Elizabeth Blake

Post 23: Explore Your Process: Combustion

I’ve been thinking about processes and I might actually have to do another mind map about this because while we’ve been focusing a lot on the creative process, exploring other sorts of processes is worth doing too. There’s biological processes like reflexes, chemical processes like combustion, the grief process, puberty, life cycles, the water cycle; all processes. That’s a lot to cover in one post though so I think I’ll pick just one to focus on this time. I like biological processes, bio is actually something of a hobby of mine, and I thought it might be cool to have a commercial that nerds out about the process that powers cars the way that I nerd out about how neuronal impulses work. Why not explain that to your everyday driver? Internal combustion isn’t some complex mechanical wizardry that has to be a mystery to everyone except engineers. Maybe it’s just me, but having a commercial that teaches me something I didn’t know appeals to my intellect and definitely gets my attention. It would also be neat as a nod to the ad campaign explaining VW cars’ lack of radiator problems because they don’t have radiators, they’re air-cooled.

So how does a combustion engine work? To put it simply: repeated compression and explosion. Seriously. It’s elegantly violent. (Hm, what if the explanation/description was done in a really elegantly sexy way?) Basically, there’s a chamber where gas is pumped in then compressed by pistons, then lit by spark plugs so that it explodes and throws the piston back to the initial position in a great burst of heat and other forms of energy. This occurs rapidly over and over again in a combustion engine so maybe focusing on just ignition would be better? I’m not actually as clear on how exactly the process starts. Wait, what if I just did it the same way I’m writing this post now?

“Internal combustion isn’t some complex mechanical wizardry that has to be a mystery to everyone except engineers. It’s fairly simple actually, just repeated compression and explosion inside an engine. It’s elegantly violent. There’s a chamber where gas and air is pumped in, then compressed by pistons, then lit by spark plugs. From there, the mixture explodes and throws the piston back to the initial position which turns a crankshaft and makes the wheels turn. Pretty cool, huh?”

This narration could be accompanied by a number of different things. Maybe the narrator is someone famous doing a mock story-time while driving a really nice new volkswagen. I like that. The clips could be of everything besides the actual process the narrator is talking about and instead be things like the car making turns, or braking, or whatever. But it would start with the narrator in the driver’s seat, starting the car and looking at the camera on the passenger’s side.

I REALLY don’t like not knowing what I’m doing or where I’m going with a post but I think I need to step away from that need for control and let these ideas grow on their own, without me forcing them back into a shape that I prefer. Anyway, this ad plays with the innovation side of things because as much as car companies like to pretend they’re innovative, the internal combustion engine really hasn’t changed much since it was invented. This idea kind of pulls away that screen of pretense and makes VW seem down to earth and approachable. Decent concept, even if I didn’t plan it.

Post 27: Learn from Your Mistakes

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The best ideas have the potential for being the biggest failures.

I heard that this semester and it’s still painfully true. I’ve had my fair share of suckish ideas in this class. And I’ve also had a few diamonds in the rough that made me want to throw my hands up and say, “That’s it! I’m done. That’s the best I’ll ever do.” But I either way, I had to do the same thing: just keep going. And the thing is, that’s how it works. The only way to get better at having better ideas is to have a LOT of crap ones first. It’s the only way. So let’s talk about the worst commercial ever.

There are infinite possibilities for bad commercials and very few for good ones. It’s easy to suck. That’s like real-life lesson 101. Not sucking is hard. Before you stop sucking you have to go through a lot of suckishness.

So what if there was a VW commercial that was about commercials that weren’t very good? A montage. It’s a great way to play up all the ways that VW is the opposite of that. It’s simple but it has a lot of potential. I like it. It’s bass-akwards and just offbeat enough that it’s perfect for VW.
By showcasing the sort comings of others, it displays the value and skill VW possesses.

Post 26: Impress Yourself: Family Reunion

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I want to do things I like. I want to make things I can be proud of.
But I feel like for every decent idea I have, there are twelve more that are ‘eh’.
I have to keep telling myself, “this doesn’t suck just because it isn’t your favorite.” But that doesn’t stop me from wanting ideas that surprise and impress me.

