New Adventures!

Today is my last day with UnitedHealthcare. I can’t believe I am saying that. I am going through reflection mode as I type this with my next adventure waiting for me just over the horizon. I have been with UnitedHealthcare since 2015 and here it is now 2019. I have gone through a great many transformations over those years all for the betterment of myself as an individual. In that time I transitioned to a leader of a team, leading creatives and agencies to help build the UnitedHealthcare Global brand from the ground up. I got married to my best friend and my champion. Became a proud Dad to one of the most kick-ass kids I’ve every crossed paths with (she pairs nicely with her most excellent big sister). I found a creative family within the walls of UnitedHealth Group that I never knew before and they were the best thing about my job. It’s surreal to have this journey come to a close. It was a long and bumpy road from beginning to end. So many twists, turns, roundabouts and curve-balls. But, I absolutely wouldn’t trade any of them for the world. It helped me figure out how the behind-the-scenes truly works and I am thankful for that experience and growth.

So, with all that said…good afternoon, good evening and good night ladies and gentleman!

Tenacious D @ The Palace Theatre

The other night the Rock Gods shined down on this humble soul and granted me a kickass wife that bought she and I tickets to the sold out Tenacious D concert at the Palace Theatre in downtown St. Paul. We went to the first of two Sold Out shows that “The D” honored the Twin Cities in playing. We went, we saw and we rocked…as “The D” expects us to do. What I am showing here is the sexy limited edition poster that I picked up to commemorate our journey to rock-dom. This poster was a limited edition #16/30, 18x24”, 5-color screen print, gig poster that https://www.stateofshockstudios.com/ put out to promote the event. There was a regular print version and the rainbow foil version (mine is the foil one of course). It was an all-around excellent time hanging with other like-minded people at a kick-ass venue to listen to my all-time favorite band.

Instagram Inspiration

Instagram is a rabbit hole of inspiration that I gladly get lost within. It’s one of my main go-to places to geek out over the latest creative spark someone either found, generated or spent time crafting. It has a sense of freedom when you land the right artists account. For one of my creative team meetings that I led I put together my top 10 instagram accounts that I always look forward to seeing what they’ll do next. I wanted to share with our creative’s what inspires me and what gets me pumped up creatively. Because, there’s no better way to get to know a guy than to see what inspires him. My philosophy has always been to make things you are proud of and I have always leaned towards creating moments of “smile” and “delight”. Life is to serious sometimes and I believe great creative can transport you to another world if you truly let yourself experience it the way it is meant to be experienced. In any case…here is a snapshot of what I enjoy looking at…toy photography, screen-printing shops, fine digital artists (i’m proud to have some prints hanging on my wall from Tom Whalen and David Moscati who did The Thing poster seen in this image), online artwork shops and fun with food…it spanned a wide variety of awesomeness. Check out some of the fun by clicking some of these links!

galleries1988
inch x inch
mamassauce
fiftynineparks
everydaycarry
arbys
mondo
strongstuff
non_1072
heatfour

FaceApp freakiness...

My wife asks me last night if I had seen the oldifying App that everyone is talking about. I remembered something like it coming out a few years ago…but wasn’t plugged into the most recent updates that people were geeking out over. So, we dove head first into it and aged our whole family (the baby age-i-fied was horrifying). I have to say that i was in a state of shock, full on jaw dropping shock. It was insane to me how much I looked like a mix of my Dad and my Grandpa’s. That receding hairline, the peppered color hair and the whitening beard. I just couldn’t comprehend what this app had done and that it had introduced what the future might look like. It’s almost as if my life had been introduced to 1.21 jigawatts of awesome, in a blink of an app filter.

Family Freelance

Freelance is fun. It get’s me out of my own head and I can create something I know that the recipient is going to really appreciate. This was one of those times that I was honored to work on some executions for my soon to be cousin-in-law. The dude works hard and makes things happen so…I wanted to help wherever I could to promote the ideas he had in mind. He was running a training fitness camp this summer and needed a flier created. So, I created I think like 6 options and we kicked it around a time or two to make sure the photography was communicating the right thing and voila! I also decided that he could use some extra creative energy around his Facebook, Instagram presence so I created a few posts for him to go on those channels as well. Oh yeah…and a dude has gotta have some t-shirts to promote his business…so i concepted up some of them too. He printed up hats and t-shirts which I am proud to say I have worn my shirt proudly a few times now. If you are ever in the market for an athletic camp this summer…check 218 Athletics out! https://www.facebook.com/218-Athletics-212186976038671/

New Website & New Excitement!

I’ve never kept a running tally of my thoughts or my freelance work that is happening outside of my “work walls”…but I thought it was about time, especially since I have now newly launched my fresh new car smell website. It is weird how a simple refresh of my site and letting the old one sunset feels like I went shopping and found jeans that fit me perfect. My last website was a leap forward for me at the time that I created it. I was able to get everything I had worked on in the past into one place and it was simple. However, when I am looking at it with fresh new eyes, I looked at it and would get a queazy feeling in my stomach. It feels like I was relying to heavily on tricks and linking and worried way to much on how it would look on mobile. I was to much inside my own head and didn’t allow the work to really shine.

This time though…I dove into the explanation of the project. I wanted to give the viewer (i.e. you) an explanation as to how that idea came to light. What role did I play. All important things in my POV now that I have gone through the hiring, interviewing and reviewing portfolios of individuals looking to get onto our creative team. So, I hope you find it a breathe of fresh air reviewing the work I have done thus far with my life. I am proud of it all and look forward to staying on top of this blog posting to keep the site fresh and moving in the right direction!

Oh….and….Tenacious D rules!

-B