Category: article

Hello,

Kikkoman USA and their agency, Ketchum, wanted to showcase both beautiful food and a diverse mix of people in their new spots for Soy Sauce and Teriyaki. That’s why they chose London-based Richard Jung to direct. Richard has developed a stunning food aesthetic over years of still photography and motion work, and his calm, gentle on-set presence gets wonderfully spontaneous performances from the talent. The soy sauce ad revives Kikkoman’s very first TV commercial from 1956, bringing it to life in a warm, contemporary way, while the teriyaki ad brings a message of optimism and unity to the American table. Thanks to Richard’s skillful planning, meticulous storyboarding, and casting savvy, he was able to shoot two spots using a single location and a cast of 17 to create a variety of scenarios that add up to a beautiful, heartwarming, and mouthwatering slice of American life. Kikkoman couldn’t be more thrilled, and these ads have already helped the US division win the company’s highest global award for marketing.

Fondly,

Freda

 

 

Hello,

Chicago- and LA-based photographer Martine Séverin recently shot these lovely images to capture the last golden days of summer and the start of National Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15 – October 15). Martine has worked all over the world and credits her love of diversity to spending her formative years in her beloved home country, Haiti. Whatever the season, her engaging, spontaneous lifestyle and commercial work challenges boundaries and celebrates inclusion—and she loves collaborating with brands and clients who share those values.

Fondly,

Freda

 

 

Hello,

Philadelphia-based Steve Belkowitz loves photographing people—especially at the two ends of the age spectrum, kids and seniors. These shots were done for a mix of clients, including major pharmaceuticals companies like Bristol Myers, Squibb, Merck, Quest Diagnostics, and Johnson & Johnson, as well as HumanGood, a nationwide chain of senior living communities. Steve enjoys putting in the extra time and care in concepting and preproduction that helps make each scenario feel realistic. For these shots, he worked with a mix of “real people” and actors sourced by his favorite casting agency. Whoever he’s photographing, Steve has a knack for putting people at ease and bringing out their inner light. He keeps things quick and comfy, covering the client brief first, and then trying new ideas in the moment, which often end up being the ones the client loves best. That’s because they have that unposed, spontaneous feel that comes from the perfect balance of carefully setting up a situation and then letting the magic happen on its own.

Fondly,

Freda

 

 

Hello,

These days, it’s tougher than ever to create political ads that break through. Maybe that’s why the big players mostly make those predictable testimonial or data-driven ads, and then spend massively on media in the hope of making an impression. But director/creative director/writer Jef Loeb has a better idea. He knows that people don’t watch political ads—they watch what interests them, and sometimes that happens to be a political ad. In other words, this challenging environment is no different from any insanely competitive marketing category: what breaks through is a compelling creative idea, presented in a memorable way. That could be a CG-driven tour de force, like Jef’s “Dominos” (check it out—it’s a great visual idea, treated with a remarkable cinematic approach). Or a lower-budget ad like “TRUTH,” created entirely from graphics and stock imagery, but still featuring a clever surprise twist. But whatever he’s directing, instead of starting with a budget figure or a bunch of data points, Jef begins with a bold idea and then finds a way to bring it to life that’s polished, big-looking, and memorable, whatever the budget might be. In other words, he makes ads people watch—that just happen to be political.

Fondly,

Freda

 

 

Hello,

This week, SKI magazine made history. The 85-year-old magazine published its first cover featuring a Black skier shot by a Black photographer. The skier was Olympian Errol Kerr, and the photographer was Stan Evans. Stan learned how to ski when he was growing up on a military base in Alaska. That crowd was pretty diverse, but when he got to college, he quickly realized just how white winter sports really are. But that never stopped him from honing his skills as a skier and a winter sports shooter. In 1995, Stan published his first ski photo, establishing himself as the industry’s first Black professional winter sports photographer, and ever since, he’s returned to the snow and the ice year after year to capture thousands of winter sports images—including several Olympians—for editorial and commercial clients like Outside, SKI, Snowboarder, Columbia and many more. For this week’s SKI cover story, he chose the location, collaborated on creative direction, and spent two days shooting—and sharing stories of struggles and triumphs—with Errol Kerr and three other Black skiers. I hope you’ll check out his moving behind-the-scenes video about the experience of working alongside all Black skiers for the first time in his career. From his photography to his Social Studies Show podcast, so much of Stan’s work is about exploring new pathways toward diversity, so this SKI cover is particularly meaningful to him. And it means a lot to the magazine, too. As Editor-in-Chief Sierra Shafer says in her current column, “This issue marks a new season in SKI Magazine’s story…We aim to transform what we all think a skier should look like or where a skier should go.” And as the 2022 Winter Olympics approach, Stan’s looking forward to continuing to play a leading role in that transformation.

