Brian Wittman

If my 45+ years in this business has taught me anything... dogs rule. Be the ball. Ask. And, in the immortal words of Warren Zevon, "enjoy every sandwich."

Drawing on my experience as an "I want to be an artist" in a childhood filled with drawing and model building, it turns out not much changes. The tools, maybe, but not the intent. ■ My first real job was in a sign shop where I worked the summer and long enough to save up for my first camera. With limited surroundings I saw the world in a TriX black and white and most of my time in a darkroom, metaphorically speaking. ■ I worked side-by-side with my father for nearly 20 years—an OG Mad Men, Madison Avenue copywriter. He granted me the opportunity and grounding to produce ground-level commercial, communication arts where persuasion met percussion in a syncopation of lines and words, later bits and bytes. What everyone else would consider junk mail was our bread and butter. When paper and ink ruled, we were there to print more of it, reflecting the success of the campaigns we created. ■ My early association with John Kosh catapulted me into a feeding frenzy of entertainment design... album packages, tv titles, character identities, multi-dimensional design, the Billboard Music Award, then my own hipster, thirtysomething apparel, all things cigars and various other products, because I wanted them to exist. They didn’t. So I made and sold them. ■ That time would end (and begin) with the explosion of the internet and I was fortunate enough to become one of its early creative directors, the first, for a startup known as priceline.com - establishing the brand’s look and feel and voice. Directing Shatner is something you let him do, my reward was to sit back and watch him deliver the words I wrote and breathe life into the myriad of takes. The www world never closed. If you’re not inventing, reinvent. ■ Not much has changed, in all the evolution, the revolution and innovation the rules are about communication, finding the needs to fill, selling the sizzle and rethinking the steak for a plant-based alternative.