"Blueprint" for Men's Wearhouse Spring 2014

Spring 2014 at Men's Wearhouse is bringing focus to the "new blue." It's everywhere in fashion and interior design right now. But it's a brighter, more vibrant take on blue than we're used to seeing in menswear and so we wanted to take the opportunity to highlight the season's hottest hue in an expressive editorial campaign we're calling, "Blueprint."

I had been eager to have a little fun by bringing the location into the studio. We had done the cityscape-as-location across America in the last few years and I wanted to see how we could break from that but still represent the city-as-character in a simpler, more abstract way. A concept of playing with perspective on a 2-dimensional surface had begun to take form as a way to put the model in an environment without really having him there. The blue trend lent itself perfectly to the idea of a blueprint-style architectural rendering of a city street. So I did what seems to be so rare in the life of an art director these days... I got my hands dirty. Some custom-color chalkboard paint, a projector, a ladder and a lot of chalk was a welcome break from my MacBook Pro.

Spencer, the wonder Studio Assistant and Codie, the wonder-dog stood in to help nail the perspective. He also sourced the best jumbo chalk crayon ever, which made the set design that much more authentic.

With the help of our talented cast, crew and one of my favorite photographers, Chad Riley, we were able to breathe life into a concept that had been ruminating in my brain for months waiting for an excuse to come out. The campaign has quickly and easily adapted itself across channels both online and in-store. The images will be heavily featured on the homepage of menswearhouse.com, in the editorial "Guy'dLines" style advice article, in email, on social media and taking over the store windows of the new Madison Avenue flagship store.

See the full gallery here.

Cast and Crew (and Codie)