Hi. We’re Mortar, a San Francisco advertising and branding agency dedicated to transforming eye-opening insights into head-tilting ideas. We don’t just think outside the box; we throw the box out the window. In this internship, you’ll do a lot more than make coffee—you’ll make designs and layouts for real projects, client-facing and internal. You’ll support our creative team daily. You’ll collaborate with our account management and new business teams. You’ll sit in on meetings, see how an agency works, and learn the process of producing a campaign, from strategy to concept to execution. You’ll even get to give back to the community by working with the Mortar Foundation, our nonprofit arm that empowers underprivileged youth through better education, health, and safety.

Our current client roster runs the gamut from museums, to universities, to robot vacuum cleaners, and no two projects are alike—whether we’re shooting video, dreaming up outdoor ads, or designing a logo for a new startup. This is a full-time, paid opportunity that runs from June through August.

 

Responsibilities:

Your tasks will vary depending on what our clients and internal teams need, but will likely include the following:

• Create original layouts and artwork for print and digital media
• Execute on creative direction from senior designers
• Conduct image searches
• Crop, resize, and retouch images
• Create design mockups for presentations
• Set up documents, and prepare files for production
• Participate in meetings/brainstorms
• Communicate with vendors

 

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in graphic design, advertising, or related field (must have graduated by May 2015)
• Portfolio that demonstrates graphic design and ad concepting skills
• Strong knowledge of Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Acrobat)
• Familiar with user interface design
• Strong critical thinker and problem solver
• Excellent communicator, both verbal and written
• Positive attitude—we don’t believe in egos here
• Experience with HTML, Flash, 3D software, or AfterEffects is a plus
• If you can illustrate, that’s a bonus, too

 

Assignment:

In addition to sending us your baller résumé and personalized cover letter, we want to see you get creative. At Mortar, we have a few intrinsic brand values that guide everything we do (listed below). Your task is to pick one and show us what it means to you.

 

Collaboration: We take it to the extreme, inside Mortar and with clients and friends.

Honesty: We keep it real, every step of the way.

Ideas: We believe they can come from anyone and anywhere (we mean it).

Momentum: We move forward together to keep the ideas going and flowing.

People: We enjoy all of it with—and as—happy and passionate people.

San Francisco: Is at our center. It’s different here, and we embrace it.

 

There are only two rules for this assignment: Be original, and be yourself. Execution style is totally open—but please keep videos under 2 minutes, essays under 500 words, or do something completely different. (Just know that we have the attention span of a monkey.)

To apply for this position, send your resume, cover letter, and creative submission to iwanttowork@mortaragency.com by April 19, 2015 at midnight PST. And write “Design Intern” in your email subject line. Future Mortarons, we can’t wait to meet you!

 

For the past three years, our client Qumulo has been nose-to-the-grindstone, building a brand new, category-defining solution to enterprise storage woes. Last week, their long-awaited product was unveiled to the world. Ladies and gentlemen, Qumulo Core!

 

 

 

 

 

Ta da! 

Don’t see anything? That’s a good thing. See, what makes Qumulo’s product so extraordinary is that it makes storage invisible. They’re shifting the conversation from one purely about hardware, to one that focuses on software. While we can’t show you the software per se, we can show you its powerful data analytics.

Here’s the problem enterprises face: Their digital content is growing exponentially, and when you’re dealing with millions to billions of assets, your storage system becomes one big black box of mystery. Admins can’t see who last touched this file; when that asset can be thrown away; or who’s impacting performance and capacity.

Qumulo makes this data visible. It’s invaluable insight that’s about to make life a zillion times easier for media and entertainment companies, life sciences research firms, universities, and more. In addition to naming the flagship product, Qumulo Core, we designed and built a website that captures the whole Qumulo story. Watch the demo below, or demo it yourself here.

 

 

Qumulo’s vision for the site was simplicity, clarity, and showcasing the software. So we shot macro video clips of Qumulo Core in action, putting that incredible insight front and center.

