Month: June 2021

Tele Team Takes Home Three Emmys

Posted on June 24, 2021

The 47th Annual Southeast Emmy Awards took place this past Saturday, June 18, in celebration of hard-earned work and excellence in craft. This year’s nominees proved their resiliency by continuing to push out award-winning material despite the hurdles of 2020. Telegraph’s own creative team was no exception, bringing home three Emmys for videos produced on behalf of YellaWood and in support of Bham Strong. 

Our work would not be possible without our clients, who trust us to tell their stories with integrity and intentionality. Cheers to our clients, to our team of ideators, inventors and creators, and to continuing to execute on our mission to create art with a job to do. 

Check out our award-winning work, and learn more about the creative process behind the scenes.

Creators: Ginnard Archibald, Catherine May, Shannon Long and Susan Elliott Reach
Video: We Are Magic
Category: Public Service Announcement – Single Spot 

Creator: Ginnard Archibald
Video: We Are Magic
Category: Photographer – Short Form Content 

 

 

As the pandemic became part of Birmingham’s reality in the Spring of 2020, the Telegraph team felt a calling to reconnect the community of the Magic City. The creative leaders got together, and the concept for an anthemic video was born. “The way it related to the PSA category is that it was a rallying cry for the community. The goal of the piece was to try and bring people together and encourage everyone to support local businesses,” said Director of Video Content Cat May, who worked as a key director and producer of the video. 

Associate Creative Director Susan Elliott Reach was brought onto the project to craft a poetic script that would later be voiced-over by Mayor Woodfin in the final video. The words are a tribute to the city—a reminder that the people of Birmingham are truly what make the Magic City so special. “I love Birmingham, and the people here are what has made it feel like home for me. So when it was time to rally our community together in a difficult time, it hit me that ‘The Magic City’ has more than one meaning. The script and the imagery together create an ode to the resilient and courageous people that make Birmingham truly magical,” Susan said.

The team wanted to focus the video on local businesses as a way of encouraging Birmingham area residents to continue supporting small enterprises who were scrapping to survive. “The inspiration behind choosing the local businesses we highlight came from when I was walking the streets of Birmingham every day, shooting photography and picking up to-go food to try and support local shops,” said Director of Video Content Ginnard Archibald. Ginnard grabbed close-up shots of employees from each site to show the “resilience in their eyes.” His work earned him an Emmy as Photographer on this project.

As “We Are Magic” took shape, the team reached out to the Bham Strong Fund to find the best way to forward any funds and donations that may have been inspired by the video directly to them. The “We Are Magic” T-shirts were designed, and all funds were given to Bham Strong, and then funneled to local businesses. 

Creator: Michael Southerland
Video: Optimist Creed
Category: Graphic Arts – Visual Effects

The “Optimist Creed” isn’t just a poem—it’s a lifestyle that informs the choices, values and attitude of Great Southern Wood Founder and CEO Jimmy Rane. Jimmy’s father introduced him to the poem at an early age, and the verses stuck with him. Today, the “Optimist Creed” is a mantra whose words Jimmy strives to live by, to pass down to his children, and to inspire his employees in their daily work at GSW. 

Moved by the story behind the “Optimist Creed,” the creative team at Telegraph decided to use it as a key element in the YellaWood 50th anniversary campaign. “The original idea was to use B-roll over the voiceover of Jimmy reading the poem aloud,” said Cat. But after the first iteration was completed, the team felt it was missing something. Executive Creative Director Shannon Long suggested incorporating kinetic type, a technique that mixes motion and text to express ideas using video animation. 

Post Production and 3D Designer Michael Southerland was brought in to add 3D elements that would raise the caliber of the project to new heights. “There are four big scenes in the video that are all composed of 3D elements, while other scenes are real footage that utilize tracked motion graphics,” said Michael. The added components gave new life to the words that are lived out by the GSW family every day. 

Our team of creatives is in a constant state of evolution, imagining and reimagining how to best bring to life the work we do on behalf of our clients—and we couldn’t do it without them. Our dedication to collaboration, both internally and alongside our clients, is a testament to our obsession with finding the best possible ideas for our clients and their brands. We’re proud to celebrate our Emmy wins alongside them.  

Apple Updates Have the Tele Team Buzzing

Posted on June 14, 2021

The tech company announced their new software updates, and we’ve got the bite-sized take

Last week, Apple unveiled a sweeping array of software updates  at the 2021 WWDC (World Wide Developer Conference), including the new iOS 15, iPadOS 15, macOS Monterey, and watchOS 8. These software updates include SharePlay, Focus Mode, design changes to Safari and Apple Maps, and new privacy controls for Siri and Mail, to name a few. It’s an exciting time for anyone who uses Apple products as they continue to develop features and programs that make our lives easier and more productive. These features can also affect the way we think and function in a digital agency, and that has us thinking of ways we can utilize these features in our day-to-day work. 

