50.70.25 It's not a typo. Today marks my 70th year of life and 50th year in design. It's hard to believe when I started working in 1975, all of the technological changes that have taken place. Over the last 5 decades I've had the privileged of working for some of the best clients on the planet, but more importantly the best colleagues and partners I could have ever asked for. I've seen our industry grow silo-based approach to a shared collaborative approach. I've seen technology move from drawing boards and t-squares to computers and the internet to AI. But in all of the change, one thing remains constant, Creative ideas from our Creator to creative human minds. With all of the tools available today we will always need human touch to guide the creative design of the future. Our Creator is the only source of the vast array of creative input. Even the development of the many new avenues for input/output are a result of that same source. So, on this 7th day in May, I'm grateful for the past and even more excited about the future of design

A great designer and person was lost last month, Woody Pirtle. I first met and began to follow this design influencer in 1978 when he was leaving the Richards Group to form Pirtle Design. I always admired his designs and broad design sense.

Woody was a partner at Pentagram for almost two decades (1988 to 2005), working on some of our most prestigious projects while helping to build the New York office. Woody’s identity and publication designs delivered corporate messages with visual elegance, and inventiveness. His symbols, logotypes and posters are witty and economical, inviting viewers to discover the meaning - and joy - in simple graphic images that are smart, funny and playful.

Woody was born in 1944 in Corsicana, Texas and grew up in Shreveport, Louisiana. He studied architecture and fine art at the University of Arkansas and began his graphic design career in 1969 at The Richards Group in Dallas. He left in 1974 for a brief period to set up practice with Jerry Herring in Houston, then returned to the Richards Group until 1978 when he founded Pirtle Design in Dallas.

In 1988 he joined Pentagram as partner and later helped bring partners Paula Scher and Michael Bierut into the fold. Woody’s logos, posters, environmental graphics and corporate communications were often lauded as the best of their kind. At Pentagram his wide-ranging clients included Allen & Company, Barnes & Noble, Neiman Marcus, Nine West, United Technologies Corporation, Upper & Lower Case magazine, Simpson Paper, Rizzoli Publishing, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Pfaltzgraff, the Rockefeller Foundation, Callaway Golf, Champion Sportswear and Murray’s Cheese. In 1998 he created the official NYC 100 logo for the Greater New York Centennial Celebration, the 100th anniversary of the five boroughs coming together.

Woody will be greatly missed. He was pivotal to the design community nationally and internationally and certainly lived a career by design.

It's 2023 and we are 63 years past the "The Golden Age of Advertising." An era where creativity abounded amidst the backdrop of dramatic economic and societal changes, human rights activism, and a burgeoning interest in alternative lifestyles.

Advertising's creative minds gave birth to the spokesperson, the mascot and the brand personality. These fictitious characters entered our homes, their shiny, smiling faces stared back at us every time we opened our pantry. Even if a mascot had overt racial or sexist overtones, we turned a blind eye to the offense. And it would take decades for the bitter history behind those characters to be challenged. Because in 1960, unlike in 2023, we just wanted to eat those pancakes in the box.

Advertising creativity evolved again in the 1970s and '80s with the support of consumer insights. It went beyond staking a claim on demographics to owning and manipulating our psychographics. Insights became the fertile ground to plant creative seeds. For brands, it made the proposition of owning a mindset, and building brand perception based on that mindset, more coveted than selling the product itself.

Fast forward to today, amid cultural conversations driving societal re-examinations of representation and equity, what is our creative responsibility now?

As history has shown us, advertising retains its power to make indelible imprints on society and on self-perception. When this power is used irresponsibly, the impact is irreparable for a brand. Trust is lost, credibility is annihilated, and regaining a position of relevance is an arduous, upward, often unsuccessful climb. The 1990s mantra of "Just Do It" encouraged us to run more than the corporate "rat race," but shifted to running as a source of joy.

Our responsibility now is to use culture to guide us toward unearthing the unseen moments of innovation and inclusion that exist. We must look beyond the familiar, to make way for stories that are complex, varied and truly representative of the whole of humanity. Apple's "The Greatest" sheds an empowered light on accessibility by dialing down the limitation of disabilities to celebrate the exponential possibilities. The last three years have forced us to reflect on how we see the world around us and participate in cultural conversations we were never invited into before. As creators, our job is not to be opportunistic but to always see where an opportunity for understanding is needed and make a path for it. To bring divergent points of view, histories and experiences together, and to create thoughtfully shared realities.

As creatives, we must push our craft and guide our clients to try harder:
• Try harder, at being conscious and inclusive by delivering purposeful, representative storytelling.
• Try harder, at knowing how to hold UP the mirror versus trying to BE the mirror of customers. 
• Try harder, at making an impact by showing up with a purpose to serve society first, not ourself.

Make "action" the strategy. When a brand is committed to being creatively conscious by design, only then can they lean into the spaces and sometimes uncomfortable places where their actions and voices can authentically be heard, be useful, and empathize with the consumers they aspire to serve.

Committing to building conscious creative is how we move forward and how we make advertising truly try harder, again.

Edited from an article by Vida Cornelius is VP creative at New York Times Advertising

What would John, Paul, George and Ringo have been if they had all walked separate paths? Talented singers, but not the greatest band ever assembled. Collaboration of creative talents can form incredible and lasting results that can't be achieved individually. Admarc can boast of such collaborations through the years. Some the of best work we ever created was with some of the most talented, artists, musicians, directors, writers and especially clients.

As we embark on our 39th year in business we look forward to the many creative collaborations ahead of us and are thankful for the countless we have had the pleasure to be part of in years past. We are much better together than apart, which is probably a good way to approach all we do in life, especially as we begin a new year.

Christmas is a great time to reconsider joy. It is deeper and richer than holiday lights, Christmas carols, wrapped presents, and social gatherings. It is a reality rooted in an authentic relationship with real person who has come to give joy to our hearts and minds.

As I reflect on Christmas past with family, I remember the fun times with mom and dad, siblings and later with our kids when they were young and their eyes were full of wonder. That wonder and joy can still be present this Christmas. A joy and wonder that can’t be found in presents under the tree or a balance in your bank account. This joy is made real as we cherish His truth and trust Him for all of our needs. Everything else, no matter how pleasant, is secondary as a source of joy.

Perhaps the Christmas season, more than any other time of the year, reminds us of how quickly life passes and changes. Rather than grieve or complain about our fleeting memories, we should let Christmas spark encouragement in the reality of our eternal joy.

So, this Christmas, let the fullness of joy be present in your celebrations of Christ. It is the ideal time to let your joy be rekindled. By His strength, I pray this Christmas will be a season of great hope and joy in YOUR world.