I began with a quick brainstorm of possibilties with the creative team. After that I sat down to write the script then collaborated with our 2D and 3D visualization personnel from the multimedia and product marketing team to develope the story board. After several rounds with the marketing head we began to assemble the sequence and assets of the video. I worked closely with the voice over talent from both inhouse and outsourced resources to determine the best fit for the production. 3D product animation was rendered to fit the sequence and 2D motion graphics was drafted up to relay the data specific aspects of the story. The team worked late evenings, weekends and even a holiday to pull the production together in striking fashion as there were almost 30 revisions made to get it to the CEOs liking. With revisions made almost to the hour of the presentation the production was uploaded for download in Taipei
almost 6500 miles without a moment to spare.

As a representation of giving my wife my very best, I wanted this peice to be the very best work I had ever done in creativity, complexity and effort. I also wanted to design the piece in such a way that our loved ones felt like they went on the trip with us.
It started with the outer box that was designed to look like a suitcase with all the places my wife and I had been together to date. It’s a seven piece announcement that includes, two photo albums of preengagement, wedding and post wedding photos. It also has a CD mixtape of our favorite love songs along with a DVD music video with me singing “All of Me” by John Legend. The CD and DVD fold out from the custom jacket to form the Arch of Cabo San Lucas. It also hold the two albums. The piece features custom diecuts, gold foil stamping, embossing, dull and gloss varnish with Aqueous spot printing. Each piece cost $150.00. We sent out 120 announcements.

With this announcement we searched out a small egg carton, red plastic and assorted gift tissues. I designed a custom party favor and two lea ets. One presented the Lunar animal under which our baby was born with the event specifics cs enclosed. The other shared the history of the ceremony.

For the sake of illustrating the evolution of the Supermicro brand we’ve focused on the advertising as a representative of all of the branding efforts. Rightfully so, since most often the advertising was used as the foundation for creating much of the creative assets of the brand once the advertising creative was released.

Being that the majority of the culture at Supermicro is influenced by Taiwanese tradition, colors, images and words used in brand assets were influenced as well. It’s been quite the challenge to move the company away from the Blue Sky and the dominant Yellow/Gold type treatment, despite these color combinations being more associated with toys and other less critical industries. The reach for improvement over the last 13 years has been relentless but you can see in these examples, each time some improvement was made we’d get a bit of push back the next time around.

Management believed in “Baby Steps” so each time they reflected on movement they assessed if it was too much too fast. Over the years, team members, managers, and even Sr. managers changed, but as the steadfast champion for this brand evolution over more than a decade, words of wisdom from my colleague Arthur Kilinski, former Creative Director of Cisco, Net App and now presently at NVIDIA. He said if you can’t convince the stakeholders to approve of your idea, no matter how great it is, you may as well not have an idea at all. So with that mindset I continued to push the team forward, while also improving the teams ability to lead, influence and persuade, moving the design philosophy that relied on the feature of a smorgasbord of product images, blue sky and yellow/gold type to a captivating hero image and more subtle treatment of the yellow/gold premise. We were also able to move away from the use of lots of technical spec to a simple clean message, subhead and brief sell copy. This was utilized across all brand assets. We’ve also moved towards mind-share brand awareness marketing rather than product speeds and feeds promotion.

Much care was put into determining the core value of the company to its customers and making sure that message is delivered first and foremost.

After weeks of interviews, evaluations and analysis we tried to come up with a warm and fuzzy campaign showcasing the many ways Supermicro touched the lives of regular people. We even tested portions of the concept in our Superbowl Ads. However, that did not seem to fit the tone of management who preferred to lead with innovation. We even tried clever statements depicting us as the Power behind vertical markets however, we found that to be too narrow of a message.

So after further consideration and days of circling back we concluded that the core value to our customers and the reason customers chose Supermicro over our competitors was the company’s ability to specifically optimize product performance providing the best performance-per-watt, per dollar and/or per sq. ft. for each and every application. This was the differentiating factor for the company moving forward. As a result, the campaign became Application-Optimized Server Solutions. It wasn’t new, fresh or exciting. However, it was the first time that the value of the company had been concisely communicated that was in line with how we opened up dialogue with customers as well as closed the deal.

So the project was to produce a Docufilm discussing the effects of the energy consumption of the increasing count of compute servers around the world, as well as their effects on the environment. Initial concepts included a Mission Impossible type theme but CLevel management did not want to lose focus of the core message. Supermicro is a leader in server efficiency and passionate about using that efficiency to save energy and ultimately reduce the amount of natural resources needed to power servers around the world.

The challenge was to bring awareness to the increasing power consumption of the server industry while also shining a light on Supermicro as the energy efficient server solution without the video looking like a sales pitch.

So what we decided to do was to bring in NASA climate research experts that, not only simulate climate change using large datacenter clusters, but also use Supermicro servers to execute the simulation.