Focus Feature

Lizzy Field, Project Administrator

Within our industry and across the world, the prioritization of long periods of deep, uninterrupted work time is growing. We see this in Apple’s new Focus feature that serves as a tool to help you reduce distractions from all of your Apple devices. You can customize your Focus feature to only allow certain people and apps to notify you. There can be multiple Focus filters for different times of your day, like Sleep or Work. This customizable feature could be the ultimate deep focus tool for getting into the zone. As a full-service agency, deep work is essential for our creative process, which is why we have Deep Work Wednesday each week—the perfect time for us to use the Focus feature.

Privacy Emails

Katelyn Boisvert, Digital Strategist

One of the features Apple announced on Monday is Mail Privacy Protection. This new update will limit the amount of data that emails can collect from their subscribers/consumers.

From Apple:

“Mail Privacy Protection stops senders from using invisible pixels to collect information about the user. [It prevents] senders from knowing when they open an email, and masks their IP address so it can’t be linked to other online activity or used to determine their location.”

What we know right now is that this affects any email opened from the Apple Mail app—no matter which email service is used, whether it’s a work account or a Gmail account, for example. Hence, you probably won’t be able to determine who opened your emails and when. But again, this only applies to users using the Apple Mail app.

What happens to open rate tracking?

Because we don’t yet know exactly how Apple will treat tracking pixels, we can’t say for sure how much of an impact Mail Privacy Protection will have on open rates. We believe you shouldn’t rely on opens as your sole performance metric in the first place, and that metrics such as clicks and conversions are just as important, so this update could be a reminder to include other metrics when making campaign decisions.

Live Text Using AI

David Hildebrand, Creative Director

Apple’s new Live Text feature digitizes the text in your photos by using on-device AI to recognize the text in an image. Live Text can come in handy when you want to look up the text in an image on the web, copy and paste it on another app, or call a phone number displayed in an image. You can copy the name of a restaurant sign and search for its location, turn handwritten notes into emails, and even search your camera roll for text-based images, like recipe cards and receipts. Unlike Google Lens, the processing of Live Text data happens completely within the iPhone device. It’s all done locally and never leaves your phone. This is a big step forward into the adoption of native AI functionality.

There could be a multitude of use cases for Live Text in the advertising field. For example, after a whiteboard brainstorming session. Simply snap a photo of the notes, copy and paste the text into a Slack channel, and you’re good to go.

TestFlight coming to Mac

Autumn Salazar, Project Coordinator

Testing is an integral part of developing/launching a new website, or in this specific case, an app. It is a long and tedious process that requires a lot of attention to detail, which can become overwhelming. TestFlight is an app that was developed in 2014 and is only available on iOS, but Apple announced that TestFlight is finally migrating over to MacOS later this fall.

This is a big step forward in the world of app testing that will ease the process for a lot of beta testers. With TestFlight, developers can invite up to 10,000 beta testers, receive feedback with ease, schedule automatic updates, launch the app directly from TestFlight, and more. Along with these special tools for testing, Apple also announced Xcode Cloud, an integration built into Xcode. This will allow Apple Developers to build apps in the cloud instead of having a dedicated build infrastructure. It will also include automated workflows, parallel testing with TestFlight, and the ability to record automatic feedback after an app crashes. 

From code, to design, to testing, and all the way up to deployment, Telegraph creates top-quality apps for our various clients. Using TestFlight means our team can deliver fully functional, customized apps in a shorter timeline with a more streamlined and seamless process. 

Universal Control

Kyle DeMarco, Senior Art Director

Two Words: Game Changer. The new Universal Control feature is a unique tool that allows users to effortlessly use a trackpad or mouse across Apple devices. No set up. No cables. Just drag your cursor across the screen, and you can fully control your device. And it doesn’t stop there. You can even drag and drop files across devices. Not just between two devices, but three (if you really need it).

Now, it may seem like a small feature, but it’s going to have a tremendous impact on workflow, especially across devices. Given that we are in a highly remote world, it’s not uncommon for people to have a laptop and desktop, or laptop and iPad, or even all three. The universal control feature is going to save so much time working between the devices. While working, it’s easy to get into the habit of constantly emailing or Slack messaging design files to ourselves, sending links to our own desktops, and AirDropping photos to one another. This new feature eliminates that middle-man step and allows us to work more quickly and freely.

Tele’s Takeaway

Technology moves quickly—as does the advertising industry. These new features give us exciting ways to evolve our working habits and creative processes, a must for full-service agencies in pursuit of the best ideas.