Business screen magazine (1946)

"pHE American open house, long recog■' nized as one of our culture's most archaic nstitutions, took a giant step towards the wentieth century with the aid of mixed-melia and an enterprising, young advertising gency in Long Beach, California. A "creative environment" open house was )lanned to open a new suite of offices loated high above the Long Beach shorefront or three-year-old Davis & Associates Adertising. The agency wanted to show more han just furnishings and panelled wallboard. t felt the event should reflect the environment if advertising, showing creativity, sensory timulation, and imagery common to the dvertising world. This made the usual open house with its terile formality and ghastly small talk, both aappropriate and obsolete. Agency Creative Director Jim Szalapski esigned a format intended to strikingly inolve the senses and emotions of the 400 ;uests invited. Relying heavily on mixedledia, the physical format is shown in the ccompanying diagram showing spatial relaionships of the various elements selected for he open house. The event was announced by a mailer k'hich included an oversize psychedelic poster ntroducing the agency principals with short, liptical prose statements, and a colorful initation written in the spatial style of e. e. ummings asking the receiver to "open your nind . . . inside the hyper-creative environs )f advertising," at the agency's open house. In short, an unusual experience in the form )f an open house was promised to those hoosing to attend. Upon arriving, guests were given a short our of the new offices with art facilities, hen were shuttled in small groups by elevaor down to a large, bare concrete-floored oom used for the environmental open house. )nce inside, guests were bombarded by divrse stimuli all selected to say, "Davis & Asociates is an advertising agency. It's creative, xciting, new, and fun." Windows (8 feet in height) surrounded wo sides of the room and were completely overed with giant poster segments from billoards arranged in a totally distorted manner, jiant images of quarter-faces, spUt words, nd color splashes glowed muted light into he room from the late setting sun until well domed the concrete surfaces of the remainag walls. These giant graphics distorted scale, reating a state of anomie and added bold imlact to the room's effect. Three carousel projectors aimed at a series 'f screens flashed 500 color slide images of tie agency's personnel and samples of their /ork in varying sequence every six minutes, wo tape recorders played continuous acid ock music interspersed with mock commerials and put-on announcements, such as the winner of the door prize drawing is Mrs. Marshall McLuhan. Please come to the ticket ounter at once." A four-sided graffiti panel urrounded one pillar, equipped with four road, felt pens, inviting the guests to create heir own pop expressions for all to share. Continued on next page lOVEMBER, 1969 Mind-Boggling Open House Here's bow a few clever ideas and relatively inexpensive effects can take the staid American open house and turn it into a memorable experience for those attending. Active participation by all guests was encour Sorting slides for the mixed-media open house aged by this oversize graffiti sheet. is Chuck Davis, president of the agency. 1 . Projectors 2 -Tape units B-RDStets 4 .Games 5. Graffiti 6 . Incense 31