We also included Intel’s CTO to discuss the architecture needed to optimize the minimization of resources in the datacenter environment.

This was all complimented with Supermicro’s CEO explaining his passion to help save the earth and the technical innovation Supermicro has created to lead the way.

The first challenge was to figure out what the true value proposition was for the product. It wasn’t speeds and feeds. It wasn’t blingy good looks with brushed metal and bright colored LEDs and it wasn’t low cost. After much deliberation the most differentiating factor of the Supermicro gaming motherboards was that they are built with server board construction in mind. This means they have a higher level of durability to withstand long run times at higher speeds. Essentially the team agreed on the positioning statement “Server Grade Quality Built for Gaming”.

The next challenge was the low budget gaming marketing team had for the line. In this case, we needed to devise a campaign that can grow legs and walk on it’s own as we would not have the budget to push it any further. It needed to resonate with the audience in a manner that they would be willing to tote it on their back and take with them. What we believed represented the strength of the product, as well as the interest and enthusiasm of the audience, was the phrase “Play Harder”. Nothing resonated with hard core gamers better. This phrase was carried out on all the collateral and advertising.

I wanted to create something elegant and classy as I imagined that would be the environment of her salon.

To gather ideas I toyed with her first and last initials but didn’t really find anything that came together well. Then I had a slight memory of her middle name Michelle. I asked to confirm and I was correct. I settled on the name Margaret Michelle and began to create from there. What made the most striking impression is the double-line “M” that depicted the Margaret Michelle moniker in clever fashion. As a result, that day the Margaret Michelle Salon was born.

The first challenge was to choose a name for the business that was synonymous with the Engine brand yet still distinctive to itself while maintaining relevance to the target audience. After some discussion the team concluded that Double-Ace Racing Products depicted the AA Engine brand while providing some flare and advantage for competition minded customers.

The logo was designed depicting two Ace cards creating the feeling of competitive advantage when choosing DoubleAce Racing Products.

The website was created for the customer to eventually manage. As a result a CMS application was used to build the site. The design relates well to the racing industry using bold and bright colors in contrast to a dark solid base. Initially great care was taken in photography of the AA engine products as the team believed that better images of the product would lead customers to the Double-Ace Racing site as customers want to see product with the most detail available.

The brand building continued with winning races first. Then eblasts, merchandising, sponsorships, videos and social media initiatives were combined to promote the brand’s success in
competition as well as promote company product.

For the purpose of this document we will focus on the creative and branding efforts. First our thought was to create an immersive experience as if to create another world. We settled on the use of the word “Planet” and coupled that with the name of the region to create “Planet Patagonia”.

The logo was created to depict a skeletal footprint of these giant animals that were on display.

The environment and experience was designed to represent the rich vegetative environment that these great beast roamed long ago.

The experience was housed in a giant inflatable tent supported by two tractor trailers which also carried the contents of the spectacle. Visitors were first introduced with a 3 minute introduction of the region of Patagonia and how the skeletons were discovered. From there they proceeded to a simulated excavation site where they can use real excavation tools to uncover replicated dinosaur skeletons.

So the big boss came to me and says, kind of in passing, that we need a new fuselage design for a new line of radio controlled acrobatic helicopters. He said the problem with his existing designs is that they had too much lift. In helicopter aerobatic design every move needs to be precise so when the controls are at neutral the aircraft flys neutral.

As the Art Director my responsibility was to make sure all of the promotional and marketing collateral looked good. Designing a fuselage was a whole other discipline. But I was up for the challenge and took the tools I knew and did my best. His modelers could take it from there.

I did however understand the dynamics of lift as well as the principles that aided and detracted it from it.

My theory was that the fuselage needed to part the air equal from top to bottom going both forward and backwards. The new design did just that. I also added break points in the design to keep the air from creating a suction effect around the fuselage.

The new fuselage was an astounding success. We ran a print ad on it headlining the words “Absolutely Insane”. We also created a POP shown below. Later the design was used on newer models of different fuel sources. As a result, it is the most popular helicopter fuselage from the brand to date.

In a world of the hands-off online purchase it’s important to give the customer that sensation of touch and feel as much as possible, such the same, as off-the-shelf purchases. For this reason high quality product photography is just as important as ever. Detailed photos of the product were taken at every significant angle to answer the customers every question.

The design of the packaging was next on the list. We chose a color unlike the competitors so it would stand out from the competition at just even a glance. The name of the product was big bold and prominent in a future edge type style to convey leading edge design. Strong contrasting angled lines were used to disrupt the eye in its typical horizontal left/right read behavior. The words “Endless Possibilities” catered to the markets desire to continue to make upgrades to a purchase. This statement eluded to the fact that this product was compatible with most any upgrade possible.

To support the product a variety of accessories were branded to match the product design. This made it easy for the customer to understand that these products were compatible with one another for easy use.