Know a DCS, GDAA member or a local creative who's doing something extraordinary?

Maybe channeling their creativity in an awesome way, either professionally or personally? Possibly someone who is making a unique contribution that others should know about or can use for inspiration? Well we want to shine our light on them with the editorial arm of DCS, the Creative Crux.

Creative Crux features articles written by local copywriters and editors about creative companies, people, books reviews, and other diamonds from the creative rough.

So if you have some ideas please share them with our Creative Crux manager, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

The American Advertising Federation (AAF) announced the 2010 Club Achievement Award winners this week. The awards are presented annually to AAF member clubs who display exceptional accomplishments in club operations. Member clubs comprise the AAF’s grass roots structure, which is an essential resource in advancing and protecting the interests of the advertising industry.

This year Greater Dayton Advertising Association & Dayton Creative Syndicate was named as the Division 3 Advertising Education first place honoree. Congratulations to everyone from GDAA and DCS who worked so hard to pull our educational programming together. Your efforts don't go unnoticed.

Awards for advertising education are given to the AAF member clubs whose programs improve the skills of professionalism and standards of advertising practitioners. Education programs also provide an understanding of and confidence in advertising and its contributions to the community and economy.

Each year, the AAF honors top ad clubs in eight categories: advertising education, communications, diversity and multicultural initiatives, government relations, club operations, membership development, programs and public service.

“The local advertising clubs and federations are the bedrock of the AAF.  Our successes at the national level would not be possible without the strong foundation of our local club network,” said James Edmund Datri, AAF President and CEO.  “I am honored to recognize these exceptional club achievement winners, and in doing so affirming that the foundation of the AAF – and of the advertising industry – is strong.”

Design wunderkind Chuck Anderson dishes about his success
During a recent DCS speaking engagement, Chuck Anderson, of NoPattern fame, discussed some of the steps he took to get from post-secondary postponement to one of the industry's most sought-after design studs.

"Opportunity just happens, so you have to be prepared when it does," Anderson said. "I wish I could say may career was meticulously planned out, but it wasn't." While deliberating his options after graduating from high school with no real career ambitions outside of "I love to draw," Anderson worked for then-small-time T-shirt company Threadless. But shipping shirts wasn't enough for Anderson. "I remember the point at which I new I wanted more out of life," he recalled. "I was driving around this pink and black Geo Tracker, and I remember thinking 'I want something better than this. It doesn't have to be expensive, just not this Tracker!' And I knew I needed to do something to get me out of that Tracker."

Through his diligence at his job and his employers personal contacts, he landed his first design gig -- creating fliers for the chic Chicago club Smart Bar. The promotion was a hit, and Anderson knew he was on to something. "I hit the library, poured over books about design and tried to teach myself how to use software like (Adobe) Photoshop." What began as a lifelong love of drawing and amateur photography took on a new dimension with Photoshop. "My goal for drawing was always 'how can I weird out my parents?'" Anderson said. "With the software, I discovered a whole new kind of weird."

That brand of "weird" went on to help Anderson snag more freelance jobs he scored from cold calls and e-mails, like ESPN magazine. He worked those contacts to land more work, and suddenly, the kid with a fuzzy future was sitting on top of a design empire with high-profile clients like Atlantic Records, Reebok and Microsoft.

Anderson had tips for his audience with regard to breaking into the market. He encourages people to take risks and not be intimidated by making cold calls or sending e-mails. "The worst that can happen is they'll say no, and then you're no worse off than before you made the call. But if it works..." He also cautioned against being too picky about jobs. "One of the biggest mistakes an artist can make is to think they're too good for a job," he said, adding that even if you think a job might be "beneath you," you never know who's connected to whom and where one "insignificant" job might lead.

Getting specific direction from a client is another route Anderson suggested on the road to job satisfaction. "Getting bad direction -- especially from people I like -- is just hte worst," he lamented. "Make sure you get details -- what is this for? Do you have specific dimensions? What's your goal for this?"

His top three tips for the evening include:

Be assertive. You're your own marketing ambassador, so be confident in your work.
Have support. Whether it's a friend, family member or spouse who can be there for moral support, for inspiration, or just to act as a sounding board, surround yourself with good energy.
Keep the creative fires burning. Keep exploring and every now and then, create something or just goof around for fun. It's cathartic and can revive your love for design when you start to feel burned out. New ideas can happen at any time, so be prepared.

Through effort, ethic and taking chances, you, too, can find yourself at the design apex. "One of the best rewards is seeing your hard work out there in the real world," Anderson said. "Half my motivation for doing a job is to show people my work -- show them what goes on in my head!"

Description

Atomic is a full-service web studio that blends marketing strategy, design, and development in one powerful package, with one powerful goal—to create tangible results for our clients.

We're a small group of fun-loving, creative concept conjuring, code writing, problem solving, design junkies who love all things web. We work hard and play even harder creating fun and engaging websites, applications, and anything else we can cook up.

We're looking for a developer who loves open source as much as we do and can hold their own using PHP, MySQL, JavaScript, X/HTML, and CSS. The right individual can translate a pixel perfect layout from Photoshop into squeaky clean code, integrate with open source CMS and e-commerce software, and talk to clients without confusing the crap out of them.

Responsibilities

• Work within a team environment (project managers, web designers, copywriters)
• Assist with estimating projects
• Be willing to lose gracefully in foosball

Minimum Requirements

• Be awesome
• Be passionate
• Be willing to make a Starbucks run

Interested? Please send your resume, samples or online portfolio to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .