Scott Hull Associates

Doug Knopp, art director for Visual Marketing Associates, started his search for the perfect artist by speaking personally with Scott Hull, then went to the SHA website and picked a style appropriate for the client. Doug and his team discussed each style of each artist they were interested in and landed on Curtis because of his sophisticated approach to the theme. Curtis Parker offered his stylistic solutions to give the school a visual voice.

The school wanted the concept of the illustration to support the tagline for the Bell Tower magazine…”Connecting Schoolcraft College Alumni & Friends”. It’s all about cultivating and sustaining a lifelong relationship with Schoolcraft College’s extended family of alumni, students, faculty, staff and the community at large.

So why did Doug and his colleagues decide to go with art versus photography? Several reasons. The client had an illustrated idea of what they wanted. It would set them apart, from most collage magazines that are driven by photos. Always a big fan of illustration, they wanted to go against the grain. Their final outcome must be more customized than stylized. Marrying both style of illustration with the architecture within in the school. They wanted something tactile and approachable.

Curtis describes the initial stages of starting the process, “The school has a bell tower on campus so I wanted to connect all the alumni to this tower. I thought it might be cool to have the alumni crowd holding on to the bell ropes as the ropes weaved their way through the crowd.”

The finished product was described in a brief but effective statement from Doug, “The client is ecstatic.” That’s about the best response any director can hope for. He also went on to say, “The staff is excited about new style the magazine is taking via the illustration. We absolutely loved working with Curtis. He started with thumbnail sketches, so we had a sense of what final illustration would look like. And we were more than thrilled with the final outcome. Conceptually, it was spot-on.”