Experience is important, but it's what you do with that experience that matters. Samuels has strategized on and designed more than 40 theatrical and television awards campaigns since 1999, for studios including Lionsgate, Disney, Sony Pictures, The Weinstein Company, Dreamworks Animation and Starz, and we've learned a few things in the process. It's more than selecting that perfect shot. It's about telling the story, slowly and deliberately, in a campaign that ties together visually while separating itself from the crowd. It's about getting the audience to relive the emotions they felt as the closing credits rolled. That doesn't just happen in a print and web campaign - it has to be planned and thought out.

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Killer Tracks is the fast-growing production music arm of Universal Music Group and a long-time Samuels client. Late last fall, Killer asked us to create a promotional poster they could give to their clients. This was a great opportunity to start with a blank sheet of paper with the directive to create something beautiful that people would want to frame and put on their walls. The two possible directions for the poster would be a) highlighting the fact that Killer has a huge library of over 1200 production music collections or b) A singular, emotional image that reflected their brand. If we could accomplish both with one piece of art, all the better.

Well, they liked our concepts so much, they picked and finished two of them! One is a mosaic of all of their actual album covers, arranged to create their red arrow logo, and the other selection is a simple musical note made from their logo, with a background naming some of their most popular music library collections. The latter image became the basis for an ad campaign that has been running in the music and film industry trades for the past few months.

Included in the creative exploration are three beautiful illustrations from our amazing freelance artist Masaki Koike (formerly of Rhino - website here).