It's a beautiful thing really. Being able to take hours worth of footage and cut it down to three to five minutes.

I have started the longest part of the process, the editing. While it is the most time consuming, it also my favorite.

It’s a beautiful thing really. Being able to take hours worth of footage and cut it down to three to five minutes. It’s definitely my favorite part. Chad and I decided to stylize the videos and make them artsy and new and fresh. These will be fun to watch.

Edward Buchanan (CCAD '88-'91)

I ‘m excited to release the Ed Buchanan interview within the next couple weeks and show you what an awesome person he is. Before that happens though, I need to present the video to Resource Interactive and see what they think about it.

I love working with them. It’s a great experience. They are the best interactive ad agency in the Midwest, and my brother is there to give advice as part of Resource, so I’ve got that going for me (Caddyshack reference).

Stay tuned! Big things are coming, big, big things.

Like … New York City big.

Today we filmed on a fire escape. We also filmed in a room that looked like something from the set of Mad Men!

The digital lab at BBDO

Our morning started very early when we traveled down to Radio City Music Hall, which is right across the street from BBDO New York. Matter a fact you can see the famous Radio City Marquee from Chris Cole’s office window.

Cole, a 1989 graduate of CCAD and VP at BBDO, sat down with us and gave us the inside scoop into the gears that make a giant advertising firm turn. This is where the Mad Men part come into play. The office spaces of BBDO are littered with famous work that the company has produced—Work for major brands like Hyatt, M&M, Gillette, Mountain Dew, FedEx and much more.

There were multiple floors of creative spaces where hidden gems lay around every corner. From the cozy cool digital lab filled with beanbags and wall graffiti to the amazing gathering space that looks like a flashback of the old central filing room ( think old news clippings hanging on walls and original wooden filing cabinets with the labels still attached), the place rocked. Thanks Roy for the early morning tour.

At home with Majari in Brooklyn

We then traveled to Brooklyn to visit with Manjari Sharma (CCAD class of 2004). We grabbed lunch at a local corner café and then headed to her home. She had just arrived from Review Santa Fe, an event  for which 600 photographers from all over the world apply and only 100 get selected. She had boundless amounts of energy and was still very pumped up about all the amazing contacts she had made.

Manjari made Alex tea and then we climbed out onto the fire escape to get a great view of her neighborhood. After seeing her work and some sneak peeks on what she will be up to next we headed to Prospect Park. This park is right next to the Brooklyn public library and is made up of great walking paths and a giant hilly meadow that was filled with people.

Who's shooting who?

She informed us that many great concerts happen here and then her and Alex started to talk about the music that inspires them. This very deep conversation took us all the way back to her place where we grabbed our bags and headed to the airport.

That is where I write this blog.

Leaving NY

Our flight got delayed and we are hanging out in the airport for five hours. Ugh. It has been kind of nice just to set down though. We have been running ragged for three days and have gotten some great advice and stories from many talented Alumni. I would personally like to thank all the individuals involved in the project our time in NYC as been an exhilarating experience. Thank you.  And, Alex, let’s Fly!

The giant chocolate bunny at Dylan's Candy Bar.

Who else can say they went on a search for a giant chocolate bunny, today?

Any takers?

That’s what I thought.

Well, we did and it was a sweet adventure in uptown NYC that ended with me thinking that my dentist will be disappointed in my sweet tooth.

Why did I go on this delicious journey? It all started this morning when we visited our friend Rosanne Percivalle, winner of the 2010 Alumni Award for Excellence.

Her work, featured throughout the country, may be familiar to you if you have visited Dylan’s Candy Bar and walked up the candy filled resin steps or had your picture taken with the giant chocolate bunny or perhaps visited the Whole Foods Market on Bowery and looked up at the timeline mural she created and designed.

It's alive! (no, not really)

We stopped by her studio/home/office today and she gave us a full tour of her amazing workspace. Her lifelike sculpture of a giant iguana scared me so bad when I first arrived and thought it was real. Finding out it was art, gave my heart a rest.

We then traveled uptown to Central Park and the amazing Apple store that everyone kept telling us about. It was pretty sweet and was a buzz of activity. After our pit stop at the candy bar and filling our souvenirs with all our favorite types of gummy bears we headed to Times Square.

