The One Club for Creativity will induct Rebeca Méndez, Susan Hoffman, David Lubars and Tom Burrell to the Creative Hall of Fame. Diane Cook-Tench will be named to the Educators Hall of Fame.
The Creative Hall of Fame has a rich heritage of honoring the lifetime achievements of creative luminaries in advertising and design, such as Mary Wells, David Ogilvy, Bill Bernbach and Lee Clow. The first inductee was Leo Burnett in 1961.
“The Creative Hall of Fame is the ultimate recognition of a storied career as a creative professional, and our newest inductees are being honored because of their significant impacts on the advertising and design industries,” said Kevin Swanepoel, CEO of The One Club for Creativity. “These are creatives whose work has transcended advertising, influencing pop culture, uplifting African-American culture, laying the groundwork for the next generation of creatives, and even influencing thought and action on climate change. They are titans of our industry.”
Méndez is an artist, designer, and professor at UCLA, Design Media Arts, where she is director of the CounterForce Lab, a research and fieldwork studio dedicated to using art and design to develop creative collaborations, new fields of study, and methods to research, create, and execute projects around the social and ecological impacts of anthropocene climate change.
Hoffman has created some of Wieden+Kennedy’s most memorable work in more than three decades at the agency, including one Nike spot that pretty much ruined the Beatles for everybody. She famously opened W+K London and W+K Amsterdam, and has intermittently served as executive creative director for the Portland, New York and Delhi offices. As co-chief creative officer, Hoffman currently oversees the entire global network.
Lubars is chief creative officer, BBDO Worldwide, and chairman of BBDO North America. In the 13 years since Lubars joined BBDO, he has helped transform the agency into the most creatively awarded in the world and a recipient of more than 15 Agency of the Year recognitions by various industry publications. His work for BMW Films changed what was thought of as advertising forever. He was named one of the top ten creative directors of all time in a recent story published in Forbes CMO Network.
Burrell launched what is now Burrell Communications in 1971. By understanding and highlighting the positive aspects of black American culture, Burrell changed the face of American advertising. A collection of Burrell’s advertisements for Coca-Cola is archived at the Library of Congress for its cultural and historical significance.
Cook-Tench is the founding director of Virginia Commonwealth University’s grad school, the Brandcenter. Today, the VCU Brandcenter boasts a league of alumni that lead major brand work across the world. Prior to teaching, she won more than 100 national and international awards for her creative work.
The Creative Hall of Fame ceremony is a black-tie gala event that will take place on Monday, September 18, in the grand ballroom of Gotham Hall in Manhattan.
SCHROM x Yacht Club and Be Electric Studios Launch Electric XR for Virtual Production
SCHROM x Yacht Club, a full-service live-action, tabletop, and postproduction company, has teamed with Be Electric Studios, a soundstage, equipment rental, and virtual production company, to launch Electric XR, a virtual production collective.
Industry veteran Thomas Rossano will lead the new venture, which provides advanced virtual production solutions across multiple facilities. He brings over 25 years of experience in live-action, tabletop, postproduction and talent curation to enhance Electric XR’s offerings as a resource for brands and agencies, as well as other production companies in need of virtual production solutions. Additionally Rossano continues to serve as EP at XR New York (XR-NY), a role he’s held since December 2022. SCHROM x Yacht Club originally established XR-NY to help provide XR services for third-party rentals. While XR-NY will continue to function independently for SCHROM X Yacht Club, it now operates under the Electric XR umbrella.
Rossano’s expertise spans producing live-action commercials, branded content, interactive and experiential content. In addition to leading Electric XR, he holds responsibilities at SCHROM x Yacht Club which include driving business development, collaborating with sales reps and expanding the company’s creative talent network. Rossano’s career includes serving as an exec producer at Hungry Man for about 11 years, right from that company’s inception. He then went on to become a partner at Station Film where he also had a lengthy tenure. Later he was a partner at PRISM. Then after the pandemic hit, he became a freelance EP for nearly two years, looking into opportunities in virtual production, which led him to XR NY and now Electric XR. Over the years, he has produced high-profile... Read More