And since no product launch would be complete without a raging party, we helped Qumulo brand their big event. Qumulo Core makes storage invisible, and data visible. It’s a bit like magician’s work, or a mind-bending circus act. So we gave them a fitting theme: See the Unseen.

 

 

We created banner signs and posters with a futuristic feel and mysterious glow, inspired by Qumulo’s Q0626 hardware product. The launch party went down at Emerald City Trapeze Arts in Seattle, packed with reality-defying performances by aerial dancers and a unicycling bagpiper. We’re glad Qumulo knows there’s only way to launch a product: in the biggest way imaginable. After all, YOLO (you only launch once).

Nah. It’s definitely something. Something HUGE. We just can’t tell you what it is. What we can tell you is that we’ve been working with startup Qumulo over the past year to brand their upcoming software product. And very soon, they’ll be introducing a revolutionary new approach to enterprise storage. And this is the delightfully cryptic teaser site we created for them. Now we’re gonna have to kill you. Sorry.

Qumulo recently received $40 million in funding, and the press is all atwitter about it—Forbes, Fortune, WSJ, GigaOm, TechCrunch, and more. Pretty impressive, considering the product hasn’t even launched yet. Keep up the mystery, guys. You make the CIA look like Perez Hilton.

 

 

When you go to museums it usually involves learning about something or someone else. The Exploratorium’s new Science of Sharing exhibits are something completely different. You actually learn about yourself. Will you like what you learn about “you”?

Ponder that, people.

Do you act for the common good, or your own good?

Over the past few months, we partnered with the Exploratorium to promote the exhibits to the entire Bay area. But first we had to learn everything we could about The Science of Sharing. We were taught that similar to chemistry and physics, there’s also a science behind human thought and behavior. The Science of Sharing exhibits take societal challenges—like trust, cooperation and competition—and turns them into fun, problem-solving activities and experiences.

During our concept phase, lightning struck. The aim of the exhibits is to generate discussion and provoke thought around why we do the things we do, right? So why not create ads that do just that? Get Bay Area residents to ponder their behavior right in their native environment.

This billboard was placed at the 101/80 ramp in San Francisco, a hotbed for road rage.

From bus shelters to digital billboards to coffee sleeves, we sure got people pondering. The units even featured a hashtag (#SocialDilemma) so they could weigh in on why they do the things they do. But we went way beyond just ads. We also made the discussion mobile by taking over San Francisco MUNI trains and turning them into “Conversation Cars.”

Our Conversation Cars turned passengers into ponderers.

Each Conversation Car posed questions that were relevant to a rider’s experience and got people contemplating while commuting. Do you put your bags on the seat, or at your feet? Should you just sit there, or is it okay to start talking to strangers? Is MUNI a call-free zone, or do you blab loudly and incessantly on your phone during the entire trip, annoying riders that are even three cars away? (Not that we’re judging.)

We also posed San Francisco denizens with perhaps one of the most pressing dilemmas of our times…especially in a city where the dogs outnumber the children.

We created quite a movement.

A guerrilla-style marketing attack in the form of hundreds of pieces of fake dog poop scattered in San Francisco parks and on city streets was launched last week. Each “land mine” featured a sign asking passers-by if they’d clean up after their dogs if no one was around. The stunt was so attention-grabbing that our plastic poop propaganda pieces became collector’s items as people scooped them up and carried them home.

Also running are the following radio spots we produced for Pandora. There’s no judgment here.

The Science of Sharing exhibits are open now at the Exploratorium, so head over to Pier 15 and get baffled by your own behavior.

And the next time you’re merging onto the Bay Bridge, eating a curry dish on BART, or taking Fido out to do his business, don’t be surprised if you hear a little voice in your head asking, “Why do you do what you do?”

(For those keeping score, the answer to the question in the headline of this post is: BOTH.)