“You’ve gotta learn to drive with the fear. There ain’t nothin’ more frightenin’ than drivin’ with a live cougar in the car.”
Wise words from the character, Reese Bobby from the critically acclaimed movie, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.
In our case, the cougar (or tiger) refers to: the beast that is professional networking. Whether you’re a professional concerned with finding new talent or a student worried about starting their career, the Fort Worth Creative Co-op’s Creative Gauntlet is the place you need to be. With 4 years under their belt, the FWCC has become familiar with creating environments for open dialogue and friendly advice. This year the event was held at 916 Bryan, a recently redeveloped 2-story warehouse building designed for creative office uses, housed in Fort Worth’s Near Southside. The free event brought students from TCU, UNT, UTA and The Art Institute of Fort Worth together to make connections with creative industry professionals and present their work in a “speed-dating” style conversation/portfolio review.
Jon Chapman created the look for Creative Gauntlet No. 4 and Trust Printshop screen printed the posters and gift bags.
Now that the chalk dust has settled, who is ready to plan for Arts Goggle 2016? Ok, so maybe we aren’t there yet but if you were not able to make it out this year, you missed out. This year, Arts Goggle took over the streets of Magnolia and we took over the street between Henderson and S. Adams. Best Idea Ever!! Having the freedom to be as creative as we wanted, we decided to create a 10ft x 40ft chalkboard wall in the field next to our office. The wall was covered from top to bottom with frames that were all shapes and sizes and allowed for the community to be as creative as they wanted. Starting off, the team was vigilant at keeping the wall clean for more people to participate, but as the day went on and the crowds got bigger, they over took us. By the end of the night the chalk drawings, messages and shout outs had taken over the street.
We teamed up with Trust Printshop for the second year in a row and once again, they out did themselves. To keep with the chalk theme, Matt Lucas put on his mad scientist hat and created chalk–infused ink for the day and printed Southside shirts on site. All the proceeds from the shirts went to help Fort Worth South continue to promote public art in the Southside. “If you didn’t leave Arts Goggle covered in chalk dust you were probably doing it wrong. By the end of the night that giant wall and the shirts were the chalk of the town… See what I did there?
Thanks to everyone who tagged us in your posts! It was great to see your art and hear your thoughts. Here are some of our favorites:
“Having so much fun at Art Goggle in Fort Worth today! Made my day to meet and chat with Matt from @trustprintshop and Ken from @schaeferadco. You guys are awesome! #celebratealways #artsgoggle2015” —
celebrate.always
“Super cool art wall set up by @schaeferadco at this years Arts Goggle. #artsgoggle2015 #iheartart #FortWorth #instafw #instagram” —
brianhutsonphotography
“A little art culture for the soul. @schaeferadco #iheartart #art #streetart #fortworth #texas” —
vangbee87
“My super talented wife having fun at Arts Goggle. #artsgoggle #artsgoggle2015 #nearsouthside @schaeferadco #iheartart —
weaver.engineer
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The Story
Each year the Fort Worth Zoo hosts an annual gala event, Zoo Ball, to raise money in support of the zoo’s ongoing mission of conservation. In a city as large and philanthropically minded as Fort Worth, it’s absolutely vital to break through the noise of other worthy charity events. This year being the 30th anniversary, the planning committee held high expectations for all aspects of the party. Dubbed 1940’s Las Vegas nightclub themed, we set on the path to creating a high-end invitation the encompassed the elegant event.
The Work
To define the tone of the event, our first step was to create inspiration boards. Focusing on high end elements, animal details and historic landmarks, we created the visual foundation for the invitation and ultimately the event. During our research, we discovered that Bugsy Siegel’s legendary Flamingo was one of the first nightclubs in Las Vegas. Leveraging the iconic venue, we titled the event Zoo Ball at the Flamingo. Just like that, the perfect animal pairing for our period event was born.
Harnessing the juxtaposition of larger-than-life Vegas shows within dark, unassuming nightclubs, we developed the concept for an elaborate three dimensional pop-up invitation. Though we may not be paper engineers per se, we always aim to seek what’s possible. Concept turned into reality through partnership with Cockrell Enovation and Structural Graphics, good ‘ole trial and error and more than one paper cut.
The end result is a structural masterpiece. The custom envelope was built to ensure the piece would not get damaged in mailing. The guests were presented with what appears to be a flat “standard” invitation. But upon opening, two pink flamingos emerge from the pages of the invitation, unfolding into an incredible display of creativity and paper construction.
The Results
This year’s event sold out in record time and successfully raised a record-setting amount for the Zoo. Invitees began posting videos of the invitation on social media. And yet again, the bar was raised a little higher for next year.
UPDATE:
Schaefer was awarded a gold national Addy for the 2015 Zoo Ball invitation, for the second year in a row! To give it some context, we were one of only 83 gold winners out of 40,000 entries. We’re incredibly proud of our back-to-back wins and excited to represent Fort Worth among some of the top agencies in the country.
Check out the complete List of 2016 National Gold Addy Winners.
