Class # 6, lecture on living legend, George Lois

1. The Big Idea + George Lois
(another creative local from the
Boogie down Bronx)
AD 216: Class 6, 09/30/14
Gina Collura, Creative Director

2. George
Lois
(1931 - )

3. George
Lois
(1931 - )

4. George
Lois
(1931 - )
- Art Director
- Designer
- Author
- Designed 90+ Esquire magazine covers
- Went to Pratt for 1 year
- Drafted into Army to fight in Korean War
- After war, he worked in ad dept. at CBS
- He worked at DDB from 1959 – 1960
- Then started his own shop with
Julien Koenig + Fred Papert,
Papert, Koenig, Lois

5. George
Lois
(1931 - )
- Known for his no BS approach, swagger,
taste of avant-garde design
- He had a mission: Elevate ads to fine art
(hint, hint: field trip to MOMA next week)
- Legend has it, Don Draper is loosely
based on George
- He has been called the
“Original Mad Man”

6. George
Lois
said
His weapon of choice was a new method
of working called “The Big Idea”
“With words and images that catch
people’s eyes, warm their hearts, and
cause them to act”

7. George
Lois
said
“If advertising is a science,
than I am a girl.”

8. But let’s hear
it from the
man, himself
George Lois @ Cannes 2013

9. George
Lois
+
DDB
“My first assignment was the Kerid account, a new ear wax
remover. The account guy had no information whatsoever.
But it was easy enough to understand that when you put the
stuff in your ear, the wax comes out. So I took a photograph
of an ear with pencils and paper clips and stuff sticking out
of it, a dynamic symbol of the strange and dangerous
objects people used to clean out ear wax. I did that ad and a
bunch of others, all hot stuff. I knocked them out and
slapped them all over my walls, boom-boom-boom.
No writer or anything, in one furious day. The next morning,
Bernbach came to welcome me and he sees the stuff and
he asks: “Who are you working with?” I said, “I’m not
working with anybody.
I don’t have a writer.” He said, “I’ll be your writer.” I said,
“Great.” I found out afterwards he hadn’t been a writer for
anybody in fifteen years”.

10. George
Lois +
DDB +
Kerid

11. George
Lois +
Wolfschmidt
Papert, Koenig, Lois

12. George
Lois +
Wolfschmidt
Papert, Koenig, Lois

13. George
Lois
helped
Coldene
become
famous
Papert, Koenig, Lois

14. George
Lois
wrote

15. George
Lois
wrote

16. George
Lois
said
“The Big Idea – a surprising
solution to a marketing
problem, expressed in
memorable verbal and/or
graphic imagery.”

17. George
Lois
said
“If you can’t describe
your idea in one sentence,
you don’t have a big idea.”

18. George
Lois
said
“Big ideas can originate from
a variety of sources. They can
derive their electricity from
that enormous reservoir of
popular culture – The arts,
sports, politics, history,
today’s headlines”

19. George
Lois
+
Esquire
1968, Muhammad
Ali: impaled by six
arrows appeared on
the heels of his
refusal to be inducted
into the U.S. Army
because of his
religious beliefs. (Ali,
convicted violating
the Selective Service
Act, was barred from
the ring and stripped
of his title.)

20. George
Lois
+
Esquire
1969, Andy Warhol
juxtaposed the
celebration of pop
culture while
deconstructing
celebrity. The image of
a drowning Andy
Warhol was a friendly
spoof of the artist's
famous Campbell Soup
artwork, a pervading
symbol of the Pop Art
movement.

21. George
Lois
Helped
MTV become
famous

22. George
Lois
+
Frozen food
Credited with coming up with the
name, “LEAN CUISINE”

23. George
Lois
gives a
TEDx Talk
George Lois @ TED
May 2014

25. Next Week: 10/7
Class 7
Field Trip: Meet @ MOMA
11 West 53rd Street (between 5th/6th Avenues)
Meet @ museum, 10:15 am
We will be making ads from Fine Art
(due Class 9)
- Bring your camera to take high-res shots

26. Due in 2 Weeks:
Class 8
Make It Better:
4 Ad Techniques for edible breakfast item
Assignment:
Refine + polish your 4 ad technique concepts.
Wall critique.