IAM Blog Engine

Starcom USA
Graphic Designer – Marketing
Job Responsibilities:

The graphic designer contributes to the creation and development of visual brand elements for the agency as well as new business. The position reports to the Marketing Communications team, for which he/she designs brand and executive communications aimed at a number of audiences, both internal and external. The graphic designer’s other focus (often taking priority and the bulk of his/her time) rests with New Business team activities, preparing engaging business presentation visuals and materials – both digital and analog –to sell the agency in to prospective clients and business partners. Specific duties and practices are as follows:

New Business

§ Creation and design of all New Business documents for Starcom
§ Design and layout templates, covers and breaker pages in keeping with the pitch themes
§ Distribute templates early in pitch process to minimize necessity to re-layout documents
§ Generate images to embed into presentation through scanning, searching the Internet, and image manipulation of various file formats including EPS, pdf, jpeg, gif, tiff, psd and others generally used for desktop publishing
§ Support and/or manage the overall visual layout of presentation and all accompanying materials, including the print formatting of published booklets
§ Creation/development of CD labels and other resource packaging; this may include proposing and managing the purchase of outside materials (i.e. special binders, jewel cases, CD printing, etc…)
§ Creation of room decorations, pitch “gifts” or other pitch theater
§ Design nameplates for Starcom employees and clients attending presentations
§ Printing documents in a timely and high quality fashion
§ Managing a large volume of print projects with internal printer and external vendors
§ Creation of materials for submission to media award competitions
§ Developing graphic look and layout
§ Contributing to “theater” of the award submissions
§ File maintenance (in both digital and hard copy format) of all new business correspondence and presentations
§ Ensure that the most recent credentials and case studies are always available and in good visual quality/format
§ Serve as a first response for New Business visual resource questions
§ Monitor availability of digital layout programs and make appropriate recommendations for agency purchase
§ Work on ad hoc agency projects
§ Work in this area also requires monitoring workload, with guidance from Marketing Communications Director, to ensure that ad hoc projects do not interfere with primary responsibilities

Marketing Communications

§ Creation of materials for submission to media award competitions
§ Developing graphic look and layout for awards submissions and Cannes boards
§ Contributing to “theater” of the award submissions
§ File maintenance (in both digital and hard copy format) of all marketing communications projects
§ Design and production of all materials and artistic communications related to in-house agency events
§ Creation, brainstorming, production and materials management/distribution/storage for house ads on behalf of the agency
§ Purchase and selection, as needed, of high quality stock photography for various agency projects
§ The creation and production of visual elements for press kits
§ Creating the front-end – and if possible – the back end of website presentations that support new business development
§ Template design and development of PowerPoint/Keynote presentation for use in speaker conference appearances and internal employee presentation
§ Acting as primary contact for the storage and sharing of corporate headshots and all corporate photo assets
§ Maintenance and development of all agency logo graphic standards and assets
§ Creation of signage for internal events and to announce internal client wins
§ Print production and template production for elevator banks signs, including promotion announcements and internal ad campaigns
§ Occasional graphic consult only on various agency presentations outside our scope of actual production
§ Specific visual support around the agency anniversary, annual meetings, quarterly Director meetings, client win festivities, etc…
§ Design of internal agency magazine showcasing agency product
§ Design duties and/or template creation on agency reports, including newsletters and report

Duties will expand based on the ambitions and capacities of the designer. They may come to encompass: video editing skills and consultation; digital photography skill development and touchup; web site creation, development and maintenance; and strategic consultation on myriad agency branding initiatives, unit launches, event themes and creative endeavors.

Reporting structure: Reports to the Director of Marketing Communications with shared responsibilities across New Business and Marketing Communications teams.

Tabitha:

Tabitha.Dosch@sparksmg.com

https://jobs.ea.com/students/usa/topic.aspx?id=2_2

Both games are coming out at around the same time. ME2 has grabbed my attention so tightly that I completely forgot about FF13. So which game here are people preferring? Remember to keep the discussion respectful.

