Care to Swing Through Beijing?

I had the pleasure of writing another Trip du Jour article for SmarterTravel.com, this time on some of the must-see sights in Beijing. Basically, I did the research so you don't have to. After all, why waste your precious time tracking down hotels that used to belong to warlords and the best place to find seahorses on a stick after dark? Let me do that for you.

(Click to view readable version.)

Getting in [Reebok] Gear for Fall

As another season rolls around, so does another big sale at the Reebok outlets and another opportunity for me to partner with the talented people over at Wilde Agency to create some knock-out DMs. Gooooooooooo team!

(Front & back of each piece; designs by Nichole Dickinson)

Divine Providence? You Bet It Is!

Yay! My travel article about Providence just went live on SmarterTravel.com. Admittedly, I'm pretty proud of myself. :D Click to view a readable version.

(Note: current screenshot mentions that the article was written a few months ago. Why? Because I've just updated the screenshot.)

Bad News Banners

Well, the banners aren't bad news... and, actually, neither is what they link to. Basically, we were tasked to come up with banners that would link to the Ultimate Guide to Airline Fees.

Banners: good.

Guide: good.

Airline fees: bad.

Here are a couple we put together over here at Smarter Travel Media.

(Designs by Justin Henry)

Banner 1
Frame 1:

Frame 2:

Banner 2

Frame 1:

Frame 2: Frame 3:

Striding Ahead In Itty Bitty Shoes

A couple of months ago, I had the pleasure of doing a little work with my friends over at Hired Pens and writing the copy for the Stride Rite fall selection. It was tons of fun to write, plus I now know a ba-jillion things about appropriate toddler insoles. Here are a couple of screenshots:

My Foray into the Travel Blogosphere: The BookingBuddy.com Blog

I have the pleasure of spending the summer working over in Charlestown with a lovely group of people over at SmarterTravel Media, which owns SmarterTravel.com and BookingBuddy.com (among others.)

While much of my day consists of writing ads for the newsletters, I also have the pleasure of contributing to the BookingBuddy Blog. Once a week, I get to post my musings about various aspects of the travel industry and, I have to tell you, I get a real kick out of it. Here's a screenshot to add a little interest to this post and below it you'll find links to my posts.

Posts:

The Ultimate Guide to Airline Fees: Bad News, Easily Referenced

United Airlines Reservations: Two Seats or a Table For Two?

Never Assume: It Makes a Bass Out of You and Me

The Seven Wonders of Indiana Jones

Avoid Checked-Bag Fees on American Airlines: Just Wear it All

A Lovely Reception From AT&T

There I was, back at Wilde Agency, this time creating direct mail pieces to entice customers into AT&T mobile stores. The following are a couple of concept mock-ups. Enjoy.

Designs by Beth Story

Big Goings On at the Reebok Outlets

Forty percent off store-wide at the Reebok Outlet store is no joke. Putting in some time with the fine folks over at Wilde Agency, I worked on creating concepts and copy for direct mail pieces to convey this darn good deal. Here's a pre-finalized image of one of our directions.

Design by Beth Story

You Spin Me Right 'Round, Lowell Spinners

Here's a fun little project I did over at Conover Tuttle Pace. I was tasked to write headlines and revise body copy for a series of newspaper ads for the Lowell Spinners Minor League Baseball team. Working from an already-established template, the goal of the ads was to juxtapose regular baseball with Lowell Spinners baseball by highlighting their theme nights.

Behold, here's one full ad, the top halves of a couple more and some lines that I was just crazy about but that didn't end up getting used.

Design by Kelly Guenette

And just a couple of the ones we didn't end up using:

HEAD
Who let the dogs out?
That's baseball.
Has anyone seen the dog?
That's Spinners Baseball.
SUB
June 29 Come and See the World's Fastest Chihuahua

HEAD
Nine men on the field?
That's baseball.
No girls allowed?
That's Spinners Baseball.
SUB
June 24 is Politically Incorrect Night

HEAD
Part-time vendors?
That's baseball.
Professional hawkers?
That's Spinners Baseball.
SUB
August 4 Come and see the Birds of Prey

Introducing adidas miCoach!

My current gig at Molecular as copywriter and content strategist has given me the fabulously fun opportunity to work on the adidas miCoach site, the web console for a revolutionary new personalized coaching system. It's big in Europe. Well, okay, right now it's only available in Europe. But it's coming...oh, it's coming!

Read a bit more about it on my content strategy blog, check out the site itself or take a quick peek at the screen shot below. Niiice.

Cranberry Bogs: Good for the Environment, Good for Kids

The Family that Bogs Together, Stays Together

Actually, it's a pretty cool little premise: A.D.Makepeace, the cranberry company, wanted to preserve the land around its bogs so it has created alliances with various building companies to build eco-friendly neighborhoods, just inches from said bogs.

While at Conover Tuttle Pace, I got the chance to put together some newspaper ads and outdoor banners for the newest community, Kingsbury Hollow. Feast your eyes on some of the initial layouts with swipe photography. In the spirit of full disclosure, the copy here is all mine except for a few word changes in the body ("hidden" was substituted for "nestled" and the pricing information was added.)

Designs by Kelly Hollifield.

What's In? Why, Social Media is What's In!

Ah, yes. The long-awaited launch of the Marshalls/T.J.Maxx social media communities has occurred. What's In is set to take retail by storm!

Here's a little back story for you: a brilliant idea was hatched to create a social media site wherein Marshalls and T.J.Maxx customers could go into the store, spot a too-good-to-be-true find from a fabulous designer, take a picture of it with their cell phone and then upload it to the site to let fellow community members know that there's a fabulous [insert designer] [insert product] at the [insert city] Marshalls store! Plus, of course, members can create an online profile, post pictures of their favorite finds and ask and answer questions in forums.

How did this all come about, you ask? Frickin' hard work. Luckily for me, our dedicated team was very, very small. Luckily? Yes: I got to be intimately involved in everything from creating the site architecture to crafting all of the messaging. You know what, kids? Content strategy is tons of fun.

Here are a few screen shots from the site. (You can poke around it yourself at www.marshallsonline.com/whatsin )

Reebok, Real Estate and Really Good Banking

An update (on my lunch break) from the world of freelance: I'm just having an absolute ball. I've done some work for Carat for their redesign of the Reebok website and now I'm over at Conover Tuttle Pace working on print and interactive for A.D. Makepeace/Davenport's Kingsbury Hollow housing development in Carver and Eastern Bank radio spots. People here are very nice and, if I may just display a little wanton pride, I got a high five from Grant Pace (the Exec CD and Partner) for the Kingsbury Hollow lines.

I'll be sure to post the comps and scripts once the presentations to clients have occurred. I know, you want to see them now. And I'd love to accommodate you, but I'm certain I'm correct in assuming that both A.D.Makepeace and Eastern Bank executives are avid readers of my blog. Far be it from me to ruin the surprise.

My Shop On Swan Song

Well, right before I left, the rest of the Marshalls team and I went through a comprehesive rebranding of the Shop On campaign.

Here are a couple of pages from the "Aren't You Bright" direct mail piece. This is all swipe imagery, but the copy, oh, the copy's for real. Design by Melody Olbrych.