I had this one as I was writing the post about working out. I got to thinking about things that family passes down from one generation to the next. Now I don’t mean genetics, we aren’t talking about Jimmy having uncle Bobby’s nose here, or whatever; I mean taste. Because whether you know it or not, your upbringing had a huge impact on your tastes as they developed. My dad loved sharp cheddar and spicy salsa and to this day, I am a huge fan of extra hot indian food and flavorful cheeses. Maybe your family passed down a love of chocolate or a hatred of mayonnaise, I don’t know, but it got me thinking about brand loyalty because my dad only likes Jif peanut butter. I seriously don’t care that much but that was his favorite, and now it’s my little brother’s favorite too. Your family can pass down a love for anything, not just peanut butter. Cars, for example. (See what I did there? Great transition.) If a family member gets a VW and loves it, you become more likely to think of that brand when it comes to buying a car yourself.

So my idea is a family reunion. A big holiday gathering of aunts, uncles, siblings, cousins, and everything in between all in one place. Everything is decked out for Christmas, with beautiful decorations and music playing but it’s total chaos with kids running around playing, laughter and everyone talking at once, and of course lots of catching up to do. We see a young couple holding hands as the guy tells the story of how they met to a captive audience. The tale is followed by guffaws and a jolly comment about “you know where you got that good taste” accompanied by a knowing wink at the “little lady.” Outside we see almost a dozen cars, a congregation of Volkswagens. Late arrivals show up bearing casseroles and people come out to help with bags. Someone laughs as they get out of a car holding a dish of food, “the family’s all here, huh?” Zoom out to a view of the cars and the house. We see the sun set and the lights on the house flicker on. (This is when you’d insert “Das Auto” and the VW logo, probably along with a short phrase about family or something, which I really can’t think of right now.)

I really like the concept here and I just thought of this, but it could also be good to include a different family, maybe in a city or something versus a suburb or where ever this one is located, play up the accessibility of the brand. This one is chock full o’ holiday spirit but I’m not sure I’m proud of it. Like I said, the concept is great, just not the execution.

Post 31: Creativity: Working Out

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A few months ago I said that creativity was more like an old fashioned water pump than a faucet and that metaphor still holds very true. You can’t just become creative on demand, you have to practice (which is basically the whole point of this class). And like an old fashioned spigot, ill-use makes it harder to get the creative flow going again. Likewise, regular use oils the gears and makes things flow much more smoothly. I’ve been struggling with what I can only describe as rust in this metaphor. I put off and put off posts and I now have looming mass of work I have to catch up on by the deadline. It’s not a fun feeling. Procrastination only adds to the overwhelming feeling of having too much to do. So how should one who has neglected things for too long go about being creative on a regular basis again? Easy: start. The hardest part is really the easiest thing. Just starting somewhere, anywhere really, reorganizes that big scary impossible task into manageable steps. Losing weight is as easy as going to the gym that first morning because if you can do it, if you can get out of bed that first day, every day after that becomes possible. So anyway, here is me ‘working out’:

Premise: What if no one drove cars any more? How would VW convince people to?

Possiblities:

Create/recall the emotional attachment between people and their cars. (“Your car misses you.” *sad love song* As the car stares forlornly at closed garage door.)
Nostalgia: “remember the good old days when the journey was the best part of the trip? When free time on a long car ride meant a chance to catch up or just relax. Uninhibited because no one can fault you for not being productive while you’re driving. Time to just sit and think, listen to music, or read a book (so long as you aren’t the one driving, that is.).
Economy. “Going somewhere in a group? Well you can carpool! This way you’ll all arrive at the same time, together!”
Luxury. Sit back, relax, let the world wiz by at a charming 65 mph as you sip chardonnay and listen to old classics like “All About That Bass” and “Anaconda”. VW cars: the ultimate luxury throwback.

Why would you choose to drive if you didn’t need to drive? (Something else to explore: why wouldn’t you need to drive?..what if super powers were real and everyone could get places like that?)

Privacy. Nobody there to judge you for blasting NSYNC in the privacy of your own vehicle.
Comfort. Ditto goes for wanting to turn on the seat warmer when it’s seventy degrees outside.
Pleasure. Maybe driving is fun for you. Or soothing. Therapeutic even.

I need to just pick one of these and go with it but none of them really speaks to me. Whatever, going with the very first idea: “Your car misses you.” Actually, I had this idea yesterday and I just saw something today when I was researching another post that totally relates.

