Braden Bickle

My specialties, aside from being a creative director and manager of creative minds: strategic thinking, concepting ideas for "you name it", and art directing.

Beyond those essential skills I have several others that I have taught myself for the sake of broadening my skill set and dealing with lower budgets: writing, 3D animation and motion graphics, video and audio editing, consulting and brutal honesty.

I have multiple clients and work on multiple projects and mediums: print ads and collateral, logo designs, online and multi-platform mobile websites and advertising. Whenever possible I prefer to work with trusted partners and enjoy working remotely where applicable.

In my last year at Tribal I was creatively responsible for providing the creative direction, designing and leading teams to win the interactive accounts for Nokia, (RED) and Bud Light.

My day to day responsibilities included managing Exxon Mobil 1, Starbucks DoubleShot and Frappuccino, Nokia, (RED) and Bank of America as well as mentoring everyone within my creative team. I personally lead many new business efforts and handled various melodramatic events between staff members of various departments.

During my tenure at Tribal I worked on, and was responsible for, a host of clients with varying degrees of project and retainer budgets into the millions.

Ackerman gave me the opportunity to dig deep into TV. I concepted and produced many spots and felt really good about every single one of them, except maybe that little one we've all decided to pretend never existed.

Leapfrog was the most succesful account I worked on at Ackerman that rose from budgets of a few hundred thousand to a few million in just a couple of years. For the first few years I was a Senior Art Director.

When I was handed a project, I owned it from beginning to end. Not that I didn't have to show my work to my boss, but there was no hand holding and visions were created and seen through to the end.

I taught myself animation and motion graphics and started incorporating those into our television spots and client reels because we weren't getting what we wanted. It just cost too much money to try different options using vendors.

We worked insanely long hours. My philosophy, after being promoted to an Associate Creative Director, was this: "we all walk out together." This kept us a tight team. We looked out for one another and helped each other get the best creative product possible.

I had a lot of free reign at Levenson and Hill, which is the time period when I won several significant awards. I learned a tremendous amount about the dirty work behind the scenes of an organization as far as finances, open books, how many people need to be fired to keep the doors open, etc.

I was the creative conductor for several clients for a while and eventually all of them. Mentoring and inspiring art directors, writers, production artists and even the owners and veterans were things I enjoyed. It came as no surprise to anyone when I would paint a wall or grab our best pieces of work, frame them myself over a weekend and fill the halls with them. The agency was inspired by those methods and the clients and potential clients were impressed.