The Rich and the Amos

Hey guys! So I gotta say the past couple of days have been pretty awesome. So for one, I have a friend out here who works at a hotel. Anyways, we were gonna hang out on Tuesday and he said he had a surprise for us to do. So I met up with him after work and he told me that we'd be going to this work function of his. Apparently, every couple of weeks or so, a bunch of restaurants get together to serve samples of their food to hospitality employees so when guests stay at their hotel, they can recommend their restaurant. So we went to this really neat restaurant and I got to sample all this high class food for free! I had mini burgers that instead of burgers were filet mignon's. They were AMAZING! OMG I was in heaven. And besides the free food, there was a full open bar! So I def. took advantage of that and got my first ever martini. I felt so high class. Aaaand then, I don't know how this relates to hospitality, but after every one of these events, everyone is given FREE tickets to see a show! So not only do I get free food aaand alcohol, I get to see a show too!? It was crazy. So we saw Xanadu, which was really funny but pretty gay, as it's about roller disco and greek godesses. It was a lot of fun though, and the best thing about it all was that it didn't cost me a dime. Soo, yea it was pretty sweet. Also, completely non related to the dinner and show, last night I came home from work and the guys i'm living with had ordered deep dish pizza and gave me some! Chicago Deep Dish is amazing so I just thought i'd share that glorious moment.
Sooo, I guess I'll tell you about work now. So during the beginning of the week I'd been continuing working with Nintendo which was a lot of fun. But then on Tuesday I got briefed on a new project for Famous Amos cookies. I met with this really cool Australian creative director named Reed who filled me in on what they were doing. It's a campaign dealing entirely with hand drawn type, which I was really excited about cause I've always wanted to do more with hand drawn type. Sooo, once we had a look and feel of what we wanted these ads to look like, I got to work on them! I spent the past two days designing them and hand drawing all sortsa craziness and handed them in by the end of the day yesterday. Reed loved what I had done and is sending them to the client today. Soo, I don't know exactly what happens if they approve or not, but I might get to see my ads turned into a national campaign! So that was really exciting so I'm excited to see what the turnout is. I'll keep ya updated!

My Hibachi Hoopla

So it's the end of the weekend now and it was pretty uneventful. I've found myself getting lazy with finding things to do because of how cold it is. It's always seems like a much bigger ordeal to do something when you have to venture out in this frigid weather. On Friday though, I was pleasantly surprised when Ben and Brian (the two guys I live with) asked me if I wanted to go to this Hibachi Grille for dinner. An even bigger surprise was that they said they'd treat me to it! How could I turn that down!? So they actually picked me up from work and we drove down to dinner, which was absolutely amazing. We got drinks and apetizers and Ben even told the waitress secretively that it was my Birthday! So I got a fancy little cake thingy and got sung to and the whole shebang. So apparently I'm awesome or something because Ben treated me to all of this which just for myself was prob. around 50 bucks. Yea I know, be jealous.
Besides getting treated to dinner, Friday was really exciting at work as well. The past couple of days have actually been pretty eventful. So I got asked to help out with this big pitch that's already been in progress for Nintendo. I'll be helping with a big campaign for the new Nintendo DS which is actually helped out with a couple weeks ago. I've been trying to design their tagline which has been extremely tedious. It's just like designing a logo, which we all know is extremely time consuming. Every little thing needs to be taken into account from what typeface you pick, to the placement and the sizing and yada yada yada. It's been really cool though to work for such a fun client. Unfortunately, Nintendo has been taking up all my time that I havn't had time to really work on my KraftMaid account. I think I'm meeting with other designers tomorrow to show them what I've come up with, so I need to work on it a little tonight so I'm better prepared for our meeting. I'm not exactly looking forward to this week though cause my good friend Jenn who works behind me isn't going to be here aaaaall week! She'll be in sunny stupid San Diego. So I'll have no one to talk to while I'm working which is sad :( Luckily, it's not my last week because otherwise my last day with her woulda been two days ago!
Speaking of having two more weeks left, I'm happy but I'm also kinda sad. I really will miss working there but I'm starting to get very homesick so I almost wish I was leaving sooner. Luckily though, the big pitch for Nintendo is on Feb. 4th, so I'm really hoping I can sit in on that. If not though, I'll atleast get to find out the result of it. Should be very exciting! Anyways, I should prob get working on this KraftMaid shennanigans, so wish me luck!