Funny that I happened to stumble upon this after thinking of something so similar. The copy is really hard to read but it’s basically a cinderella story about the enduring value of the ‘ugly’ VW in the picture as opposed to a better loved “big beautiful chariot” that didn’t last as long. I was actually thinking more along the lines of a car missing its owner because they stopped driving for whatever reason, be it that parking was a hassle, public transit was more convenient, biking was healthier and better for the planet, whatever. I didn’t even think about the VW getting replaced by a ‘better’ car.

A forlorn song about forgotten love plays in the back ground. We see an older gentleman pull the car into the garage and get out slowly, lock the doors, and walk inside. Time goes by. We see a time lapse of the car sitting neglected, aging, gathering dust as stuff accumulates around it in the garage. Eventually someone throws a canvas car cover over it and the screen goes dark. The song winds down in blackness. Then the cover gets thrown off. The first few notes of a happy song play, we see a young man cleaning, first the garage, then the car, polishing and cleaning, checking the tires. Finally, he gets in and starts her up. She rumbles then hums and he pulls out of the driveway and into the street with a smile on his face. We see a flashback of the same street, the trees much smaller, and a small boy in the passenger’s seat peeking over the dashboard, and an older man driving and smiling down at him. Fade out.
“VW, Just as good as you remember.”

Post 28: No Directive: Creativity

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Wikipedia defines creativity as “a phenomenon whereby something new and in some way valuable is created (such as an idea, a joke, a literary work, painting or musical composition, a solution, an invention etc).” Okay, great. So how do we do it? Well that’s the tricky part, no one really knows. Alright, maybe that’s not entirely true, we do know some of it. We know that ideas are formed when new neuronal pathways are formed in the brain. We know being around other creative people can help. We have some pieces of the puzzle.

I was watching a TED talk the other day about creativity (I watched the whole series, actually) and not only did I learn a lot from it, but it also gave me a bunch of ideas. The speaker proposed that there is no such thing as a new idea, that everything is just a remix. He said that creativity consists of copying, transforming, and combining preexisting material. I relate to this so much because of how I go about gathering experiences in order to mold ideas. I see the things I come up with as new creations, but the raw materials I used are sometimes clearly visible. I am a mashup-maker. A curator of creativity. So in light of this acknowledgement, I’m going to make a mashup, a remix. I jotted down this idea awhile back and never did anything with it really but it it’s a fairly decent concept: a series of print ads in different art styles, preferably iconic like Picasso abstraction, pop art, etc. This could even tie into the mural idea as they could totally be both print ads and street art. I did a Picasso-ish one to show what I meant, but this could be neverendingly awesome. Do a creepy Tim Burton-esque one around Halloween, a Norman Rockwell around Christmas, the potential is overwhelming. For now, this is the one within my artistic breadth:

Post 30: Creativity: Focus

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Distractions will be the death of me.

Things that keep me from doing what I should: Watching TV. Reading. My phone. I get sucked into shows and stories and forget about everything else. I stop doing whatever I’m doing to check my phone every two minutes. It’s incessant and pervasive now how much I’m on my phone. I do it without even thinking. I think I need to disconnect, just “unplug” for a day. I find myself obsessively checking my phone and my social media more and more recently (as I interrupt this sentence to look at a Snapchat) so maybe forcing myself to disconnect from those distractions will help me reset my mindset. No one needs to get in touch with me so urgently that I can’t turn off my devices for one day. I might even find myself with *gasp* some free time when every spare moment isn’t being used to look at my phone.

I’m also a fairly disorganized person. Okay, if I’m being completely honest, I’m a total scatterbrain. I struggle with ADHD which causes infinite frustration and extreme forgetfulness. I leave important items everywhere, have the hardest time with names (great at recognizing faces though), and I’m constantly forgetting about deadlines and assignments. My head is always in 100 different places and I have an incredibly hard time focusing on a single task long enough to get much done. So the little things slip through the cracks and the big things never get finished. I have developed ways to manage my own chaos, for one I write lists. They help me remember things. Another thing that I do is follow a basic set of rules. It’s something of a moral code, something of a maxim, but mostly it’s just another list. My way of organizing how I choose to live my life. I’m not going to write the whole thing here because some of those rules are really personal, some are just silly reminders to myself, but mostly it’s just common sense (even though sense isn’t all that common anymore).

