My collection of old layouts triggered a remembered assignment: “Last Minute, Brutal, Deadline”.
I found in my collection a lot of layouts that were not mine. Before tossing them away, I thought I could reach the artists and send their samples on to them for their archives. Since they all were from my days working at VICOM / FCB HEALTHCARE, I would first to write to Art Director, Victor Marcelli.
On Mar 8, 2024, at 6:52?PM,
Hi Vic, It has been a long time! How are you? Richard and I are doing well. He is painting! I found a bunch of comps that are not mine. Could this be your art?
Annie
On 3/9/24 10:21 AM, Victor Marcelli wrote:
Hi Dick and Annie,
So good to hear from you two. Dick in the game is very inspirational to me, watercolor I’m guessing, that’s his mastery. You both are amazing masters at your craft, always mesmerized by watching you create marketing concept boards Annie, loose pencil, slip sheet or two, then Prismacolor sticks, you probably went through dozens in every color and hundreds in Naprosyn Blue. Nice sketch you sent is not by me, are you sure it’s not by you?
Love to both of you.
-Victor
On Mar 9, 2024, at 10:51?AM. I wrote:
Hi, again, Vic,
So nice to get your reply. (and so flattering!) I remember your marker comps were more dramatic than my work (strong light and shadows) so I thought, if you used pencil, this example could be yours. I asked John Rutherford’s son, Steve, if this was John’s work. Steve said he couldn’t be sure.
I still have a great collection of those Prismacolor sticks. I wonder if I could still handle them.
Yes, Dick is doing a watercolor (at this moment) of an Azalea that we picked up at a local nursery. He jumps to it, when the light is good.
What are you up to?
Anni
3/9/24, 3:24 PM, from Vic
Four moves. Now living two blocks from your old school Santa Rosa HS. Through it all, I managed to paint some in oils, sold a few in galleries. Lot’s of portraits and some pro bono oil illustrations which found their way on to outdoor boards and SF City buses. My old comp’s contrast was due to felt markers. Remember Magic Marker bottles?
-Victor
3/9/24, 5:21 PM, (from me}
Vic — If you have made four moves, then you don’t still have the old Magic Markers.
I haven’t moved and so much has piled up.
We remember that you were the one to invite Dick and me to the Bohemian Grove, and you also invited Kirsten and myself to the downtown location to see your friend,Vince Perez, who was so great at anatomy illustration.
I would like to see the illustrations that you painted for SF boards and busses.
(Attached is the good ol’ MM and a marker sketch that I made so many years ago. I never had the full set as shown. I imagine that it would have taken a lot of time picking each color and there was the need to keep the caps on and to keep them from accidentally rolling down off the slanted drawing board.
After all these years, on 2−21−24 I tested my collection to see which were still usable. (Everything is art!) Time to toss the last 19 Magic Markers, which are not useful without the full choice of colors. Now on the Mac, I can just click from a un-ending choice of colors, nothing dries up. Here, too, is a photo of what is left of my Prismacolor sticks. Still useable! They served me well. I would smear out their colors with Bestine!…another of the many toxics we worked with in those days.)
3/10/24, 1:50 AM, Vic sent
Annie,
“Last Minute, Brutal, Deadline”
Here’s a memory from the past: I was down to the wire on a presentation that Lester was going to present to Searle Pharma next morning in Skokie, North of Chicago, a branding proposal. Lester was already back there, I was in SF studio packing final boards with good old Billie at 10:PM night before. “Billie what’s this?”, she had snuck in two ColorAid sheets of the branding colors, an X‑acto knife and cutting mat, and handed me a can of spray mount. She said, “Vic, just in case”. I rushed it all to SFO, red eyed to O’Hare, then to Lester’s hotel where he was finishing breakfast, he said “Let’s go over the boards.” Every board had two stripes of brand colors across the bottom, navy & dayglow orange. He said: orange stripes need to be thinner! No table, I’m slicing strips of ColorAid on my hands and knees on bathroom floor, finished minutes before his taxi. Fortunately I was not in presentation, which Lester sold brilliantly I was told. I went to a motel exhausted, not before two stiff martini’s, and it was only noon. Maybe that’s why I have A.D.D. and how did Billie know?
