Not every great project comes with a client brief. These are the experiments, passion builds, and creative detours that keep the writing sharp and the brain weird.
Time. Backwards. That's Emmit — a sassy campus-connected time management app built for college students, by students. He's opinionated. He's helpful. He's not sorry about either. Built as a student project, EMMIT is proof that the best ideas come from living the problem.
Copy directed my NSAC team two years running. We partnered with Ocean Spray, built a full campaign from the ground up, and took home a National Student Gold ADDY. The campaign below is the full story — follow it from top to bottom.
We turned out some seriously cool work that year — and this one was all about saying thanks. Wrote the script for a sizzle reel celebrating 400 completed projects and the partners who made it happen. An internal creative that showed the team just how much they'd built.
I'm no morning person. But I woke up at the crack of dawn to play in the sand, get water splashed in my face, and run sprints to help a good friend produce this ADDY-winning work. Worth it? Absolutely.
I wasn't asked to do this — I recommended myself for the role. Turns out my face made the cut (microscopic, but visible). The back of me got a solid 2 minutes of airtime. Yes, that was a real Supreme reflector jacket. No, they wouldn't let me keep it.
With only minutes to spare, we entered this passion project into one of the world's most prestigious creative awards. No pencil — but a campaign so relevant to today's world that people would actually participate. That's a win.