Best Weekend Ever

Alright, so it's my third week here in Chicago and I gotta say, I'm getting pretty homesick/Delaware sick. It's tough being in a city entirely by yourself! Luckily, this past weekend my boyfriend Zack came to visit me for four days. It was by far the best time I've had since I've been here. Of course though, it was the coldest weekend I've experienced in Chicago thus far. It was in the highs of like, -2 degrees! No joke, I'm completely serious. We still managed to have a great time though. We went to Millennium park, which has this 40 foot or so giant metallic bean! It's seriously one of the coolest things to see. You can see your reflection and walk under it and it's just ridiculous. We went to Navy Pier which is like an outdoor/indoor shopping carnival like tourist spot right on the water. We went and saw Jersey Boys which was really awesome. I'd def. recommend seeing it. We also went shopping down Michigan Ave. and of course, got Chicago deep dish pizza! It by far surpasses any type of east coast pizza you've ever had. So all in all, it was amazing and now it makes me miss home even more.
Well, now that I'm back at work, it's been going pretty well. I've been doing some more designing for Kraftmaid and I think I'll be helping with designing a new website for them. Me and this other designer Jenn are still waiting on the ok to start redesigning their design packet, so hopefully we'll get to start that soon so I can maybe put it in my portfolio. I've also been helping design a promotional packet for Special K's 2 Week Challenge. Supposedly you can lose like, 2 inches off your waist if you eat nothing but Special K. So me and this other designer are working on a packet explaining the challenge and promoting the brand. I've also just been briefed on some big project for Nintendo. The pitch for it is on the 4th so luckily I'll be here for that since my last day is on the 6th! Lucky me :) So I'm looking forward to that and we'll see how it goes.
As far as the weather is concerned, it's gotten a lot warmer these past couple of days. It's now in the 20's! Lol, that's actually pretty warm for Chicago. I'm definitely enjoying not freezing my butt off. Also, this is entirely random but I thought it was worth mentioning. So one of our clients is Miller Light and for whatever reason our fridge gets stocked every few days with Miller Light! Yes so basically my work is promoting drinking on the job. Hey, I'm not complaining.

Bingo Tango

Yes, the title of this blog is no joke. Yesterday I brought out my inner dork and went to an event called "Bingo Tango". So as I mentioned earlier on a previous blog, I went to the Museum of Contemporary Art. Well, while I was there, there was a flyer for "Bingo Tango" which apparently takes place every 2nd Tuesday of each month. So being a big Bingo fan, I was def. intrigued. So yesterday I headed back down (or up, I still can't facet which way North and South is around here) to the museum for a fun filled evening of Bingo. Oh, but this was not just any Bingo, this was Taaaango Bingo. So yes, there was tango involved. Apparently, each month a different guest MC comes in with some art background to call out the Bingo numbers. I would tell you who yesterday's was but she was def. not worth looking up. The place was actually packed as not everyone could even find a seat! I guess since it was a free event, sad people like myself will resort to any kind of entertainment if it will save them a buck. So as the game was introduced, by this annoyingly talkative co-MC, I was getting really pumped. Each game would have 3 winners and they would win a gift bag with a prize! I gotta say, I was eyeing those gift bags down like a hawk. So before each game, this man and woman would show us all a piece of artwork, talk about it a little bit and then somehow try to connect the piece with the game. So for example, Jenny Holzer has an exhibit up right now, which I mentioned in a previous blog, which has text running horizontally. Soo, that game we would need bingo running horizontally. Not too hard to understand. Also, inbetween games, there were two tango dancers who would put on a show for everyone! Yea, not exactly sure the relevance with that but it was entertaining atleast. Unfortunately, both MCs got on my nerves after like, round two, as they were the worst Bingo readers ever! They would be constantly cracking overly long jokes in the middle of the games, and I'm just like, "I'm here to play Bingo! If I wanted a bad comedy act I'd go somewhere else." And they could never read the numbers right. They'd be like, "G 34, I mean G 44" and they would mumble constantly. It was the final straw when they decided to come up with a different name beginning with the letter before saying the number. So they'd be like, "Bernard 11. Irving 23." My God I wanted to shoot them. However, I was sitting with these really nice women who worked at the museum and we were talking throughout the night. They saw how competitive I was being and how bitter I was getting for not winning. Sooo, during the final game, they snuck in back and stole a gift bag for me! It was soo sweet of them. They were really cool. So, as I'm sure I've written way too much about Bingo, I'll end my post and get back to work. Til next time!

Baby it's Cold Outside

So I just had my first full weekend here and I gotta say, I don't think it will ever stop snowing. Every time I feel like going out to explore, it's windy and snowing outside! I love the snow and all but it's really putting a damper on my outdoor adventures. On Saturday, I went down to Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art and it was really interesting. They had one really interesting exhibit by Jenny Holzer who does a lot of really interesting typographic installations. They're all very bright and colorful and overall, really eye catching. The other piece of art was by Sarah Sze who was another installation artist. She just had one piece up in the museum but it took up the entire room. It was so intricate and I spent forever looking at it. I also checked out a book of all her past work and it was very interesting. I would recommend googling her and checking out some of her pieces. Here are a couple pics of Holzer's and Sze's work.