Billie had a good eye, and knew Lester was a perfectionist. Truth is, Dayglo Orange was risky for the staid Searle marketing culture, their bold new drug deserved it’s brilliance but it absolutely had to be trimmed and presented as an accent color. Lester made the right call.
3/11/24, 3:17 PM (from me}
Hi Vic,
It sure describes the tension of the ad biz. Should I tell it on Geezers’ Gallery?
Do you have more to tell? Did Billie go back to Texas?
We’d like to see your paintings and the bus and outdoor boards.
Ann
Vic sent his paintings and this commercial work:
3/17/24, 3:04 PM (from me)
Hi Vic, Me, again. Are either of these yours?
Annie
3/18/24, 10:54 AM
Hi Annie, no, those comps are not mine. Not sure the year exactly that I ceased to do marker comps, ‘95? We used to call them photo indications, married them with type indications, loose squiggly lines or tight greeking. Remember the song “Video Killed the Radio Star”? Well the Mac killed the comp star. With some exceptions like “Annie Boards”! Also, I’m guessing Dick carried that art form on, Skywalker? In my opinion conceptual creativity abounds with the mind-to-hand sketch.
Victor
BTW (from me) (Dick was doing “backgrounds” for Colossal Pictures and George Lucas’s Skywalker, and layouts for others.)
3/18/24, 1:50 PM (from me)
Hi Vic,
I need something to say about all of these anonymous layout artists. Can i use what you just wrote?
Annie
3/18/24, 5:42 PM From Vic)
Of course Annie, and edit any way you see fit. In 1966 I worked with a group of seasoned AD’s that were still using layout chalks, Magic Marker’s were just coming in. These were the dusty chalks, they had all kinds of tricks with them and of course they had to be spray fixed. Between the chalk dust, fixative and then spray mount it was pretty toxic. And then we’d put the work up, sit back and smoke! Damn lucky to have lived past forty.
3/18/24, 8:05 PM (from me)
I can use this, too,Vic.
(Regarding chalks — -I remember hearing stories of studio artists finding the back of their white shirts full of chalk dust from sitting in front of the “Chalk Artists”. Here are some that I attempted as a 19 year old student at CCSF. There were no sharp edges. Pencils were used to define edges. I imagine, now, that masking the subject would have given a cleaner edge. Chalks were just used for color, but messy.)
Tue, 19 Mar 2024 (from me)
Hi Lester—
I recently was in touch with Vic Marcelli and this is his description of those times.
I could put this in Geezers’ Gallery along with a story of the paper layouts of the day, with samples. Do you know the artist for these samples?
Annie
(I showed Les, more samples.)
3/24/24 6:35 PM
From Lester, VICOM/FCB HEALTHCARE’s Creative Director:
Ann,
Thanks for the reminder. I’ve been immersed in preparing a lecture I’m giving on Tuesday. Sorry.
The Vic Marcelli story was wonderful…though a bit embarrassing. Billie was so right in sending the kit. I wasn’t going to change anything, but we could not show a strong accent color with the same weight as the base color. It would not have made the cut with the client. A little adjustment and it was sold.
And of course you can use it.
Continued joy with your wonderful work. Hugs, Les
PS FYI, the lecture is on the histories of Art Nouveau and Art Deco. A lot of fun, but rather time-consuming. Here’s a slide for your pleasure. I think these two gates tell the design difference with clarity.
Thank you, Vic and Lester.
Ann
Below is more of the collection: Some assignments, such as TV storyboards (that require so very many images) don’t usually need tight details, just quick images. When details are needed, the layout must be a tight illustration as the use of lettering as shown.Also layouts that plan for photo shoots, with many people in various poses, requirer pencil drawings showing costume, attitudes, furniture, etc. which provides the plan for the photographer(s).
If the mystery layout artists don’t claim their artwork…these layouts might go the way of the Magic Markers — (but thinking, now) they take so little room and I admire the work, I can just move them out of “my collection” into my “Geezer collection”.
Ann Thompson.