JerryBrown is founder and creative director of cheapblue, his own branding and design studio, and himself.com, a web design studio, both in West Hollywood. Formerly Senior (Executive) Creative Director for the IBM Innovation Center : Los Angeles, Jerry continues to create special projects for IBM, as well as other major clients such as Lenovo, Ford, Lincoln and Diners Club. In addition, he works for many smaller, private clients like stein.to and Weimar Rundfunk, and is especially proud of his creative work for non-profits like US Variety - the Children's Charity, St. Ambrose and likemike.us.

Named as one of the Internet's two top Identity Shapers in Harriet Rubin's "Soloing," he brings a unique combination of communication, interactive and cultural skills to his clients. Since 1995, he has managed and manned the creative development of various interactive projects, ranging in scope from forms-enabled ad banners, written in Java, to robust e-commerce sites for luxury retailers. Prior to his interactive work, he drove the creative for several world-known advertising campaigns, including McDonald’s, State Farm Insurance, SC Johnson, General Mills, NyQuil and others. He also played an integral part in New Product Development for Quaker Oats, Star Kist, Gerber, Van de Kamp’s and The Budget Gourmet. Additionally, he is noted for his presentation and client skills, and is an award-winning journalist, playwright and actor.

Successes:

Mr. Brown joined IBM in February, 2001, and brought a new level of stability and energy to the creative department. With his teaming and one-on-one management styles, he gained the confidence of his reports, peers and managers alike. He worked closely with Marketing and Center Executives to create a viable selling proposition for the Centers -- as the e-world continued to shift -- and headed the creation of the presentation and interactive materials to support it. He was also proactive in the development of new, short-term offerings to generate quick-hit revenue from existing and potential clients.

Jerry enjoyed success in his previous employment, as Western Region Creative Director for Nexgenix, by developing a methodology that brought the creative and technical teams together in a unique, shared work environment. This effort, and the presentations he created to support it, helped bring several Fortune 500 companies onto the client base. In a presentation he called "How to build an Interface," he gained the confidence of a large computer manufacturer, who instantly awarded him a web project that had already been slated for another company. He led his team in the creation of several retail dot.coms, many of which are still viable and operational.

Jerry founded tinstring, his own Interactive and Branding company in La Jolla, California, and created an unusually successful niche business, in which he created custom websites for high profile tech executives. It was this work which earned him recognition as one of the nation's top Identity Shapers. It was also from this company that he began to advocate a simplified, functionality-based methodology for web and user interface design.

In his role as Creative Director of the transactional media unit of First Virtual (later MessageMedia), in San Diego, he teamed with tech developers to create successful interactive applications for Estee Lauder, Forbes, NyNex, AT&T, Mac and PC Zones and others, including the first interactive fundraising banner for United Cerebral Palsy. He also teamed with the company's senior architects and engineers to develop VirtualADz, the first developer technology for creating superrich Java applets, which compiled at 12K and below, making them accessible to major banner networks.

Previous to joining the interactive world, Jerry was responsible for creating several world-known advertising campaigns for clients such as McDonald's, State Farm Insurance, Johnson Wax, General Mills, NyQuil and others.

Areas of Expertise:

Management: Skilled in both one-on-one and team management, with a focus in the creative arena. Jerry understands that creative employees often have professional needs which go unrecognized by others, and is able to help shape career paths, develop learning programs, and identify and acknowledge exceptional qualities in those employees who need to be moved into key performance roles. He is also adept at shadow managing the work of associates in other fields and departments, and in leading arbitration sessions with both clients and employees.

ID and Branding: Jerry is particularly expert at spotting and defining the distinctions that will set a brand apart from the rest. His skills with perception techniques date back to his early education abroad, where he learned that most things are rarely what they appear to be, and, even if they were, everyone would view them differently. He has utilized what has now become an instinct to craft powerful, evocative Identification, Branding and Experience campaigns for a number of national and international companies.

Creative: As a writer, designer and programmer, Jerry can cover all bases when necessary, and has been known to gladly jump in whenever either expert or grunt help is needed. Being multi-disciplined, he is especially adept at getting the best out of his staff and encouraging them to take new risks in their work. His personal work has been labeled "classy, clean, distinctive and evocative," and is a look and feel he can bring to anything.

Education:

While Mr. Brown attended several colleges and universities in pursuit of a degree in Architecture, he is largely self-taught in the communications and web environment. He was fortunate to be mentored early in his advertising career by Keith Reinhard -- now chairman and CEO of DDB Worldwide -- in the use of narrative, image and personal experience to create unusually powerful communications, which he developed into several nationally recognized ad campaigns. Jerry has brought these talents, which are now recognized as experience skills, into the interactive world and has integrated them in the form of a functionality-driven, user based methodology.

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