It’s kind of funny that this is a post about focus and I keep getting off topic. Focus. I have a hard time with these posts for that very reason: I can’t focus. I’ll start one and get ideas for others, start researching and get totally off track, or just run out of steam. I’m so glad everyone else in the world is not like me or nothing would ever get done. Hurm, there’s an idea. Like how Nike is ‘just do it’, what if VW helps you ‘get it done’? Or something..

Playing with the recalled concept of this older ad:

Let’s do a humorous twist on a timeline and play the “what if?” game with VW:

What if everyone gave up when things got hard? What if things just didn’t work out?

What if the Wright Brothers had stopped trying after the first six failures?
What if Lewis and Clark had given up halfway to the Pacific?
What if Columbus had turned back when his crew wanted to?
What if Amelia Earhart had decided that the Atlantic was just to dangerous to fly across alone?
What if Paul Revere’s horse had gotten a broken leg?

None of those things happened, and they won’t have to now because VW gets you there.

I don’t know that this idea fully encompasses any of the brand values but it sort of touches on enduring value and there’s a little innovation mixed in with the making of history. There’s something here but I just don’t feel like it’s done.

Post 29: Creativity: The Slow Hunch

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Let’s take a minute and discuss something important that no one talks about enough: constipation; specifically, creative constipation. Creative constipation, AKA writer’s block, is something that most all creative people struggle with at one time or another. The ‘problem’ really lies in trying to force creativity. Most inspiration comes in the form of what Steven Johnson calls “The Slow Hunch”, meaning that over time (maybe hours, maybe years), ideas ‘grow’ to fruition rather than springing forth fully formed from the creative imagination. Well this can work against creatives who work on deadlines (so, all of them) because we end up chasing the ever elusive muse instead of watering our metaphorical pots and letting the cool ideas just come to us. So how do we find our creative ‘zone’ or whatever it is that we so desperately seek that gives us the ideas we want? Well Johnson suggests interacting with other creative people, which is actually proven to work wonders. You’d be amazed at some of the stuff a chef and a chemist can come up with when they work together. Or a painter and a contortionist. Or any of the infinite number of possible combinations of creative people. But really, this collaborative creativity can happen with anyone because everyone is creative in some way, we just don’t always recognize it as creativity. Some people are all about origami, or bird watching, or making coffee, or whatever, but that gives them a different perspective, and talking to them can open that perspective to you and spark creativity.

In light of that, I’ll call this one “Collaboration”:

Narrator: “A lot goes into making a Volkswagen.”
We see a crash test with full airbag deployment. An engineer studying and tweaking a 3D simulation of an engine with flow rates. A factory worker installing seats.
Narrator: “Every innovation has to start somewhere.”
We see a guy wiring a gopro camera to the back bumper of a car.
Cartoons playing on a small TV strapped between the front seats of a minivan plugged into a converter plugged into a cigarette lighter.
Narrator: “Where would we be without all of the people who have helped make us what we are today?”
Old clip of a man winding up the front of an antique car. A mechanic leaning against an old-fashioned race car with his arms crossed, grinning. A chemist testing ethanol solutions.
Narrator: “Making history, better.”
Grid of split screens showing all the different things that go into making VW (a physicist doing the math, a test driver, everyday people in present day and in the past, etc, etc), zooms out to the VW logo.
Narrator: “Das auto.”

This one is missing..something. Spunk? Dazzle? Irreverence? It’s super commercially. Eh.

Post 24: What Excites Me?

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What excites me? What am I passionate about? I don’t really “fangirl” over many ‘normal’ things like celebrities, musical artists, or TV shows, but there are some things in this world I just love and could talk about forever. I think looking at the things I can’t get enough of can tell me a lot about myself as a person and as an artist.

