Five past ADC Young Guns winners - three "veterans" and two newcomers - will be featured in the first pair of four upcoming Backstory | ADC Young Guns Live events. The lecture series ties in with the current ADC Young Guns 7 competition for creatives and designers age 30 or younger.
This year's Backstory | ADC Young Guns Live pairs a more experienced past winner or team with a member of last year's ADC Young Guns 6 class. At the events, speakers will present their groundbreaking portfolio of work and discuss the evolution of their creative approach throughout their career. A total of four lectures will take place this year, two in May and June and two in the fall.
"We've doubled our ADC Young Guns Backstory evenings to provide year-round programming, including the ADC Young Guns annual competition, the exhibition, and social gatherings," said Ami Brophy, CEO, ADC. All lectures take place at the ADC Gallery in New York, and are sponsored by Adobe.
The first Backstory | ADC Young Guns Live event on May 14, entitled Digi-tales, features Rei Inamoto, CCO at AKQA (YG4 class) teamed up with Justin Meredith, CD at Thornberg & Forester (YG6).
Rei Inamoto is one of the most award-winning creatives in the interactive space with multiple Grand Prix and Golds from leading awards shows, and handles global programs for clients such as Nike, Xbox, Coca-Cola and McDonald's. He also serves as vice president on the ADC Board of Directors.
Since graduating in 2005, Justin Meredith has completed spots for Target, Microsoft Zune, the network launch of Discovery Channel's Planet Green, branding materials for the PlayStation 3 Network, and the opening title sequence of the 2008 AICP Awards Show. His work has also appeared in the Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of Art and the Tokyo Auto Show.
The second staging of Backstory | ADC Young Guns Live on June 11 is entitled +&, featuring the Wieden+Kennedy, Portland creative team of Chris Hutchinson and Driscoll Reid (both YG5) and Menno Kluin, art director at Young & Rubicam, New York.
Driscoll Reid grew up in Vermont and graduated from Skidmore College; Chris Hutchinson was raised in California and graduated from the University of Oregon. They met in 2004 in the first group of 12, Wieden+Kennedy's school/experiment, where they decided to team up and were subsequently hired by W+K. They recently returned to the Portland office after a two-year stint in the agency's Tokyo office working on Nike Asia.
Menno Kluin is an art director at Y&R, New York. He began his career three years ago at Saatchi & Saatchi, and within two years in the business was ranked by Creativity magazine as the "Most Awarded Art Director" in the world. He currently works on clients including Bacardi, LG, Colgate, VH1 and Land Rover.