University of Dayton

By the time the Flyers account rolled into the office, everyone was pretty intrenched with an academic client of some kind. Chestnut Hill. St. Joe’s. Drexel. Wilkes-Barre. You could kind of tell something interesting was going on here. Colleges were starting to notice, and word was spreading East. To be honest, I had trouble reconciling it, which was about the time I was having trouble reconciling everything in the ad world, but alas, that’s a story for another day. The lead on this project was given to Greg Ash. A fabulous designer with an amazing spirit that I unfortunately never got to spend much time with. The contract was huge. Collateral. Television spots! Radio. The largest to date (and a mere hour away from that OTHER Ohio school, the big one). I was asked to help out on a few pieces, and when the concept boards came across my desk I recall being absolutely blown away. You could tell there was an inherent shift in each college account. That slowly 160 was breaking down the norm and taking more risks with academia, but UDayton was off the charts. First off it was colorful. Visually stunning. Infographics and analytics up the wazoo. Pop culture references. Priests. Ohio. Somehow all parlayed into this perfect little milkshake for the up-and-coming media drenched generation. I loved it visually even though I struggled withed it’s messaging. Honestly, I think it was either ahead of it’s time or I was just burned out. Regardless, nearly 2 years after leaving the ad world, and flying into Ohio, the first thing to welcome me out of the gate, was a poster I had struggled with, oh so way back when. Foreshadowing. It’s a whacky bitch.