Happy Endings

05. petty

"Businessmen drink my blood like the kids in art school said they would."

☼

The following days were hectic for the Echo Culture staff. Everyone was so excited for the new client and what it meant for their agency, but it was also very much stressful and busy and overall dragging away, especially for Kellin.

He'd settled for a steady routine on the first few days of planning. He'd work on their other clients' tasks in the morning and focus on Scott St. Park after his lunch break. So far it was working, but it was still very tiring. He had to do way more and the energy of the whole office wasn't helping. Everyone ran around and there were meetings almost all the time which also took time for Kellin to work. He swore there was nothing worse than meetings sometimes, but it was all part of the job.

It was around a week later that they all had another full staff meeting to review the progress they've made. Ever since the big announcement of getting the park as a client, Kellin had researched a lot and came up with the start of the Strategic Brand Communications Plan with Phoebe. He thought he was making good progress but that was also for Trenton to decide.

So far he'd written down the plan's objectives and goals and looked into the vast audience the park has. It was rather interesting to research so much about a local place that's been around as long as Scott St. has.

Kellin had also started outlining the strategies and the key messages for the plan, two of the most important components (and his favorite) of any communications plan. He always saw that section as a way of turning everything written down into life and it was the most fun because he got to work on those with the designers. He always needed art pieces to go with the plan, that way the clients fell in love with it and accepted the plan more easily. They always loved to visualize things rather than read a bland document and that's why Kellin couldn't wait to get to that part.

He wondered which one of the triplets would work with him on that this time. Last campaign he worked with Lynn but out of the three designers, he worked best with Sierra. They always came up with the best ideas and Trenton always liked what they presented. He wished he could work with Ryan more often too, but since he's the Senior Designer, he got other tasks assigned and he was always busy more often than not. Either way, he made a mental note to go talk to the Creative Director after the full staff meeting was done to look into that.

At the meeting, Trenton was his usual happy optimistic self the whole time. He loved everything that was sent to him, but he still gave his feedback on many aspects too. Everyone took the constructive comments with understanding nods and smiles. The CEO was the type of guy that told someone everything they worked on sucked with a smile on his face and with a completely different choice of words. A sugar coater. Kellin admired that about him a lot. He could never do that, he'd tell it to their faces with no filter whatsoever.

When it was time to review Kellin's work, he was relieved that it got the least feedback and that he didn't have to listen to Trenton be all rainbows on him for too long. He was on a good path with the plan, only some little corrections here and there. Phoebe wrote everything down and gave Kellin a satisfied nod when his time with Trenton was done. Kellin offered a small, grateful smile in return.

Then after the big meeting was over, he went to visit John as he planned earlier. 

When he got there he saw Creative Director sitting at his desk, a little crease in between his brows as he read over something on a big book on top of his desk. He could barely make out the name of it but it must've been something related to branding. 

John's office was located right beside Phoebe's, separated by another glass door and walls. Kellin liked John's office, with all the posters and colors and discarded prints from old campaigns everywhere and so many Pantone swatch cards and different design books scattered on the desk. The back wall was barely visible with everything pasted on it and it always brought him down memory lane seeing all the campaigns he'd been part of before there on display.