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2021 Yearbook

Posted on December 21, 2021December 27, 2021 By Hey You

1‑Alan Hayes


Alan wrote:
Great stories. I’m sorry to admit that I don’t always read every­thing, and I missed the train of soft­ball anecdotes.
For years, I was the pitcher for a series of terrible teams from Meltzer, Lennen & Newell and Wilton, Coombs and Colnett. As Meltzer’s Pride, we decided to display our macho posture by picking pink and purple as the team colors. For one game, the agency girls formed a cheering section and offered this memo­rable yell:

“Pink and purple, purple and pink. We’re great, you stink!”

(This above, is another ad-agency-softball-after-work story — it is long, I will post it in January and include another from Martin Russel who played for the WC&C team.)

2- Ward Schumaker

I have no photos of us but here’s a photo from most recent show:
Twenty feet of ​“I Need Do Nothing” acrylic on panels, 10 of them, 2ft x 2ft each, from my Spring 2021 show ​“A Wall of Words” at Jack Fischer Gallery (San Francisco)

3‑David Alcorn

David in '68
David in ​’68 
Thumbnails Half Dome
Thumb­nails Half Dome 
Photostat of line art
Photo­stat of line art 
The North Face Store
The North Face Store 
Logo on jacket
Logo on jacket 

In the fall of 1968 I was intro­duced to Mr Hap Klopp. Hap had just bought three retail shops called The North Face. The San Fran­cisco shop was in North Beach.
I was a recent art school grad­uate and was working for Dan Bonfigli as my first job out of college in Dan’s package design firm.
I had been told that Hap needed a logo and other mate­rials designed. This would be my first free­lance job. Hap and I met for lunch a couple of times at Clown Ally over burgers. Hap told me about his plans to start manu­fac­turing high end alpine gear. At that point there were five seam­stresses on sewing machines in the base­ment of the San Fran­cisco store! We talked about his vision and the one thing he didn’t want were pine trees!! Sierra Designs were already using pine trees in their logo. That was it! I had the job!
I worked on it at home for about a week. I did a lot of thumb­nail sketches, like points on a compass, etc. At 21 years old, I hadn’t trav­eled much. I hadn’t seen the famous moun­tains of the world. But I was a kid from Cali­fornia and had camped many times in Yosemite. I started thinking about a moun­tain silhou­ette. El Capitan wouldn’t work, it faces south. But Half Dome faced north!! Then I played with typog­raphy. Suddenly, I had it. I was so convinced that I didn’t present any other candi­dates!! My enthu­siasm must have rubbed off on Hap!! That was it!! No branding firms, no focus groups, no test marketing!!
The logo has endured for over 53 years now without the slightest tweaking. It has become one of the most ubiq­ui­tous and well recog­nized logos in the world.


After 50 years: left to right, Hap Klopp, David Alcorn, and Mark Erickson, the first product designer at The North Face.
And although Hap sold the company many years ago to VF Corpo­ra­tion, in 2018 they honored me with a display of some of my orig­inal designs work for the company. Not computer aided graphics back then as you well know. And after fifty years, they even had me do some design work for the belated 2020 Tokyo Olympics!!
I feel that I was very blessed. And I have seen the logo all over the world. But the part that I’m the most proud of is that even through many changes in corpo­rate manage­ment, there was never an effort to modify my orig­inal design.
David