This was Alex’s first experience in the heart of Manhattan. Needless to say I had to pull him out of the street a couple times as he kept trying to get the perfect money shot, before getting hit by a cab.

We then took a jaunt to meet James Alicea a 1992 graduate of CCAD. After traveling on the fastest ear-popping elevator of my life we arrived at Rocawear.

James Alicea at Rocawear

We were taken to the T-Shirt display room, which had an amazing view of downtown and the Statue of Liberty in the distance. The shirt designs on the wall were kickin’. We soon found out that most were the handy work of James and he even shared his sketches with us of some of the original artwork.

It was  very interesting to find out that James finds himself most nights sleeping on his couch. Why is this? Well, he never makes it to bed because he is so busy keeping up with all of the companies he works with & inspired by his passion for drawing, typography and cultural relevance he sees no need to sleep.

By the time this goes live, James, Alex & I will be enjoying some great food from Camaradas & enjoying the lovely weather here in NYC.

Edward Buchanan's Sansovino6

I’m just going to come out and say it: I lust after Edward Buchanan’s Sansovino6 line. I want to touch it, feel it, WEAR it.

The luxurious knitwear is chic and cutting-edge style, but wearable. I imagine myself draped in Sansovino6 and sitting sipping coffee on a sidewalk in Milano, or hanging out with friends drinking a glass of wine in the Short North.

Don’t get me wrong, I have fallen in love with looks I’ve seen on runways in Europe and the US, but to imagine myself in them, I have to imagine a fictional character to be and a fantastic world to place myself in. (As much as I fantasize about being so, I am not an international spy nor the White Queen in Alice in Wonderland.)

Edward’s designs are exquisite and, well, of this world. A really good part of this world.

Edward Buchanan, the 2010 Alumni Fashion Icon Awardee

Edward is like that too, which is probably one of the reasons international brands and folks like Jennifer Lopez and Sean Combs trust him as a fashion consultant.

I have gotten to know him the 21^st century way—we are friends on facebook, which is a very convenient way to catch someone who is one day in his studio in Milano, and the next showing at Fashion Week in Paris.

I tried to hook him up with another friend, the noted fashion photographer Ed Kavishe, who is publisher and CEO of Fashion Wire Press, when I thought both would be in Paris at Fashion Week. Ed K was indeed there, photographing the runways for Paris Haute Couture Week; Edward B was in Milano getting ready to show his collection in Paris Ready-to-Wear Week, which happens a different week altogether. Silly me.

Edward Buchanan's Sansovino6

At least I managed to hook them up through facebook, and they’ll meet at the CCAD Senior Fashion Show on May 8, when Edward receives the 2010 CCAD Alumni Fashion Icon Award. Oh well, if not Paris, Columbus.

A little about Ed:

Edward Buchanan enrolled at CCAD in 1988 to study retail advertising and fashion illustration. After CCAD, Buchanan moved to New York City in 1992 to further pursue his dreams of becoming a fashion designer.

Early in his career, he worked with prestigious clothing lines Giorgio Armani, Calvin Klein, J.Crew, and Michael Kors. In 1995, luxury accessories line Bottega Veneta hired Edward as its design director. He added knitwear and leather goods to the brand and launched the line into the Italian, Japanese, and American markets.

In 2001, Buchanan partnered with fellow Bottega Veneta designer Manuela Morin to release their first independent line, LEFLESH, fusing knitwear and ready-to-wear garments with handbags and shoes, a look that brought worldwide success to both Buchanan and the brand.

Edward’s most recent undertaking is the fall/winter 2010/2011 collection for Sansovino6 a line he launched in 2003. Sansovino6 is sold in Milan, Paris, Berlin, and Tokyo boutiques.

Edward Buchanan's Sansovino6

I hope you get to meet Edward at the CCAD Senior Fashion Show. If you don’t have your tickets yet, get on it and buy them online at www.ccad.edu/fashion.

And be sure to check in for next week’s blog, when Miss Amanda describes the arduous task of getting a makeover—come on folks—she had to experience first hand what the models go through to get ready for the runway!

Cheers,

Melissa

]]> http://www.ccad.edu/blog/2010/03/there%e2%80%99s-a-reason-we%e2%80%99re-giving-him-the-fashion-icon-award/feed/ 2