Beatty and Studiobanks' newest designer Joe Bauldoff to help out.

D3 asked us to create a game that incorporated the conference theme, “Social Uprising” in which attendees learned to integrate social media tools into all aspects of club management. During initial planning, we were a little stumped by incorporating social media tools, which are primarily used on an individual basis, into a game that needed to be interactive for a live, in-person group of people. Ultimately we decided on a concept that was a mix between the style of the scripted “dinner and a murder” mystery game and the classic board game, Clue. The twist was that our game would utilize Twitter to support the social media theme of the conference.

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Studiobanks took a well-deserved day off this past Friday and headed down to Carowinds amusement park. We intended to take a day trip to the park last summer but became too busy with projects so we never actually got the chance. While we are equally busy with client work this summer, we decided if we didn’t just pick a date and put it on our studio calendar we would end up missing the trip again. Truth be told, there is never really a good day for the entire studio to take off, making the idea of waiting for such an opportunity kind of pointless. So we circled June 18th, took a break from our designing, developing and other tasks and enjoyed a day in the sun.

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You might remember the redesign of our party-promoting client's website last summer. Carolina Nightlife serves the Carolinas as the premier online resource guide to the local nightlife scene.

As a follow up to that launch, we also redesigned and developed The Nightlife Network’s website.

The Nightlife Network offers a unique opportunity to self-motivated and energetic entrepreneurs interested in owning and operating their own online business, just like Carolina Nightlife, by licensing its Cocktail software.

The Nightlife Network website has a fresh new look that complements the redeveloped Cocktail software, and provides detailed information about the software's features and how licensees can run their own highly profitable, regional nightlife website.

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Will and I both serve on the AIGA Charlotte board of directors. One of the biggest initiatives we've been a part of since joining the board is quickly approaching. From April 12-16, AIGA Charlotte is hosting a Design Week! This is the first event of its kind in Charlotte and the week will be jam-packed with 7 events in 5 short days. The idea is to help spread awareness and the value of design to the rest of the Charlotte business community while also inspiring our own members.

If you can only make it out to one event, be sure to check out our Design Unplugged event on April 13th. It is a panel discussion about defining the design community in Charlotte. I will be on the panel along with four other distinguished Charlotte design leaders including Jennifer Appleby of Wray Ward, Jim Mountjoy of Loeffler Ketchum Mountjoy, Maggie Bean of Karro Bean Design House and Jamey Boiter of BOLTgroup.

Below is a description of the event from the AIGA Charlotte website:

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I met Josh Vanover, a local Charlotte artist about six months ago after falling in love with three of his digital illustrations that were on display at the North Davidson Niche Market. He came into the studio and we talked about the possibility of him creating some original works to be hung in our conference area. We both got busy and the commission never got completed.

This past month the North Davidson Niche Market closed. Afterwards Josh contacted me to see if I was interested in purchasing the three digital illustrations that had hung there. I was thrilled with the offer and excited to see how they would look in the studio. Well, we just hung them up and they really seem to add some energy to a very blank wall.

Josh goes by the moniker SpaceKnuckle and was just interviewed in the February Issue of Computer Arts. The magazine says it expects big things from Josh, and we couldn't agree more. Check out a scan of the article on our Flickr account.

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I will be teaching a class called Animation and Interactivity this Fall at my alma mater, UNC Charlotte. Here is how the school's directory describes the course:

ARTM 3103. Animation and Interactivity. Emphasis on the tools, techniques, and software used in the creation of interactive multimedia and animation, especially media creation for video, the Internet, and CD-ROM.

This is the first time I have had the opportunity to teach at the collegiate level and need some help. I'm currently working on a syllabus that will focus on Flash and AS3. I'm planning on having the students do 3 or 4 projects during the course of the semester. Does anyone have any good ideas for projects? I want to have projects that are both challenging and that could be included in a professional portfolio after graduation.

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