4‑Dave Sanchez
Ann,
OK, well here it goes:
I must have had an early interest in adver­tising. My mom kept an ad I created for Coke Cola when I was about 8 or 10. When I was at the Academy of Art my main courses were in fine art, but I took Jack Allen’s class and was hooked. I built my ​“port­folio” in his class and left the Academy to seek my fortune (ha, ha). Jack called me a year later when I was at KPIX and asked if I was inter­ested in joining Y&R, he had just been made Creative Director. I said YES!! I had just gotten Mik Kita­gawa a job at KPIX art depart­ment but thought maybe he could join Y&R also. I helped him pull his port­folio together and we both got the job at Y&R (Jack said: ​“two for the price of one”)
I was a ​“print” Art Director (in those days TV was for TV Art Direc­tors). After 8 years Y&R SF was closing and I was asked to join Y&R LA. They paid to send me and my wife to LA to look for a place to live. It was a time when there was a smog alert. I couldn’t stand it, and thought I never would let my kids live in that. There was a newly-combined agency called Gross, Pera, and Rockey. I inter­viewed with Curt Fields and Martin Rockey and got the job. This was my big break in tele­vi­sion. They had great accounts and won many new ones: PSA airlines, McCormic & Schilling, Foster Farms, Toyota Dealers, Treesweet, Royal Cruise Lines, etc., etc., many food accounts. I worked on every account. I loved it! PSA was a lot of fun working with the come­dian Ronny Schell. I stayed there 8 years and left when they lost PSA, Toyota (National in LA) and addi­tional accounts. I joined J.Walter Thompson, but was there less than a year when I heard about Ketchum looking for creative. I presented my work and was hired. Over 8 years I devel­oped my ​“package goods” expe­ri­ence, Hunt Foods (with Tony Randall), Treesweet (with OJ Simpson), The Beef Board (with James Garner), The Potato Board, Lindsay Olives, BofA, Crown Z, Clorox, and others I can’t remember now. I was now a VP ​“Asso­ciate Creative Director” and had won major ad awards. Lately the creative depart­ment was making staff changes (which I didn’t like) and they decided to let me go. I was hurt, but I was no longer happy at Ketchum. I had been doing moon-lighting with David Brown, an ex-writer from Ketchum, working on the Frex­enet Sparking Wine busi­ness. They had two US agen­cies but wanted to select one agency. David and I were creating ads they liked so the Ferrer family from Spain decided to have David create an in-house agency. When I left Ketchum, David and I did the Freixenet/Gloria Ferrer adver­tising (which grew over the years to over 9 more prod­ucts). David became the Friex­enet Ad Manager/Creative honcho. I opened Sanchez & Asso­ciates in 1988. I had the Freix­enet busi­ness, the Super­soil account, and picked up all three Bay Area and LA Race Horse Tracks accounts. Writer Mickey Lonchar joined me and we became Sanchez & Lonchar, we picked up more accounts and after a few years AE Dennis Flynn joined us and we were now Sanchez, Lonchar & Flynn Adver­tising and Design. It was fun, and successful. After 10 years the part­ner­ship split up (under good terms), we sold the building we had, and I opened Red Wagon Adver­tising & Design. For another 10 years every­thing was good until the BUSH DEPRESSION struck and the clients pulled back their billing. I thought 50 years was long enough, being 72…so I closed the shop in 2010 and retired. I couldn’t have picked a more satis­fying career. The creative people I worked with: Photog­ra­phers, Artists, Direc­tors, Writers, were a lot of fun and totally rewarding in many ways. But retiring is a lot of work.
Ann, Dick: now you see why I stalled. Pick and choose what you want to include. It won’t hurt my feel­ings. I just wish I could have included some print and TV examples.
Merry Christmas and a Happy 2022.
Warm regards, and memories. 
Dave

Dave, Your wish:

Ann

5‑Charlie Sweeny
CHARLIE SWEENY
Art Director, Cunningham & Walsh/SF, 1982 – 1984
After 30 years creative-directing for mega-agencies in Adver­tising – a decade in Private Service working with UHNW clients, Charlie now lives in L.A. slingin’ pot part-time with Eaze – and produces expe­ri­en­tial sound and music shows as AUDIO SHAMAN, performing through the immer­sive QUADSONIC 360° sound system, and his HIPTRIP produc­tion group. www​.audioshaman​.com

6‑Jed Falby

Go Go Goodyear
Go Go Goodyear 
Autographs Goodyear
Auto­graphs Goodyear 

On 9/20/21 6:04 AM, Jed Falby wrote:
1960 was a long time ago …
As a Brit working in New York (Madison Avenue!) San Fran­cisco seemed as far away as London. But Y&R thought I should join Hanley Norins in his San Fran­cisco creative ​‘Hot Shop’ as ​“the TV Man”. What a whirl­wind that turned out to be. Local accounts like Kaiser and Langen­dorf (bread!) and the Cali­fornia Wine board but the National Prize winners were the series of films we did for GoodYear. I still remember working with Mike Slos­berg facing an impos­sible four-page imper­a­tive of all the facts that we had to include in our thirty-second time frame. ​“I know!” said Mike (tossing the four pages aside) ​“Let’s do it non-verbal!”.
Sounds simple when I say that now — but back then it was unheard of. It was Mike who invented ​“When-Snow-says-No — Go — Go — Goodyear!” With Hanley Norin’s enthu­si­astic support suddenly we were running a major National Account from San Fran­cisco (It’s a long, long way from Alca­traz to Akron, Ohio) There were so many good talented people working on the account that I can’t name them all (Hi Gerry, Hi Herb,Hi Norm, Hi Lear).
TV is hard to show on the Geezer site but I thought you might like this escape into print for Mike and I and Lowell Herrero.
Cheers! Jed

Jed Falby book art
Jed Falby book art 
Jed Falby book cover
Jed Falby book cover 
E Train Michel
E Train Michel 

Jed has written a book: ​“Le Train de Michel”.
Michel Hollard, of the French Resis­tance, is known as: the man who saved London”.

