July 2010
7 posts
8 tags
The Fats Boys for Swatch.
Fat Boys for Swatch on Vimeo.
This commercial is Alan and all his talents at their best.
Our great friend and colleague from MTV, Nancy Kadner, had bought me a Swatch when they were first imported in 1983. Two years later Max Imgrueth had set up a US office and she was running marketing. Since Swatch’s approach was essentially the same as MTV’s ever changing logo she sensed a...
7 tags
We can't meet Mr. Brown?!
Unity from fredseibert on Vimeo. “PEACE! UNITY! LOVE! And HAVING FUN!“
Over nine years, Fred/Alan only made two* music videos**, but they were both doozies. First up, James Brown and Afrika Bambaata. I mean, wow, wouldn’t it too cool to work with The Minister of the New New Super Heavy Funk?
JB was half a decade away from his latest chart hit and hip-hop was beginning to...
9 tags
Nickelodeon's hero.
See more of our Nickelodeon posts here.
Nickelodeon: Everyday Hero on Vimeo.
Writer/producer Scott Webb is probably the creative hero more responsible for the Nickelodeon you love everyday than almost any other single person. It’s not for nothing that he began at Nick as a writer/producer and went on to become the network’s worldwide creative director.
In June of 1984 Fred/Alan...
4 tags
"Positioning" MTV. 1987.
Positioning MTV: Music Television
Throughout the 80s, our in-house creative team at MTV had established all the original vocabulary (written and visual) for the channel. In 1983, Alan and I resigned and set up Fred/Alan as the media’s first “branding” consultancy and advertising agency. Bob Pittman was a smart and shrewd competitor; he signed us right back up. MTV Networks...
1 tag
Our last office
1991-1992
Fred/Alan, Inc. 708 Broadway @4th Street New York City
1 tag
Our first office.
1983-1988
870 Seventh Avenue, @56th Street The Omni Park Central Hotel New York City Original production home of the Jackie Gleason Show
….. The original Fred/Alan office was incredibly ugly. The evidence in these posted pictures (and the few others we’ve saved) should give you a slight taste of someone’s warmed over mid-century lack of sense. But, it didn’t really...
11 tags
Rock school?
A few years in the company was getting a little worn out exclusively working on branding projects, and we looked for assignments that would get us a little closer to the television show productions we hoped for when we started the company in 1983. Sometimes things would come our way that allowed us to bridge past our visible strengths towards our bigger goals. Like Rockschool.
This was a wacky...