Artistic Competition, and Its Origins
Gustavo Vives
11/27
Field students may have noticed the recent appearance of posters, chalk outlines, and emergency broadcasts playing across the school. These incidents are a part of an intricate whisper campaign, designed to promote the upcoming performance of “Zombie Prom” by the theater department. This whisper campaign was designed by two student-run advertising agencies emerging from Tim Lane’s Print Design Class.
“FALCO”, and “Scatter Brand” are two different “competing” student run design/advertising agencies poised to produce advertisements for clubs, school events, school branding, and small businesses across DC. Tim Lane, the teacher and coordinator of this program, describes it as:
“A way to keep students working at their best,” he added “Any real world design studio or ad agency will have internal and external competition, this is a way for students to tackle that experience head on, and learn something from it!”
The companies have distinct brand identities. FALCO advertisements may be seen as more modernist and cinematic. Their projects may include the colored series of “Outline Posters”, and the “CBS Bulletin’ that played during the last all school gathering’. FALCO projects can be seen as focusing on playing off their audience’s curiosity, “They’ll ask: what is that, or what’s going on, and that’s how they’ grab their attention!” said Tim. In contrast, Scatter Brand advertisements such as the “Atom Smashers” poster series, may come across as more loose and vibrant, and seek to immerse their audience in the story they are marketing with nods to plot elements and a matching aesthetic.
These creative differences can mainly be attributed to their different creative leads. FALCO is managed by a body of senior creative directors including students such as Sydney L and Jared R, each with a different specialty and concept to bring to the table. Scatter Brand is more centralized with most creative output being directed by junior Seth M.
The class has been extremely well received. With rave reviews from customers, and students alike. When asked about his thoughts on his experience so far with the program Jared touted, “I like the program, I like the structure, and I like being a creative director. It has definitely given me great experience for college, especially since I want to pursue marketing. I’ve personally designed shirts for the field homecoming, some of the zombie posters, it’s been fun!”
Such an ambitious program did not emerge on its own. According to Tim, planning for this class goes back to last year. When asked about what went into getting this project off the ground, Tim stated, “It didn’t take that much to convince anyone, the school is very focused on project based learning and this is the essence of project based learning! Student buy-in was immensely important in getting this program started, the potential for what we do here is just amazing. Having the real world, both potential and consequences, makes for such a more robust learning experience. You can’t write up in a curriculum exactly how every project will come together when it comes to design, you need to work together, come up with ideas, and that first part where you have nothing can be such an uncomfortable place to be in.” Sydney agreed echoing Tim and Jared’s thoughts, “I put it on my college application,” said Sydney “but also It’s impacted the school by giving design students a platform to experience the creative process, and make their own portfolio, giving them invaluable experience in the professional world.”
According to the studios, “Zombie Prom” is just the beginning. Soon, Tim’s class will tackle larger projects, such as a new logo for the DC metropolitan city council, and a series of ads for the vegan burger chain “PLNT Burger”. “I look forward to the partnership we will be doing with PLNT burgers,” Sydney commented, “Because I feel it will be very interesting to work with a company with no affiliation with the field school. Overall just super excited to do work with actual businesses. It’s a very cool way to encourage students to put in the most effort possible. If we were to create a reputation in the area for our high quality work, students will become more inspired to participate and give their all in this endeavor”
Yet challenges still remain for the burgeoning ad agencies. According to Tim, FALCO has not yet finalized its branding. It does not possess a logo, website, or any advertising for its own services. “The outward facing nature is still a work in progress,” said Tim “we haven’t finalized our brand with the Field School yet, and that is definitely something we look forward to doing with Marissa and Allison [in the communications department].” There is also the challenge of success. Tim made a point of saying that “There is no guarantee that any project will be successful. It’s not always about the end product, it’s about the process of creating the concept for an idea.”
It is important to keep in mind that, at the end of the day, this is a learning experience for everyone, and FALCO and Scatter Brand are not actually financially competing. “It is not that competitive,” Highlighted Jared, “we are both doing the same thing, and we in fact collaborate a lot, but who doesn’t like a good rivalry?”
“The ideas being crafted, from posters, to videos, to stencils, make me proud to be a teacher. I was amazed at watching both classes establish their identities, I was not anticipating that there would be such a contrast in the identity and personality between the two classes, it comes across in the work that they do. Every day is a big question mark, everyday I leave feeling like, phew, that worked.”