It’s all about the details and that was the story for the 2015 Riff Ram Video. Our team embraced the opportunity to make this in-game tradition something special for the Horned Frog faithful. Each scene was curated with new and old memorabilia and a few custom creations to make each viewing a new experience. We designed t-shirts, coffee mugs, pennants, digital downloads, wall murals, an 80’s workout video and even commissioned a painted SuperFrog portrait.
We vandalized, trespassed and 2-stepped our way through a coffee shop, practice field, barber shop and tattoo parlor over 3 days of shooting. We directed a Heisman hopeful, a former chancellor and a 5-year old cheerleader. We pulled it all off with a chorus of football players, a retro workout video and Renaissance painting of Super Frog. Enjoy this behind the scenes look at how Schaefer reinvented TCU’s classic tradition for the 2015 football season.
Produced in partnership with N8 Visuals.
Each year, the Fort Worth Zoo brings together some of the best restaurants and music acts in town for a tasting and music event called Beastro. For this year’s campaign, we boiled it down to the essentials.
We love our neighborhood of Near Southside here in Fort Worth, and we try to be neighborly whenever possible. So when residents started complaining about business patrons parking in front of their houses, we were there to help. See, there’s this perfectly good parking garage just off Magnolia street, but a lot of people didn’t know about it. How do we remedy this? With advertising, of course!
Schaefer created the “Park the Garage” campaign using eye-catching street banners to point people in the right direction. We also provided table tents, buck slips and coasters to local businesses to help reinforce the message. With all that hot pink, there was basically no way for upstanding gourmands to miss that great, big, juicy parking garage just waiting for their vehicles.
Today, the garage is in use, the neighbors are happy and there is peace and tranquility in Near Southside once again. All thanks to some well-placed, brightly colored information.
Four years ago, Schaefer was asked to create a spokesman character for TTI, Inc., a $2B electronic components distributer that had just been acquired by Berkshire Hathaway. Thus the Specialist was born, and since then he’s been fighting bad guys and saving production lines both in videos and a comic book series. Both have been very successful within the industry. “TTI – you’re the guys with the Specialist, right?”
Wanting to maintain our momentum but keep things fresh, Schaefer went back to the drawing board to think of a new way to capitalize on The Specialist character’s infinite knowledge of all things electronic.
Now, Schaefer is proud to introduce Ask the Specialist, a new video series that features our intrepid hero answering questions on a wide range of topics – everything from parts and components to relationship advice.
Click the link to see the first episode, and be sure to check back each month for more answers to life’s burning questions.
http://www.ttiinc.com/page/ask-the-specialist
This was the second year Schaefer got to produce the annual TCU Baseball video. The team was coming off a very successful year, yet they still felt the sting of coming up short in the College World Series. For 2015, both the coaches and players had an even greater resolve to take it all the way to the championship.
Based on the Boy Scout oath, “On Our Honor” is a promise to themselves, their teammates, coaches and fans to follow the path of selflessness, energy and excellence.
This was another fun shoot with N8 Visuals out at Heart of the Ranch in Clearfork, another Schaefer client. Even the non-Horned Frogs here at Schaefer are excited to see how far TCU Baseball can go this year. Go Frogs! #toadtoomaha
On Friday night, advertising professionals from all over Fort Worth gathered for the 2015 American Advertising Awards. As last year’s Best of Show winner, Schaefer was responsible for this year’s event theme, which was “Amendment 28,” a modern take on prohibition except that it was advertising and not booze that was illegal.
In typical Schaefer fashion, we had a lot of fun with it. From a fake theme to fake government agents to real posters taped on real agency doors, we used a wide range of media to keep the game going. It all culminated last Friday with “The Event” – a secret meeting of ad pros at the Fort Worth Masonic Temple to celebrate in secret another year’s worth of work.
Results are still coming in, but early returns suggest that the event was a success. Guests enjoyed hors d’oeuvres and drinks while sizing up with each other’s work and catching up with old acquaintances and coworkers. The awards presentation video, courtesy of our friends at Studios 121, maintained the underground theme with glitchy effects and the subversive statement that, “If advertising has been outlawed, then we are all outlaws.”
Fitting then, that we made off like bandits, coming away with 16 total awards including five golds and another Best of Show award for the 2015 Zoo Ball invitation we did for the Fort Worth Zoo. Designed by Blair Babineaux with art direction by Charlie Howlett and production by Maren Gibbs, this piece is a fitting jewel to crown a busy and productive 2014.
Of course, winning Best of Show again means we get to put on the show next year, but we’d rather not think about that for a few months. It was a lot of work.
Here’s to a great 2014 and to our three-peat next February!
The annual Fort Worth Zoo preschool is a great way for kids to learn all about their favorite animals from A to Z. So, industrious designer Jon Chapman set about illustrating a menagerie of animals – one for every letter of the alphabet. This series of animal flash cards was made available on the Fort Worth Zoo website so parents could print them out for their kids’ to enjoy. Which one’s your favorite?
