Recently I was commissioned by Strosniders Hardware to create window art for their store front.  They have 19 windows that were populated with individual posters.  Some were created by the store and some were supplied by manufacturers.  All of them were of varying age and faded.  During the day the windows are mostly covered by displays of merchandise so the fading posters weren’t very visible.  After store hours was another story.

Here’s a before photo of what I saw from the street:

Driving by the store on Arlington road the distance is too great to read the posters (which was probably a good thing given their age).  Those windows screamed for something bold and colorful.  The solution was obvious.

It was clear to me that in addition to needing a new presence it had to be designed out of the box.  The distance called for something with much more impact.  Part of the requirement the store gave was that I needed to feature specified products/manufacturers.

Here’s my solution after installation.

Recently I was asked about the origin of a humorous “Lost Dog” bumper sticker I created.  I was hired to photograph an ad for the big network hardware company.  When the agency called me they said the working headline was something like “Put Teeth into your Network” .  I was told they wanted a growling dog as the visual and that they have contacted a trainer to provide the dog.  Knowing the few trainers in my area I asked who they were using and what kind of dog they had.  I was given a name I had never heard of.  I mentioned that to them and I was assured they were confident in the trainers’ ability.

On the day of the shoot the client entourage came to my studio and a short time later the trainer showed up… with the cutest little Border Collie you have ever seen.  OoooooooKayyyyyyy, I thought to myself.       I was already set up so we positioned the dog on set and he stayed in position very well.  From behind the camera I cued the trainer to start the dog and sure enough, he growled on cue.  There was a problem though.  Here’s the first shot of the dog growling.

I mentioned to the trainer that while it was really great he could growl on cue I was seeing no teeth.  The trainer replied defensively “Well, they don’t show teeth unless they’re threatened!”.  I looked over to see my client with a “This is the end of my career” look on his face.   I calmed everyone down, we talked for a bit and an idea came to me.  I had the trainer do a few shots with her pulling the dogs jowels up and revealing teeth.  Like this…

We did a few of these and some more profiles that fit nicely into the layout and created this version for the ad.  It was a little humorous but they felt comfortable going with that as opposed to one that may have looked too threatening ( ha ha, from a border collie!).

Oh and here’s the bumper sticker…