Ad Designer Gets Another Foot on Ladder of Success
His could be the feet that launch a thousand ads.
Six months ago, a visiting advertising executive from Reebok spotted a display of off-the-wall photos that Culver City graphic designer Scott Mednick had taken on various vacations of his--and his wife’s--feet. This week, the same feet are being featured in a series of Reebok print ads nationwide.
But more than the 34-year-old Mednick’s feet are making him famous these days. Grabbing several chunks of Reebok’s print advertising business from a giant Boston ad agency is another major coup for Scott Mednick & Associates, a graphic design firm that two years ago was unexpectedly named to create all print advertising for CBS television. Those ads were formerly handled by one of New York’s largest agencies. Now, some say, the upstart graphics design firm is blurring--if not redefining--the business of advertising and design on the West Coast.
“Advertising agencies look at me and wonder: ‘Who the hell is he? What does he know about advertising?’ ” said Mednick, who wears two earrings on his left ear and whose hair flows halfway down his back. “Design firms look at me and ask: ‘What is he doing?’ ”
What Mednick is doing is operating one of the few graphic design firms in Los Angeles that has not been battered by the recession. Six years ago, Mednick opened a one-man shop out of his Encino home. Today, he has 70 employees and posts $10 million in annual billings.
After years of trying to establish any kind of an image, Reebok executives believe that Mednick’s “foot” ad campaign may finally give the company some legs to stand on. “He is on the leading edge of marketing designers,” said David Ropes, vice president of marketing at Reebok. “He doesn’t just design. He delivers through marketing.”
When CBS turned to Mednick for its print ads two years ago, there were plenty of doubts, admits Michael Mischler, vice president of advertising. “Here we were going from a multimillion-dollar agency to a little design firm. It turned out to be a great move.”
Mednick’s firm creates print ads for such hit CBS shows as “Murphy Brown” and “Major Dad.”
Competitors are confused--if not envious. Most design firms are hired to design things such as corporate logos and annual reports--but not ad campaigns. Mednick does them all.
“He is generating new business in a difficult climate. But how long he can sustain it?” posed Robert Kahn, executive director at Landor Associates, a San Francisco corporate identity firm. “He relies heavily on entertainment clients, and they have very short attention spans.”
One rival calls Mednick an enigma. “Most of the design industry is way down,” said Keith Bright, whose Venice design firm Bright & Associates has shrunk from 70 employees to 15 in two years. “He’s doing something the marketplace is buying: loud, colorful, trendy stuff.”
Whatever Mednick is doing, it’s working. Besides blue chip clients CBS and Reebok, he also does graphic design projects for Coca-Cola and Pioneer Electronics. At the same time, his agency created the familiar logo for Earth Day 1990 and a logo for West Hollywood.
“I’m a graphic designer who thinks like an advertising guy,” said Mednick, who is building a reputation not just for what he does but for what he won’t do. He won’t create designs for tobacco or liquor firms, defense contractors or firms that harm the environment.
“Something like this couldn’t have happened anywhere but in Los Angeles,” said Mednick, who was raised in Randolph, Mass., a small town outside Boston. “The pressures to conform are too great in Boston, Chicago or New York.”
