Meet the newest Six Footer, Tom Richard.

Most of us at Six Foot think Tom Richard has superpowers. He illustrates. He animates. He designs. He manages teams. He raises cattle. He can carry on a conversation with anyone for any amount of time. He does a little of everything. But he is a master of 3D. And that is why he’s on our team, now.

A Houston transplant by way of Louisiana, Tom brings 25 years of advertising design experience to Six Foot. Just prior to coming on board, he ran his own animation shop for 10 years, creating award-winning animations for companies in the energy sector.

When asked why Tom shuttered his own venture to join the madness at Six Foot, Tom confessed, “I’ve spent so many years of my career working with good people, but here I’m surrounded by truly great professionals from every discipline. Even though I’ve been around the block, you can’t stop learning in this business, and you learn from the people you surround yourself with.”

As lead animator, Tom’s main focus at Six Foot is developing animations for clients in the energy industry like Baker Hughes, Shell, and Halliburton. He is also working closely with our Emerging Technology team to generate new offerings for our clients.

Although his talents shine through on a daily basis, he does have a few human tendencies. When asked to pick his ideal superpower, he wasted no time in sharing his response in his flat Cajun accent. “To fly. Cause I hate traffic.”

Such is the plight of the commuting Cajun cowboy.

*A special thanks to Pop Chart Lab of Brooklyn, NY for publishing such awesome posters, like the one featured in the pic.

In our business, it’s a joy to work on projects that directly make a difference in our community and the world, which is why we are deeply proud of our work for CineCause. We recently launched the website for our Los Angeles-based client, which is an organization dedicated to raising money and awareness for environmental and social causes through the power of cinema.

CineCause marks a breakthrough in how filmmakers can reach audiences and spread their messages. By offering a single location where people can preview films, learn about causes addressed in the films, see which celebrities are involved, and make donations, CineCause brings like-minded people together to watch great cinema and make a difference in the world.

Keeping in mind that the CineCause website caters to a number of very disparate audiences, Six Foot designed a very clean, easy-to-navigate site built upon an advanced information architecture. Because the CineCause site contains a large amount of important content, the IA team at Six Foot employed a complex cross-linking strategy throughout the site. Every cause links to other related causes within the site, helping to expose visitors to other organizations that share their passion, and helping to increase search engine results, of course.

Six Foot also worked with CineCause to develop a content strategy that grouped content by film, cause, and celebrity, giving visitors a simple way to discover a whole world of socially and environmentally conscious films, organizations and celebrities.

Hopefully our work on the site will move CineCause one step closer to realizing its goals. We love independent films and we love when our work can make a difference, and it didn’t hurt that we had the chance to work with images of our celebrity crushes either.

 Check it out here:
http://www.cinecause.com/

For its work on the AT&T Connect Overview video, Six Foot took home a Lantern, the top honor for the Video category at this year’s BMA Lantern Awards. Six Foot Lead Animator, Tom Richard; Account Executive, Kyla Kennedy; Designer, Ricardo Romero; and Senior Writer, Matt Walsh were all on hand to receive the award.

“It was great to see our work recognized by the Business-to-Business marketing community,” noted Kennedy, “We hope we raised the bar a bit for B2B marketing—we think that just because something is B2B, doesn’t mean it has to look like B2B.”

Six Foot’s video, affectionately known around the agency as “The Old Guy Video,” is the story of Mr. Theodore Hodgson, Founder and CEO of HMI, Inc. Ornery and old fashioned, he simply will not let go of his traditional business ways. He wants bodies in the office and butts in chairs. It’s only when he realizes that his colleagues are secretly using AT&T Connect to work remotely and save the company money, that he wises up and embraces technology.

Watch the video>>

Learn more about AT&T Connect>>

On a recent Saturday morning in Houston, three Six Footers awoke quite early, much earlier than usual, to do something good for their souls—help students figure out what to do with their lives and give them tips and tricks on how to break into the advertising business. The event was the 2011 AAF-Houston Student Conference, where hundreds of hopeful young ad professionals traveled from their respective universities—UH, SFA, OU, OSU, LSU, TCU, and many others—to put together marketing campaigns for the sponsor of the event, Dr.Pepper/Snapple. Student teams worked at area agencies all day Friday, and presented Friday night. Then, come Saturday morning, they were ready to absorb knowledge from professionals in the business.

Six Foot Senior Copywriter, Matt Walsh, who sits on the AAF Student Conference committee and organized the Saturday events, recruited and/or guilt-tripped Creative Director, Cynthia Stipeche, and Account Executive, Kyla Kennedy to join the movement. First, the trio from Six Foot reviewed student portfolios and resumes, offering advice here and there, then, Cynthia sat on a panel that discussed the do’s and don’ts of the advertising industry job search.

“I remember, oh so fondly, those terrifying days when I was looking for my first gig,” notes Stipeche, “There were people in the business who took time out to help me. So we all need to give back to students when we can. I just hope we didn’t scare too many of them off.”

For those students who weren’t scared off, we’ll be looking for interns in the Spring or we’ll probably see you next fall at the 2012 AAF Student Conference.

A team of Six Footers recently attended the 2011 Game Developers Conference held in Austin, TX. It was a full four days of all things game development, everything from building a franchise to building the code. We had the privilege of spending some quality time with the teams from Blizzard, Valve, and BioWare, among others. Why did Six Foot go to GDC, you ask? Because we love games and design games and find that working game theory into “non-game” projects is a highly effective way to get people engaged with a brand. And besides, what medium combines interactivity, art, story, music, and technology in a more powerful way than games do?

It was a stellar event. Six Foot stamp of approval.

In every office this morning, the talk was of Steve Jobs. How he inspires us. How he changed the way we share with each other. How he made technology a part of everyone’s life, even our moms. And how he legitimized the power of design to impact brands and to elevate the human condition.

From all of us at Six Foot, even the PCers in the office, we say thanks, Steve. Well done.

Yes. We know. We look a lot like the Oompa-Loompas from the TV room, but we had a great time on set shooting one of our latest videos for AT&T. We’ll be posting the finished piece soon.