http://one.npr.org/i/554424193:554424194

This is the new House of the Lost Boys! It will sit perpendicular to Engelbrecht House and look up at Chapel Dulcinea from the valley below. You remember the Lost Boys. Neverland? Peter Pan? As we were touring the building site on Saturday, one of the alumni at the Academy Reunion smiled and said to […]

Personification as a Tool of Persuasion DEFINITION of PERSONIFICATION “You’ll find your Rolex waiting patiently for you to come and pick it up… at Justice Jewelers. I’m Woody Justice and I’ve GOT a Rolex for you.” Carl Sagan quote.

Banter as a Tool of Selling   “I was told that repartee heightens the attention of an audience.” “Is this going to be like that time you told me about ambergris?” “What do you mean?” “There I was, minding my own business, when you started telling me how the most expensive perfume in the world […]

Voice talent provided by William Hackett-Jones, Wizard Academy’s official Ambassador to Russia. He and his lovely wife, Sasha, make their home in St. Petersburg, that beautiful city of the summer palace of Peter the Great.

Expand Your Brand at Wizard Academy, November 8-9  

Expand Your Brand at Wizard Academy, November 8-9  

© 2017, Roy H. Williams

Former Apple executive Ron Johnson came to department store chain J.C. Penney in 2011 with great fanfare and a pledge to reverse the retailer’s fortunes with an ambitious turnaround. But less than two years later the executive is out. Johnson’s departure marks an abrupt, albeit not particularly surprising, end to his unsuccessful bid to transform […]

From silly devotions and sour-faced saints, spare us, O Lord.

Expand Your Brand at Wizard Academy, November 8-9    

The lines that reference the pinstripes and the unusual shape of the dial are there to trigger the curiosity of people who notice and like watches. This radio ad is an example of using low-cost, untargeted mass media to reach the unfiltered masses and then target through copy writing. QUESTION: “Why not use digital media to […]

Painted in 1890, “The Hushing” is one of Dubovsky’s more famous paintings.

Nikolay Dubovsky – Russian 1859–1918 Avant-garde sketch of the Magi looking down at the baby in a manger, unaware of the full-grown Christ looking back at them.  

Did you notice how this Groth image is a different style than either of the first two? I’ll show you a fourth style – his cartoon style – on the next page.

Slickfoot Eustice has the greenish shirt and the heavy beard. He was one of Wizard Academy’s 17 Strangers in 2011; an epic event.

Illustrator John Groth was a war correspondent in WWII where he hung out with his friend, Ernest Hemingway. (Prior to the war, Groth had illustrated a number of Hemingway’s columns in Esquire magazine.) Groth used a technique called speed line, in which he sketched his subjects using rough, unperfected lines and then filled in between the […]