Carlo Macaione

ADVERTISING: Just a few of the magazine and tabloid ads that I created for Keystone, Vanessa, Valvtron, Grinnell, Biffi and Tyco valve and valve controls companies. These were produced for placement in business-to-business periodicals for the petroleum industry. Some ads were converted to Mandarin for inclusion in Chinese newspapers.

ADVERTISING: Knowing that I can provide the photographic final result can make ad conceptualizing easier: A series of 1/3 page ads for Valvtron (left) that ran in right-hand columns of 3 consecutive pages in various periodicals, garnering more attention than using a single page ad. The person posing for the photo was my department manager at that time. A concept used for a series of ads (right) touting the brains and brawn built into Keystone valves because, “...our engineers are pumped, perform hours of bench tests, and have chiseled a line of products with industrial muscle.” A machinist from the manufacturing plant posed for the photos.

EXHIBITS: An large exhibit panel displayed at the Architecture Center Houston and at Discovery Park in conjunction with the American Institute of Architect’s Green Works Houston event. (some rendering by others) (14½ ft width x 6ft height)

EXHIBITS: KIPP Academy “Life Lessons.” exhibit banner. (6ft width x 3.5ft height)

EXHIBITS AND EVENT COLLATERAL: I directed the design of event registration materials, informational brochures and exhibit displays for Gensler when the firm was featured in the Rowlett Distinguished Firm Lecture Series at Texas A&M University in College Station. Attended by industry professionals and students of Texas A&M University’s School of Architecture, the exhibit consisted of 10 towers displaying 160 different Gensler projects in the lobby of the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library. A 32 foot timeline of Gensler’s history lined the main corridor of the Annenberg Presidential Conference Center. The featured guest lecturer was Art Gensler the founder of the firm. Beyond the production of event materials, I handled the logistics of transporting the exhibit to and from the event, setting up and removing the exhibit, assisted in organizing the day’s presentations and provided event photography.

EVENT COLLATERAL: Materials designed for Gensler’s worldwide principals meeting held in Houston. It was significant that the event was being hosted in Texas and materials were designed with a a sophisticated western feel. I originated the theme “Dream Big” with a blue sky to evoke the Texas open range with the promise of “Unbridled Opportunity.” Materials such as wax-sealed invitations (left column); gift books and gift CDs of regional music (center column); wooden gift boxes and leather meeting agenda portfolios (right column). I also produced presentation videos tied to the theme. This project earned a Gensler Design Excellence Award (below left)), a worldwide competition held annually among all Gensler offices to recognize exceptional design work.

EVENT GRAPHICS: Meeting material covers and posters for Gensler’s South Central Region Principal’s Retreat. The graphics were a playful take on the idea of indoctrination. The purpose of the retreat was a concerted effort by the company to alter business unit thinking from industry type to that of practice areas (PA think).

INTERNAL PROMOTIONS: The invitation (right top and right center) and some of the presentation graphics designed to promote an internal program encouraging design staff to attend information sessions and classes to learn about a firm-wide conversion to Autodesk Revit®, a software package that uses building information modeling to simulate real-world performance of architectural designs. I took the photographs and designed the promotional materials with a retro look to play on the “Rev-it Up” theme and to poke a little fun at the stereotypical perception of IT staffers (known as “The Revit Squad”) who provide answers with a bit of an attitude. The promotion was very popular internally and was credited with increasing awareness and attendance.

INTERNAL PROMOTIONS: For a series of internal seminars on Design and Delivery topics I culled a cast of characters from employees and photographed them while coaxing the actors within them to the surface. Using in-house talent to portray the perspectives of those involved in the furniture procurement process brought out the ham in my fellow employees while deftly explaining the point of view of each person involved in the process. Prompting this type of staff involvement besides being fun and inexpensive had the added benefit of increasing attendance to the seminars.

POSTERS: Posters (left and center) for “Lights Out Houston” events. The poster at far left won first place in the first city-wide poster design contest for the “Lights Out Houston” event. The “Historical Affinity and Beyond” poster (far right) was created to highlight the 50-plus year history of the 1956 location of Howard Hughes’ TWA Corporate Headquarters in Kansas City, Missouri. The building now houses Barkley Advertising. The renovated building is crowned by a 32 foot tall replica of the TWA Moonliner II rocket ship. The original rocket and my descriptive poster now reside in the Kansas City Airline History Museum.

POSTERS: A poster (top left) designed to commemorate Sam Houston Park for The Heritage Society’s “The Way We Where” Gala. The Heritage Society wanted a new poster to “reference but not copy” a poster that had been created many years earlier for the 1976 gala (below right). The intention was to show the growth of the area over 30 years. I shot the 8 photographs shown (above right) and manipulated them in Photoshop to create the final poster.

POSTERS: An award winning poster describing the Woodlands Waterway Hotel & Convention Center project as an “On The Boards” entry for the American Institute of Architects, Houston Gala. (renderings by others)

PHOTOSHOP COLLAGE: 4' x 6' wall graphic printed on watercolor paper depicting Smith Seckman Reid's founding partners and a selection of Texas projects spanning the history of the Houston office. The graphic is sandwiched in glass and hangs at the entrance to SSR Houston's offices.

PHOTOSHOP COLLAGE: AIA Sandcastle 2012 Competition poster "There's an app for that!"

ANNUAL REPORTS: I worked directly with company leadership at Smith Seckman Reid's headquarters in Nashville, TN to complete this 2011-12 Annual Report/Shareholder's Brief. I collaborated with a copywriter from the company's public relations firm. I also handled the printing/press checks and fulfillment from the Houston office.

BRAND REFRESH: I worked directly with the Marketing Managers from each of Smith Seckman Reid's main regional offices over a 6 month period, through various versions to refresh the corporate brand. I created InDesign templates for proposal materials, e-mail layouts and other collateral pieces. I also selected and specified updated corporate colors. Shown above are samples of a proposal cover, back cover and tab created from the new InDesign templates.

BLAST E-MAIL CAMPAIGNS: Shown above are a few e-mail layouts (e-mail lengths varied) from a series of e-mail distributions covering different Mission Critical and Data Center topics. I created the initial layouts in Photoshop for copy and graphics approvals and then built the e-mails in Constant Contact for final testing, distribution and tracking.

NEW HIRE AND EMPLOYEE PROMOTION E-MAILS: I designed this simple e-mail layout in order to quickly build new hire and employee promotion announcements. I photographed each subject in a similar fashion but with some variation so each would be unique. I then retouched the final photo selections and put together Photoshop comps for approvals. Once I received approvals I built the e-mails in Constant Contact for final testing, distribution and tracking.

E-MAIL ANNOUNCEMENTS: E-mail announcing a tenth anniversary open house for Smith Seckman Reid's Dallas office with the belt buckle graphic created in Adobe Photoshop.