Back to the crazy world of EWJ. This is starting to freak me out. All the crazy people I meet and the crazy things I have to do. It stopped being fun after I killed the chicken dropping eggs. But anyways. I continue on to try and save the chicken I met in the beginning and I start to question myself if he’s even worth it. I get a new weapon with a shifty looking character next to it. But he won’t talk to me. =( I have to kill more hedgehog guys shooting rockets at me. This level really starts to anger me. I have to keep killing all these hedgehogs and then shoot some switches. Finally I’m done and I get another golden udder. YIPPEE! I have to run all the way back to the beginning now and now the shifty chicken will talk to me. He is a member of the CIA and back again through the door. After talking to him again he gives me another golden udder. He’s to “chicken” to go inside the BSE, so I get the grand pleasure of doing it. Now instead of hedgehog’s I get to kill cows. With another new weapon at that. Now I get excited because the new weapon is the cleaver gun. Which I can already tell will be one of my favorite guns in the game.

http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/index.php/2009/09/sg-review-wet-360-ps3.html#more-35129

In this article by ShanghaiSix, he reviews the game WET for Ps3 and the Xbox 360. He states that the game has many flaws but is still a good game because of the visuals like the art style. The game play and personality of the characters are his main concern because the game play is repetitive after the first level and button mashing sequences to open doors 3-4 times in one level. The characters have very unique and interesting names like “The Tarantula” but other than the weapons they use to try and kill you there isn’t much of a personality. I admit I love mindless violence so I am very tempted to rent this game. I like Tarantino movies and ShanghaiSix said it was like a style of movies makes me want to rent it even more. But I also get angry pretty easy. I don’t have much patience when things irritate me. So the repetition of the game play might turn me away. Overall I will probably end up renting this game due to ShanghaiSix’s review on this game with both upsides and downsides to this game.

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/review-hd-prototype/51502

This video really explain the Prototype game well, it tells you how the layout of the game and how it works. If you never played Prototype this video will help you understand the game like you played it for hours. I admit it is kinda like the Spiderman games, with the skyscrappers jumping and the mini games to play, but this game is more like for adults than for children.

In his post A Victory Nearly Two Decades in the Making found at sarcasticgamer.com, Saunders discusses a very interesting concept about the completion of video games. I agree with him that the implementation of a save file, or some form of continuing where you left of (such as MegaMan’s grid system where you would turn on cells to designate what you had accomplished in the game) vastly impacts a desire to complete the game. Having to restart the game from square one every time you turn the system off or get a ‘Game Over’ drives a lot of players to abandon the challenge of seeing the game through to the end.

I personally have an army of save files across a multitude of platforms of games that haven’t ever been beaten, yet are within a couple hours of finishing the game’s main narrative. As a gamer who values 100% clearing all aspects of a game, I have a tendency to not clear the main narratives until I have cleared every other aspect of the game. Which leads to the irritation with trivial challenges that are either vastly time consuming, or just developed with such bad logic that they are borderline unsolvable, leading to the game never getting finished.

Well it seems that Street Fighter IV wasn’t good enough because Super Street Fighter IV has just been confirmed. The game is supposed to include 8 more characters including a brand new female character named Juri. I don’t play that many fighting games but I felt it was big news that you can add characters to a game that is for all intents and purposes completed and people will have to buy it because the game is different enough that you cant play one with the other and it is “affordable” because its not priced at full price but just enough that the producers will still rake in the cash on what really would be DLC if it weren’t for the size of what is offered.

Throughout the section of Everything Bad is Good for You, Johnson discusses what effect gaming has on learning. According to what he wrote, “It’s not what you are thinking about when you’re playing a game, it’s the way you’re thinking that matters.” (pp. 40) The more challenges a player faces while gaming, the more creative they can become. Take Ninja Gaiden for example: there is a boss just over halfway through the game that posed a nuisance for me. It was a giant earthworm-like creature that would swipe across the field. I couldn’t figure out how to avoid getting hit by it’s swipes, yet remain close enough to strike it. Trial and error lead me to realize that I could use one of the particular weapons available and time a special attack that would actually jump over the enemy, and strike them on the backside as they went past. It was the fact that I approached the problem with a problem solving mentality to overcome the challenge that I was able to succeed.

Johnson also uses the playing of games as an exercise for the brain, much akin to teaching students algebra. “Learning algebra isn’t about acquiring a specific tool; it’s about building up a mental muscle that will come in handy elsewhere.” (pp. 40) He then goes on to use exercising on a StairMaster as an example of why we want to exercise our brain. It’s not that learning how to exercise on a StairMaster does anything for us, but the following act of using the StairMaster gives us rewards of better health.