sand beauty

I could watch this video for days. Amazing talent.

Comic Book

In the midst of writing the first draft of a comic book that's going to be given to Memphis kids in grades 1-6. It's kind of a cool project. Never written a comic book before. I've done a couple single frame comics. But not a 16-page book.

The comic is to help kids understand how to call 911 in an emergency. With the highlight of doing so from a cell phone. It's a different procedure from a cell. In the act that you have to tell the 911 operator exactly where you are. Because they can't trace calls to cell phones. They can triangulate your general area. But can't pinpoint your exact location.

Well, I'll post some images of it on here once it's complete. Back to it.

The Great '09 Road Trip

Started making plans to drive to Chicago, Milwaukee, Minneapolis and Denver.
Trying to meet as many people at agencies as I can.
It's going to be interesting to see if I can schedule all these visits with the people I want to meet.
Some of the agencies I want to talk with include:
Chicago: Energy BBDO (and Proximity), DDB, Zig, and Leo Burnett
Milwaukee: Just seeing a friend from Atlanta at his agency. Don't know too many up there
Minneapolis: Periscope, Colle + McVoy, Carmichael Lynch, Fallon, and Mono
Denver: TDA (they're actually in Boulder) and Factory Design Labs. Unlike 98% of the clingers out there, I'm not going to do the Crispin thing. We just don't fit stylistically.
Got to remember to bring the camera and video camera. Want to document this trip for this blog.
Hopefully leaving for this great Journey on Sunday, October 4. Should take close to two weeks to accomplish. right now the itinerary looks like this:
Sunday the 4th: Arrive Chicago.
Monday the 5th: Meet peeps
Tuesday the 6th: Meet peeps, drive to Milwaukee
Wednesday the 7th: Meet peeps, drive to Minneapolis
Thursday the 8th: Meet with peeps
Friday the 9th: Meet with peeps
Saturday 10th: Drive to Omaha, spend night.
Sunday 11th: Drive to Denver
Monday 12th: Meet peeps
Tuesday 13th: Meet peeps
Wednesday 14th: Drive to KC, spend night
Thursday 15th: Back to Memphis
This might change a bit, a day here or there.
But this is the general time frame.
I'm getting excited about this.
Driving in parts of the country I've yet to drive.
Should be fun. Hopefully there's a job for me out there.

The new website

So I'm pretty dumb when it comes to technical things. Well, not all technical things. Mainly coding. I'm sure if I had to spend time to learn it I could. But it doesn't really excite me. That's why I admire the folks who I've worked with that deftly busted out banners, mini sites, and every other kind of online experience.

Well, when it comes to my own site, I had a friend design it. I told him I wanted something simple. And that's what he delivered. I liked it a lot. But I couldn't update it. Problem. Big Problem.

Solution. Dreamweaver. I've been using it for the past month as I slowly work on my site. What's great about Dreamweaver is you can design as if in InDesign, basically, and it writes the code for you. Even better, you can split the screen and watch it write the code as you design. I know this isn't a new technology. But I was so not a web guy. But this project is like some baby steps into the process. It's been fun. Frustrating. But all together rewarding. I even added a twitter feed to the site. It was real simple to do.

I'm almost done with my site now. Putting the finishing touches on a spec campaign for the PBA, Pro Bowling Association, then I'll upload the work. I'll do a little beta test and make it public. Kind of excited. Well, below are some images of some of the pages.

Oh, my site address is dkmacdougall.com.

Eight years past

About this time eight years ago, I was sitting in my bedroom after having pulled an all-nighter at the Creative Circus in Atlanta. I was due back to the Circus 30 minutes earlier to work my shift in the library, but I couldn't get up from the foot of my bed.
The flicker of the TV, the numbness in my extremities, the clammy palms, the meatball-like lump in my throat, the tears pooling in the corner of my eyes, the hatred in my core beginning to fester – it all had me cemented to my bed as I watched two scarred buildings smoke like chimneys.
What was this? Why was this? Who was this?
Was I lucky that I didn't personally know anyone in those buildings or on those planes? No. Luck had nothing to do with it. Because at that moment, everyone was family. Everyone, a friend. And we all grieved as such.
Afterwards, we stood together. An entire nation brought closer. An entire nation that felt more like a small community. A community of 278,000,000 neighbors.
I think about this day eight years past. And how on some days we forget we were attacked because of our way of life. Because of our foundation as a country. Because of our freedoms. I will never forget what happened, for my life had changed – all our lives had changed.