Fondly,

Freda

 

 

Hello,

Photographing a collection of objects is one thing. But when those objects are cars, it’s a challenge of a whole different dimension. Avants, a very cool new magazine for rare car enthusiasts based in the Pacific Northwest recently asked Brian Smale to shoot some rare cars owned by a local collector. But the editor also wanted an image of his entire collection. Shooting time was limited, and the collection is housed in a vast garage with very little room to maneuver a camera and get a decent overview. So, Brian came up with a creative solution. He shot dozens of images of the cars from multiple angles and assembled them into a Hockney-style collage. Many hours, and many Photoshop layers later, he ended up with a very, very wide image. Fortunately, the editor of Avants liked it so much, he decided to feature it as a four-page foldout!

Fondly,

Freda

 

 

Hello,

Nothing tells the story of a place as beautifully as a map. And, as Cindy Salans Rosenheim knows, nothing can bring a map to life more charmingly than illustration. I think maps are a perfect fit for Cindy’s whimsical style, her hand-lettering skills, and her sixth sense for composition and balance. With a few deft strokes and just the right splashes of color, she manages to be both informative and engagingly playful. Her maps don’t just show you the shape of a place, they actually make you want to go there. No wonder she’s been commissioned to make them for all kinds of leading magazines and publishers. Cindy particularly loves jobs that take her onsite. For the garden map in Random House’s My Italian Garden, she visited the author’s home to measure, sketch, and make notes. The elaborate Italian garden, squeezed into a small backyard, was still young and not fully grown in, giving Cindy the freedom to imagine it in full fruition. It was just the kind of job she loves: seeing, envisioning, and making beauty flower on paper. And, she tells me, the figs were fantastic.

Fondly,

Freda

 

 

Hello,

Yes, these amazing images are by Blake Jorgenson, whom you no doubt know for his action-packed automotive and outdoor/adventure work. For Blake, this “Mad Seamstress” passion project was an adventure of a different kind—a collaboration with a variety of other talented creatives that took him way off the roads he’s used to exploring. But what it had in common with all of Blake’s still and motion work were the elements of meticulous preproduction, planning, choreography, and design. For Blake, it’s all about having a vision and then building it from the ground up, orchestrating every detail to get shots that feel spontaneous, hyper-real, and larger than life. These images combine a set built in a Vancouver studio with backgrounds Blake shot on location in Utah. Working with @andreaXangela—the models who also collaborated on set and wardrobe design—took Blake way outside his comfort zone and gave him all kinds of inspiration and new tools to bring back to his commercial work. It’s a perfect example of the guiding principle that drives Blake and all the talented people I get to work with here at Freda Scott Creative: The best commercial artists are true artists at heart, always eager to learn, grow and find new ways to express their vision.

Fondly,

Freda

 

 

Hello,

Back in the ‘60s, a series of 32 Andy Warhol silkscreens turned the already famous Campbell’s Soup can into one of pop art’s most enduring icons. This year, it was Filip Yip & Co.’s turn—not to riff on the familiar red and white label, like Warhol had done, but to actually be part of it. Ever wonder about that medallion that sits proudly between the red and white halves of the can? It’s a gold medal that founder Joseph Campbell’s soup received at the 1900 Paris Exposition Universelle. Campbell added the medal to his label, and it’s been there ever since. But 121 years later, it needed a graphic refresh, and Campbell’s agency Turner Duckworth awarded the coveted assignment to Filip Yip & Co. After all, Filip has built a global reputation for creating and updating these kinds of “contemporary/timeless” brand assets for flagship companies like Anheuser-Busch, Clorox, Nestlé, and many others. Filip’s rigorous process started with careful examination of photos of the original gold medallion. It includes an image of the Grand Palais, which was built for that 1900 Paris exhibition and still stands alongside the Seine. So, Filip paid a visit to the palace to take reference photos. Then, in a series of pencil sketches, he explored ways to update all the elements of the medallion. It may be tiny on the actual can, but the client wanted it to be stunning even when blown up a hundred times. Filip’s deep knowledge of print production helped him come up with a reworking that has just the right amount of detail, shadow and highlight to read and print at any size—one more reason so many major clients turn to him for this kind of work. I’m so proud to share this story with you. It’s not every day that an artist gets to help shape one of history’s most iconic brands. And now, I will forever think of Filip Yip & Co. every time I sit down to a bowl of tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich!

Fondly,

Freda