My favorite author. I love every Scott Westerfeld book I’ve ever read and I tell anyone who asks all about him. He is a YA fiction writer but that doesn’t mean he only writes angsty supernatural love stories. One of the reasons he is my favorite author is that he doesn’t just stick with one genre. He’s written galactic space opera sci-fi, alternate-reality historical fiction, dystopian futurism, the list goes on. I love that he’s all over the place because so am I, and changing things up keeps them interesting. He doesn’t let a need for continuity keep him from trying new things. I most definitely aspire to be the same way.
My city. So yeah, I’m in love with Richmond. I love everything about the city. I love how VCU is such an integral part of it that you can’t always tell where the school stops and Richmond starts. I love the chaos. There’s always 5001 things going on and never a shortage of fun and interesting things to do. I love the diversity. Richmond culture holds a renaissance value for individuality that creates and encourages such a wide range of unique and interesting people. I love the street art, the hidden alleys, the incongruous wildlife, the parks, the river, the trains, the food variety, the cool modern architecture mixed in with the beautiful old buildings, the graceful bridges, the festivals, all of it. I live and breathe Richmond and I love feeling like I am actually part of this amazing city.
Learning. That sounds so strange and it actually sort of is for me. I love talking to new people who have a different perspective and different experiences than me, but at the same time, I’m an awkward little introvert who is afraid to talk to strangers. I seek and gather knowledge like a squirrel hoards acorns. I have interests ranging from cellular biology to art history to wordsmithing and the quest to know more is invigorating until it’s required.
Art. I like poetry, books, music, museums, all kinds of art and expression. I revel in creativity because it fuels my own.

So that’s a nice fun list about myself but how do I relate that to the brand? Am I supposed to make myself get excited about VW? I don’t really have an interest in cars in general, not to mention brands. Maybe I should find someone else who really likes the brand. Or do something that excites me and is also somehow related… The last one really makes the most sense so I’ll go with that.

I’m going to design a mural because I love street art a lot and an ad in the form of something that is both permanent and beautiful is really appealing.

I can’t really explain why it’s Easter Eggs, it just sort of happened that way. When I tried to draw the first logo, it came out ovally so I just went with it. I used oil pastels so that’s a little strange (the whole thing is a little strange if I’m being totally honest). Maybe you can’t even tell what it’s supposed to be. I don’t even know, man. I ended up making the second on the facing page playing with the idea of “what’s in the eggs? Why are they in the air?” Because that’s how VW Beetles are born. 🙂
Looking at both together, I think they would make a good series/pair in two different locations. They have slightly different styles, which I happen to like, but are connected in an obvious way. The play on the Beetles as actual bugs has been done before but as an ad-art-mural? Probably not. Either way, it’s weird, it’s silly, it’s a decent idea, and I had fun doing it.

Post 52: Baby, It’s Cold Outside

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If you haven’t noticed yet, I rather like coming up with clever post titles and while I won’t get into the sexism, objectification, and rape culture embedded in the christmas song sharing the same name as this post, I would like to take a moment to embrace the spirit of the season that revels in the “bad” weather. “Let It Snow” is my all time favorite christmas song to sing and there are of course dozens of others that talk about the cold, snow, and weather around this time of year. Most people dislike it but I just love gloomy days. Yesterday was nice and all but 70 degrees is just too tempting. I don’t want to sit inside and be productive when it’s sunny and warm, I’d rather be out and about, which is exactly what I did yesterday and I didn’t get nearly as much done as I needed to. Give me cold, rainy, and overcast any day; that’s what really gets me into work mode. As I’m writing this, I’m sitting inside listening to fireplace sounds, cafe sounds, and christmas music. It’s cozy and chaotic and perfect for me.

I’m going to revisit an old idea that I sort of glossed over the first time, a family travelling for the holidays in a VW. This concept has become a reality for me because my family will now be travelling quite a bit for christmas this year. While I’d love to write this post with a fresh perspective after the two nine hour car rides we will be making, now will have to suffice. So my original idea went something like this:

A family is driving somewhere for the holidays in the snow. The kids are asleep in the backseat with a fireplace playing on the back seat video player (which some VW cars have) the mom and dad are smiling at each other up front listening to soft instrumental christmas music on the radio.

That’s really cute and all but let’s be honest, that is not how these things go. There is rarely that perfect quiet moment or whatever it is that commercials try to portray. There are fights and spilled sodas, vomiting on pillows, tears, and six hundred “are we there yet?”s. There’s snow drifts, traffic jams, radio interference, and GPS issues. Maybe if an ad fully represented that but also said, “hey, your family may suck, and the drive may suck, but at least your car won’t.” Because seriously, the only thing worse than having to travel 600 miles with four kids on christmas day (That is going to be me.) is having car trouble on the way. I know about that struggle from firsthand experience too. It isn’t fun.

