The Richmond Ad Club is a group of extraordinarily talented and creative advertising professionals living and working in RVA. In addition to supporting the visionary work of their peers, the Richmond Ad club also works to make the Richmond advertising community by hosting events like fundraisers and networking opportunities. The RAD Show, also known as the Quest for the Cannonball, is an award show and party hosted by the Richmond Ad Club to recognize and celebrate the award winning work put forth by Virgina’s advertising professionals.
This past Saturday night, the Hubs and I attended the RAD Show, and your girl came home with two silver cannonballs. My homepage of wiggling, spiraling curls directing you here and there is now an award winning website!
I first had the idea to create a unique splash page for my website about this time last year. I had not seen anything even close to what I wanted to do. There were a few ads that showed curly haired ladies that had words superimposed over their hair, or that had words written onto the hair, but nothing that showed words spelled out from the hair itself. Writing and photography are my forte, so while I could describe easily enough what I wanted to do and even take a few mock snaps of myself to storyboard it out, I needed some additional help.
The first step was getting the right picture. I love beauty shots. I love the simplicity of a white background and nothing but the tight close up of the model’s face filling the frame. In order to get the desired effect, I was going to have let my hair have free reign. My good friend Ariel Skelley set me up in her studio with the right lighting, great direction and provided me with scores of shots from which to choose.
Once the image was created, I needed someone to work some Photoshop magic on it to get the words spelled out. I started talking to other creative types I know and one suggested Jeff Glotzl, who does photo retouching. Jeff did work on the Science Museum of Virginia ad that showed the young boy lifting up the ocean to see what was between the water and the sand (It’s a such a resonant image, because who among us hasn’t wanted to do that very thing). Click here to see it.
I reached out to Jeff, explained what it was that I was trying to do, and he was enthusiastically on board. Of the course of our collaboration, Jeff mentioned once or twice that we should consider submitting the finished product to some contests because he hadn’t seen anything like it in his experience. As things took shape, like the words “about”, “writing”, “photography”, “projects” and “contact” — from a literal lock of my hair, I could see what a one-of-a-kind design I had created. I followed up with Jeff about submitting the design with a simple, “Just let me know if you hear anything,” and left it at that. Eventually, the page was complete, the “i’s” dotted with a curl and the “t’s” crossed with a bobby pin. Jeff gave each word a little more personality by having them wiggle and wave as your roll over them. I was thrilled and just awed that something I had scratched out on some notebook paper was live in front of me.
With the help of Andrew and Spencer at Team-Eight, we took the site live to what it is now. I’ve had incredible amounts of positive feedback from family and friends as well as people who happen to stumble upon my site through various means. I’ve been riding high, and when Jeff sent me an email several weeks ago with “We Won an Award!” in the subject line, it was the icing on the cake. We entered the design in the web category for micro-sites were in contention for Gold, Silver or Bronze. We were also chosen to win a design award (Gold, Silver or Bronze), which, as it turns out, we did! Complete list of winners here.
The Hubs and I got duded up and spent the evening at the show. It was incredible. There are so many talented people working in advertising in Richmond. Major campaigns for UPS, Geico, Oreo and the like, originated and were created here in RVA. Seeing my page up on the large screen, hearing my name called along with Jeff’s, threading my way through the audience to receive my award, hearing the President of the Richmond ad club tell me, “Oh, we clicked on the curls a lot!” — the entire experience was surreal.
We ended the night with little post show celebration of oysters and prosecco at Rappahannock afterwards, just me and the Hubs.
A great number of things, both creatively and professionally, are falling into place for me right now. I’m so fortunate, so blessed, and so giddy about it all. A few weeks ago, I posted a snap on IG of a bottle of champagne, saying that I’d had the bottle for close to 10 years, but was going to pop it open this summer. This past week-end is one more reason to celebrate.