7‑Tim Price
Life is better off the grid on the Sea of Cortez.
Tim Price
Senior VP FCB SF

8‑Steve Rustad

Bad Tuna
Bad Tuna 
Bumblebee Tuna
Bumblebee Tuna 
Fundemonium Funbot
Funde­mo­nium Funbot 

Here’s a photo of me circa 1982 doing a camp promo for a Bumblebee Tuna trade ad that spoofed brand x tuna. Also, here is a print ad I art directed about that same time. Mac Churchill was the Creative Director and Jim Sanderson wrote the copy. And — a recent photo of me with the Gunboat mascot char­acter I created for a toy store that I helped rebrand as Fundemonium.

9‑Richard Wilson


Richard Wilson: Forty years of graphic deign, illus­tra­tion and cartooning in the San Fran­cisco Bay Area and Santa Cruz.
Photo circa 1982

10-Bob Porter


Here’s a photo of me doing what I do these days…stand at an easel in the studio. After four years at Art Center, I spent most of my career sitting at a type­writer, so the studio feels pretty good. I’m an Artist Member of the Cali­fornia Art Club, and once in a while show at Studio Gallery on Pacific in the City.
Happy Holidays!
Bob Porter

11-Ed & Mary Ann Diffenderfer

The Diffenderfers
The Diffenderfers 

67th wedding anniver­sary on July10 The Diff­end­er­fers are a talented team. Geezers’ Gallery posted Ed’s illus­tra­tions at: https://​geezers​gallery​.com/​e​d​s​-​s​t​o​ry/

M. Diffenderfer
M. Diffenderfer 
U.S. Air Force
U.S. Air Force 
Glacer Bay
Glacer Bay 

Mary Ann met Ed while attending the Cali­fornia College of Arts and Crafts. She became a teacher in Oakland and then a fine artist: (portraits and mono­type prints) and then a novelist (pen name: Mari­anne Gage): ​”Private Faces”, ​“The wind Came Running,”, ​“Putneyville Fables” and ​“All Kinds of Beauty” and now Mary Ann is again showing her mono­type prints in Lafayette, CA..

12-Pat Grant Porter

Pat Grant 1960
Pat Grant 1960 
Pat Porter Eliz baby
Pat Porter Eliz baby 
Pat Porter
Pat Porter 

The best part of my two years in San Fran­cisco, was being there. It’s the most beau­tiful city in the USA.
I was fresh out of Pratt, hauling an over­sized port­folio full of mostly mediocre work up and down the hills, wearing the required high heels and white gloves. The art direc­tors were unfailing kind and helpful, and a few even gave me work. I had been told that S.F. folks were espe­cially friendly and it was true. Things improved when Dick Moore and Fred Meinke decided to give me space and some paste up work in their studio. They told me that their clients behaved better in the pres­ence of a nice young lady. So I dressed in my best, cleaned up my language, and did paste ups…at half the speed of Fred. The beauty of San Fran­cisco attracted many top illus­tra­tors. After I read it had only two percent of the illus­tra­tion market, and New York had fifty per cent, I knew it was time to go home. I guess I was always a Jersey Girl…loving my mother’s cooking, my father’s Chrysler, the Shore, illus­trating children’s books. Meeting Maurice Patrick Porter. But that’s another story.
I only had a few years in San Fran­cisco, but now, 60 years later, I still do Cali­fornia dreaming, the Golden Gate Bridge, Crab Louie, the sound of the cable cars.…Ning a ning a NING NING!

13-Gale McKee

Gale 1900s
Gale 1900s 
Gale 2000s
Gale 2000s 
Gale now
Gale now 

14-Chuck Pyle
Hey! I retired from the Academy in June!!!.
chuck

15-Brian Barnes


I spent many enjoy­able years as an AD with Bots­ford, Constan­tine & McCarty [ later Ketchum ] in the 1960’s into the 70’s. Under Jerry Huff I was assigned to the marquee Japan Air Lines account. In 1969, JAL was preparing to take delivery of their first Boeing 747. The image shows flight atten­dants with myself taken inside the 747 inte­rior mockup at Boeing, Everett WA, we used for intro­duc­tory adver­tising photog­raphy. Other airlines with pending 747 deliv­eries also utilized this same mockup for their purposes with each allowed one week for their propri­etary design fit-outs then after­ward swiftly removed for the next to follow. A revo­lu­tion for air travel and so happy to have been there.
Brian Barnes


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