Hullo. Goodbye.

As we bid farewell to our friends from Creature London, and a lovely long stint of American debauchery, British mannerisms and some work mixed in between, it seems fitting to talk about how we decided to welcome them here in the first place.

With balloons.

In the UK, they’re called… well. Hmm. We never asked them what they call balloons. Shoot. We really were going to do that before they left. They probably call them something very clever. It’s probably way nicer-sounding than “balloons”.  In any case, we used them—balloons—to recreate both their nation’s flag and ours in the Creature 12th Avenue Storefront windows.

As the balloons slowly grew tired and flaccid, only stronger did the bond between ourselves and our 2 British + 1 Dutch compatriots grow. We closely observed their frequent bathroom habits, due presumably to their near-constant consumption of tea. Their manners are impeccable, or, at least, their accents are, which makes everything they do, including wearing wigs, performing Miley Cyrus’ smash hit "Party In The USA" in front of strangers, and frequently going to the bathroom, all a very elegant affair.

They enjoyed our not-fatness, our tendency to parade ourselves around at karaoke bars for their attention, and our strange sandwiches. (You can read about their experiences at their blog, http://jayraylangdon.tumblr.com.)

In all seriousness, the Creature exchange program, as we're starting to call it, is becoming less of a business necessity and more of a fantastically rewarding swap of ideas, laughs, ways of doing things, strange habits, and more permanently, pokes and email addresses and phone numbers and invitations.

And so. Until the next time, our friends across windows and oceans.

Introducing Virtual Shirting Technology

Creature was asked to help in the redesign of the Gildan Brand catalog that features Gildan styles offered by SanMar. The task was to provide a fresh, fun and engaging look in an already indistinguishable commodity market through showcasing of color and product availability. The catalog was designed to target SanMar’s primary customer of screen printers, promotional product dealers and embroiders.

We created the SanMar and Gildan 2012 catalog, now made with: Virtual Shirting Technology! A revolutionary new way to shop for you shirt needs, that will change forever the way you look at shirts, brought to you by the geniuses at SanMar and Gildan.

We reinvented the catalog experience by adding a die cut in the collar of each clothing image that allows viewers to hold up the catalog in front of someone and “see” what they might look like in the article of clothing. We named this simple technique Virtual Shirting Technology. And we had fun by making an undue tongue-in-cheek big deal about it. We Created testimonials from people that have used it, endorsements from clothing scientists, and playful language borrowing from the over-promise tone of classic infomercials. We designed it with a touch of class, a dash of modern credibility, and bright friendly colors, with easy to shop pages.

All and all, a memorable departure from the forgettable word of clothing catalogs and into something a little more engaging for the audience, while still providing them with the ease of shopping and the important information they need to make smart purchases.

Creature joins the Dickies family tree

Okay, so when we got the news we were the new agency of record for Dickies, I was pretty thrilled (I = Pam). Because how often do you get to work on a brand with this kind of a rich history and culture behind it – it's pretty cool when you, your dad and your grandpa can all wear the same exact pair of pants and no one feels like a chump.
 
But clearly every person at Creature felt that way about the brand. Too often it feels like we're all busy in our separate project-worlds and not as tight-knit a community as we’d like to be. So it gave me a ton of pride to see the agency pull together toward this one cause (other than that one all-black Friday when Robson turned 40). I think it's because Dickies is a brand everyone feels a personal relationship to.

And also because you can build a tree out of them:


But as we've been diving into this business for the last month, I know there's a lot of work ahead of us. I'm incredibly proud of Creature right now, and we're all looking forward to a relationship with a brand that has so much to offer. It's time to put our Dickies on and get to work.
 
Look, we're already right at home in Fort Worth:

Stop-Frame Fantasy

The Northwest Film Forum's Children's Film Festival Seattle is a celebration of a child's capacity for imagination — their amazing ability to break the rules of what things should be to what things could be. These films were created to incite this imagination and love for story and fantasy.

We wanted to view the world through a child’s sense of imagination and transform an everyday object into a symbol of this great festival. We’ll use a symbol ubiquitous with Seattle, and the time of year the festival owns: the umbrella. An umbrella is basic, functional and universal—but to a child it becomes a character, a vehicle, a playmate and muse. Through artful use of umbrella shapes, and playful interpretations of its function, we spun stories and scenes that capture the adventurous, joyful, imaginative spirit of the films themselves.

Creature brought on director Branson Veal at production company Unclebob.tv to craft these stories into a reality. Branson chose to combine live action, stop frame animation, utilizing children and colorful hand painted umbrellas to give each story the magic touch. With a bit of a nod to the French film Amelie, Creature & Unclebob.tv had original music scored for each spot. All of the spots were shot on location in Seattle.

For the festival’s main "Trailer," props, children and umbrellas transform a rainy day into a magical film projection booth and theatre.


In the “Bicycle” spot, imaginative use of umbrellas takes us on a magical journey down a street.


“Chase” has a colorful zebra umbrella being playfully chased around a grassy knoll by a leopard umbrella.


“Spring Love” has two young sweethearts meet in a garden of umbrellas painted like spring flowers, when they hold hands the scene blooms around them and nature comes to life.