Bicoastal design and entertainment company Imaginary Forces (IF) has named Maribeth Phillips as executive producer/managing director of its New York office. She comes over from New York-based design/visual effects/3-D production house Spontaneous.
At IF, Phillips will handle spotwork out of its New York shop as well as help the company to move into emerging portals that will connect consumers with brands. Prior to Spontaneous, Phillips was executive director of production for the media and entertainment/brand identity group at Razorfish (now Avenue A/Razorfish, New York) which she joined when it merged with broadcast design mainstay Lee Hunt & Associates in 1999. She had joined Lee Hunt the year before as exec producer.
During her stay at Razorfish, Phillips focused on developing design-driven integrated solutions for clients in both advertising and entertainment. Her industry roots are in live-action commercials, having served for several houses in executive producer and line producer capacities.
This mix of experience dovetails well with IF, which has a roster of creative directors, designers, editors and effects artists who handle traditional TV ad assignments. Among its recent jobs are design-driven campaigns for such clients as Reebok, Dove, GMC and Smirnoff. At the same time, IF is looking to diversify significantly into new media platforms for branding.
Among Phillips’ goals is to incorporate more of the IF West Coast talent pool into work originating from the New York office, making for more bicoastal cross-pollination on key projects. She also plans to use her spot industry contacts to help raise IF’s profile among West Coast ad agencies.
IF continues under the aegis of co-founders Peter Frankfurt and Chip Houghton who serve as creative director and executive producer, respectively.