So after the museum, I trekked in the wintry weather to do a little window shopping. Luckily there was this place called the Water Tower right across the street which is a narrow, 7 floor mall! Pretty darn cool. I'll have to save my trip to Michigan Ave (very popular upscale shopping street) for a warmer, non-snowy day (If there is one). Luckily my life in my apartment is pretty sweet. I'm living with these two guys (married couple) who have gone above and beyond making me feel welcome. Lol, basically I'm loving them for saving me a ton of money on food. Ben really loves to cook so he's always making amazing home cooked dinners and always let's me join in on their family dinners. It sure beats my frozen pizzas and Speghettios! Just the other day, Brian made this Pineapple Upside Down Cake and it must have been the best cake I've ever had. My God it was sooooo good! It was so cute, mid-week last week, they made a big batch of amazing chocolate chip cookies and gave me a big zip lock bag of them to bring to work! They said, "Here bring these into work and just say you made them and make lots of friends!" How cute is that! By the way, if you put mini marshmallows in the container with the cookies, they keep the cookies super moist! It's like an insulant or something. Also, on Saturday, I was on the phone in the morning and so since I couldn't come out to join them for breakfast, they brought me breakfast in bed! I had eggs and toast, and bacon with sliced tomatoes, coffee and even a fruit smoothie! I sure lucked out with living with natural born hosts. They also gave me a great driving tour of Chicago and all of it's neighborhoods. They drove me by Obama's neighborhood, and the University of Chicago, and the football stadium as well as many of Chicago's museums. I even got to see a lot of the locations that were used in "The Dark Knight", which I didn't know was mostly filmed in Chicago.
So anyways, I've written enough. Hopefully this gourmet cooking keeps up during my coming weeks. I'll keep ya updated!

First Week Down

Hey guys! I gotta say I've really enjoyed reading everyone's posts. It sounds like you all are having a great time at your internships and working hard. So like most of you all, I started my internship on Monday and so far it's been a great experience. I'm at Leo Burnett in Chicago, and let me tell you, it's cold! It's snowed almost every day and next week it's supposed to be in the single digits! Yikes! I do love the snow though so it's all good.
So unfortunately I did not start my first day off very well. I commute to work on the train/subway (I still don't know what people refer them as) and of course, my first day on it, it has all these technical difficulties! I was slightly freaking out as I walked into work 30 minutes late. Luckily, the guy David who welcomed me was super understanding. He was like, "It's completely alright, my first day back at work after vacation, I showed up a few hours late cause I was still drunk from the night before." So I felt a little better about myself then. So once I met with David, he showed me around the office, which I have to say is HUUUUGE! My goodness, I think I read somewhere that it is the second largest advertising office in the country! It's weird though, because all the Leo Burnett floors are kind of scattered. So we work on the 5th floor, the 21st floord, the 26th and 27th floor. I think that's all of them but I'm sure I'm probably missing a few. Anyways, I'm on the 27th floor which is awesome. I have a great view overlooking the city, so I'm very happy. There's also apples everywhere! I forget why but the agency has a history with apples, so I've been having an apple every morning. It makes me feel healthy.
So as I was finally seated at my desk, David warned me that I was sitting across from a group of people that are obnoxiously loud and annoying. Greeeaaat. Boy was he right. It's a shame too cause they seem like a young and fun group, and if they didn't annoy the hell outta me I would have liked to maybe get to know them. Oh well. Besides the slight annoying factor of them, everyone here seems so nice. There's this designer Jenn who sits behind me and she's really cool. She's so far been very helpful with getting me acclimated to the office and making me feel comfortable. She knows a lot about type also, which she's been helping me out with, since that's sorta my weak point.
My first day pretty much consisted of getting to know my creative team and getting situated on my computer and the server and what not. Of course, after work I've been trying to explore the city as much as I can before I freeze. It's such a great, gorgeous area in which I work. I am right by the river and have great shopping and restaurants by my building. So I've slowly been getting to know the area and feeling more and more like a Chicago native.
So my next day I met with my boss, who oversees all of the creative projects that come out of the agency. She seems very nice and down to earth. She kinda just gave me an overview of what kind of projects I could expect to receive and how things are run in the agency. The rest of the day was pretty chill. Apparently the new year is always a little slower than usual. However after that it's been picking up. I've been getting to work on some cool things like designing some endframes for a commercial and sitting in on briefs and what not. I just started working on a microsite for a new Nintendo DS that hasn't hit the stores yet. It's all been pretty exciting. I can't wait to see what the next coming weeks have in store! Hope everyone's doing well :) Miss you guys!