The PAF and The Art Institute of Portland gallery have joined forces this year & will be featuring the award winning work exclusively from November 8-28.

The Art Institute of Portland

1122 NW Davis St

Portland, OR 97209

503 228 6528

I can proudly say I accepted my dipolma in style - that is NO shoes, barefoot baby! I had been picturing this day for months & it was every bit surreal as I’d imagined. I was on such a high (probably induced from the infamous polyester graduation robe). I have officially left the nest!

None of this would’ve been possible without the support of my husband, family & friends. I owe much of my gratitude to my partner in crime. His ability to endure the long evenings I spent glued to my computer, listening to endless babble about ideas for new projects & supporting every project I took on (and there were many!) allowed me to grow in ways I never thought possible. Thank you.

Here’s a small sample of my final portfolio. Enjoy!

Kristin Wall sample portfolio (PDF)

I’ve been attending the graduate portfolio show for the past 2+ years, eagerly anticipating the work of my fellow students, learning from their successes & failures. Now it’s my turn.

I enrolled in the Advertising program at AiPD in the fall of 2004 and for the past 3+ years it’s been a constant struggle to find a balance between school (in & out of the classroom), work and being a wife & a mom. There have been many sleepless nights to say the least and many sacrifices made along the way, but I knew the payoff would be priceless.

During my time at AiPD, I’ve had the opportunity to accomplish some pretty amazing things. Two notable items worth mentioning:

1. Recipient of the Gold Student ADDY award in March 2007 for a cervical cancer awareness public service announcement
2. Founder, VP of brashcreative (a student organized advertising agency that works with Portland businesses to develop integrated creative solutions)

Words can’t describe how good it feels to finally finish my BS and at the same time help create a legacy that other students will benefit from in the years to come.

In the last few days before graduation, I’m trying to stay sane and must remind myself that it’s ok to sleep. The infamous portfolio will live on…

We did it again…

Kathleen, my ever-faithful friend who will do just about anything for the sake of art (well, almost anything…) agreed to go dumpster diving so I could capture the essence of how cigarette cravings make a person crazy.

To prepare for the concept, I did a bit of research on dumpster diving. I was amazed to learn how many websites are dedicated to the “art” of dumpster diving. More than that, I was shocked to learn just how much food and other essential items are tossed away. Palettes and crates of perfectly good food thrown out every day. Meanwhile, the local soup kitchen has a line out the door and kids are going to school without breakfast.

Why is this? Are we too lazy to take our extras to those in need? Is it too much of an inconvenience to take a few moments out of our day to help someone other than ourselves? Just some thoughts out loud…

Anyway, hope you get a good laugh from this. Enjoy!

You can view the entire campaign in the post below “All for the Addy’s”

You can view the entire winning list here:
http://ad2seattle.org/StudentADDYsPR.pdf

All Gold winning entries have been automatically forwarded to the
District Competition, which is currently being judged and District
winners will be announced the week of April 2nd and posted online
April 20th. The winning entries for the District Competition will be
forwarded to the National Competition and Awarded at the AAF National
Conference June 9-11.

Keeping my fingers crossed…

Thanks again to those who contributed to this campaign!

The campaign consisted on three posters,intended to be a public service announcement for cervical cancer awareness, aimed at young men and women, ages 18-25. This was a project I’d started about four months earlier as a class assignment and with a lot of critique and feedback, it developed into a portfolio worthy campaign. I went to great lengths to make sure the campaign was executed properly.

1. Selected the models
2. Took all of the photographs
3. Art directed the project from start to finish
4. Paid great attention to detail in terms layout and design

I was extremely proud of the work I’d completed and there was NOTHING that would stop me from submitting this campaign to the Student Addy’s. Of course, the moment I said that, everything that could go wrong, went wrong.

The day before the deadline:

• my files went corrupt
• my flash drive burned up
• missed the deadline to FedEx overnite

Someone in the print service center at The Art Institute suggested driving to the School of Visual Concepts, located in Seattle, to drop off my submission. Ummm…I’m in Portland and it’s only 3 hours to Seattle…do it or not do it? I figured I’d been through this much turmoil, what’s a few hours on the road? I wanted to see this project through to the end #!&* it!

The next morning I told my work I was sick, cancelled all of my appointments for the day and was on the road by 7:30am with a three hour playlist of jammin’ tunes on my iPod. Did I mention we were experiencing freakishly cold weather here in Portland and it had begun snowing? I didn’t care - I would drive through rain, sleet and snow to get this damn project submitted! And I did - drive through snow -lots of it.

It’s been one hell of a month! I’ve taken up Muay Thai boxing. Partly due to conducting research for a school project. But mostly out of curiosity and now I’m hooked. I’ve been taking classes for about 3 1/2 weeks and feel incredible. It’s a hell of a workout. The techniques taught and practiced in class are mind blowing. You want me to elbow you where? You want me to jab you there? You want me to kick you WHERE? Hell yes! Between the workout with individual partners and the heavy bags, I’m on my way to becoming a lean mean fightin’ machine. This sport is no joke. Check out my “badges” of honor - courtesey of the 8 heavy bag stations. And these bruises are nearly a week old. I guess you can say I’m offically broken in. I can see already that this is going to be an interesting journey for both the body and mind. Bring it!