Today in Tom’s class. A brief summary: banana cannon, graffiti is an old hat, “You are writing what you think are ads,” prismism. You can’t be successful if you’re always safe, but you have to make sense.You can’t be successful if you don’t give your work the effort it deserves. Okay is failure. 18-year-olds are sophisticated message consumers.

This was one (the best one, which says a lot) of the several thumbnails I submitted for critique. It was really heartbreaking having Tom read the headlines out loud as if they weren’t the funniest things ever. He went quickly through them, one after another slowly tearing down my expectations of being hailed the next Julian Koenig (copywriter for Think Small campaign). This is my first hurdle, the first of many times that I will think I am not sharp enough to be in advertising. He said, be straight-faced when I make the joke. Advertising audiences love piecing it together themselves, working for the reward of looking like a Magic Eye painting. I can’t give away the joke. He suggested that maybe from this brainstorm I take the idea of “magic isn’t the answer” with me and try some more at this thumbnailing business. That being said, I have a lot of thinking to do.