So an ad that portrays what a family road trip is really like:

“I have to pee!” “Again?? We just stopped half an hour ago.” “I didn’t have to go then!” “Can it wait?” “NO!” “Okay, okay, hold on for five minutes, there’s a rest stop ahead.” “Maybe they have aspirin for Daddy’s headache.” “Let’s hope so.”

“Can we listen to Frosty the Snowman again?” “We already played it seven times.” “Pleeeease. I want Frosty.” “Not right now.” “I WANT FROSTY.” “No honey, we’re listening to other music right now.” *cries*

“He’s touching mee.” “Jacob, stop touching your sister.” “I’m not!” “Both of you, stop fighting.” “He stole my crackers.” “I did not, you already ate yours and now you’re trying to take mine!” “Stop looking at me.” “I can look wherever I want to.” “MOOOM.” *sigh* “How about we listen to Frosty the Snowman again?” “YAY.”

“Mom, I feel funny.” “Funny how honey? What is it? Do you have to go to the bathroom?” “No, my tummy feels weird.” *vomits*

Narrator: With all of the hassles and problem of travelling for the holidays, make sure your car isn’t one of them.” *VW logo*

This is really fun and hilarious yet awful for anyone who has had to deal with this stuff. It’s realistic and irreverent and it isn’t faking some nostalgic holiday spirit or magical peaceful happiness. I almost like it.

Post 38: Feedback

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Feedback has dual meanings in a way. Feedback could mean responses communicated from the receiving party of some interaction that can critique or help improve future interactions but feedback can also just be noise that disrupts a process or isn’t useful (like spam comments).

I’ve been thinking about feedback ever since Gary brought up leaving comments in class. I recently went on something of a commenting spree mostly because I felt guilty for not commenting before and wanted to give others some constructive feedback. On the karmic flip side of that, I haven’t really gotten many comments either. I know people look at my blog sometimes because wordpress shows me that, but I’d love to know what people THINK of it. It’s like getting people to taste food that I make, they might really like (or absolutely hate) it but if they don’t say anything, how would I know? Tasting it is only the first step.

I’ve also actually found that looking at other people’s work and giving them suggestions has helped me come up with more ideas, I’ve come up with a number of my own posts that way. It’s like a weird form of collaboration for me. And maybe it helps them too, I don’t really know. I hope I’m not just blowing hot air in my comments. I try to be kind and genuine with my feedback so yeah, I hope it helps.Moral of the story: feedback is a two way street.

I’ve been playing with the concept of two-way feedback between Volkswagen and users or drivers. How would it work? A hotline like someone else came up with? Or maybe a social media interaction? Hmm, is VW on twitter? Well I just went and looked, and boy could that twitter account use some work. Just searching the hashtag #VWcares brings up a somewhat alarming number of tweets about poor customer care and maintenance issues. While the official Volkswagen USA twitter does reply to some of these, it appears to be mostly giving people with problems links to their website or thanking the people saying positive things about VW. As far as I can tell, this isn’t really constructive two-way feedback and reads mostly like costumer service hotline prompts. Maybe they could take a lesson from Taco Bell. Social Media is a fantastic advertising platform, or at least it can be. Encouraging and engaging in feedback is a great tool for fostering a brand identity that Volkswagen USA is underusing and it’s a damn shame. They need to build that presence and my idea isn’t really an idea so much as a display of that improved feedback, but it would be cool to have a slideshow-style collection of tweets praising VW presented as an ad and formatted the way that reviews from credible sources are presented (Like the black screen with a narrator reading the quote printed in white). Doing that and saying something like “the people have spoken” is a fun way to maybe play up the idea that the users matter. It’s VW saying “your everyday motoring pleasure matters to us,” which is really what creates a recurring user base (besides having enduring value, that’s a major component too). People will come back to a brand they think cares about them.

Maybe this one is a stretch. Maybe this is making the brand something it’s not. I want to go back to the posts about fun and silliness and the things I want VW to embody. I’m not trying to change the brand here, that’s not my job. I’m just here to grow the brand. Maybe I’m overstepping and it’s time to backtrack to stabler ground now.