Dian and Jack Roberts Endowed Scholarship

The Dian and Jack Roberts Endowed Scholarship was established by friends and family in honor of Dian and Jack Roberts to provide valuable financial assistance to ArtCenter’s most talented undergraduate students in the Creative Direction, Graphic Design, Film, Fine Arts and Photography departments.

To learn more about Jack Roberts, a pioneer in advertising, please view the below short documentary, a quote from it, and read an article on him by Jean Coyne:

DOCUMENTARY
Jack Roberts: 20 Outstanding Los Angeles Designers, 1986
https://youtu.be/QgEh5NTjA8k

“Jack Roberts graduated from high school in 1938. He went to the University of Washington for two years and won a scholarship to attend ArtCenter. Jack was drafted into the Army in Word War II, before he finished ArtCenter. After the war, he got a job at Arts & Architecture magazine doing layout and production. It was there he met his future partner, Ralph Carson, who ran the in-house advertising agency for the magazine.

Ralph and Jack left the magazine and started Carson Roberts, Inc. Their first account was Hollywood Shoes. The agency grew with major accounts such as Max Factor, Mattel toys, Universal Studios, Hartag, and Fedmart. Carson Roberts was a legendary advertising agency where most creatives wanted to work. The agency won awards in all of the major shows, and dominate the Los Angeles market with Doyle Dane Bernbach in the 1960s.

Roberts was very active in the advertising and design community. He served as president of the Art Directors Club of Los Angeles; president of the International Design Conference in Aspen, Colorado, for 6 years; and president of the International Design Education Foundation. Carson Roberts merged into Ogilvy & Mather in the early 1970s.

Jack was also a strong advocate of civil rights. In 1962, he wrote a column in Art Direction magazine, called, Way Out West. In his article on Black Art Directors, he asked Marvin Rubin to illustrate a true story about a black student in Marvin’s class. Jack Roberts was a great mentor, and an inspiration to all of us. Roberts (ADVT 50) was legendary in the world of advertising, having co-founded Carson Day in the 1950s. That company played a crucial role in putting Los Angeles on the map for the advertising industry. Dian Roberts earned a degree in advertising from ArtCenter in 1948."

ARTICLE
Pioneer: Jack Roberts
Founder of CarsonRoberts, the legendary Los Angeles agency that influenced generations of advertising creatives.
By Jean A. Coyne
http://www.commarts.com/features/pioneer-jack-roberts

We were a phenomenon at the time,” Jack Roberts said. “One reason was that we were one of the first advertising agencies on the West Coast where one of the principals came from the creative side.” Jack Roberts was a designer, photographer and cartoonist. And Ralph Carson matched his talents with equally strong management, media and marketing skills.

The Carson/Roberts partnership, formed in the late forties, was the start of not only one of the biggest, best and most innovative agencies on the West Coast, but also had its own colorful character and personality. It conducted its own campaigns at its own expense to express the philosophy of Carson and Roberts on subjects of significance to the community—civil rights, Vietnam, the move of the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles and the Happy Day campaign.

C/R was one of those rare agencies that helped create new companies and new businesses. One of the hallmarks of the agency was they often worked for founders of companies. Their clients were tough people, usually first generation entrepreneurs. The agency turned several companies into household names (Mattel, Baskin-Robbins, Gates Learjet) and made other well-known clients (Rose Marie Reid, Max Factor, Nalley’s) even more well-known.

Ralph and Jack always did business their way, regardless of how unorthodox it may have seemed at the time. They were willing to explore any possible avenue for client growth. The emergence of television with Mattel was significant. In 1956, Carson/Roberts advised Mattel to buy television space. At that time, toy companies advertised only at Christmas. C/R recommended Mattel go 52 weeks a year on the Mickey Mouse Club and the results were so successful that soon all toy companies began advertising year round.

The man responsible for the ubiquitous “Have a Happy Day” was Ralph Carson. This occurred to him during a particularly grouchy breakfast meeting with his kids in 1951. He suggested that they had a daily choice, to have a Happy Day or an Unhappy Day. Later Ralph suggested to Jack, “That’s the way we can answer the phone, ‘Carson/Roberts…have a Happy Day!’ and you could design a C/R Happy Day symbol.” So that’s the way they answered the phone, began their letters and built a Carson/Roberts personality. “However,” Jack said, “If they’re not having a Happy Day by noon…we can’t help them.”

The Happy Day logo came into play when C/R conducted its campaign to encourage the Brooklyn Dodgers to move to Los Angeles. The agency ran ads in all the national league cities, “Good luck team next year in Los Angeles.” Every day it rained in Brooklyn, C/R ran an ad in the New York Times the next day that said “Dear Mr. O’Malley, we had baseball weather in Los Angeles yesterday.”

“Burt Baskin and Irving Robbins came to us for a newspaper ad (which they’d promised their store managers),” Jack said. They said, “We heard about you guys and we saved $500. Would you run an ad in the Los Angeles Times and tell everybody Baskin-Robbins makes good ice cream?” “If you’re telling us you’ve got a budget of $500, and you want a solution, then we’ll take the problem,” Ralph said. “But to run an ad in the LA Times might not be the solution. If you put that rider on it, I don’t think we can help you.”

After some consideration, Baskin and Robbins left the $500 and the rest is history. Every one of the stores was different, and C/R saw the need for each to look like the same type of store. “Don’t advertise. Paint the stores. We suggested store design,” Jack said. “Packages, interiors, signage, all featuring 31 flavors and the chocolate/cherry dot pattern. A child sees balloons and thinks ‘party.’ It was all based on a common graphic identity program.”

Jack proved that Los Angeles could successfully compete with New York. He demonstrated that innovation and brilliance could just as easily move from west to east. The other great regional agencies that started on the West Coast should all light a candle and bless Jack once a day. He and his partners were the trail blazers who made it easier for them to be taken seriously.” —Saul Bass

Another unprecedented action came in 1960, when Carson/Roberts moved into its own building which covered a full city block and had its own marketing, accounting, research and media departments. “That was a big step because at that time, there wasn’t an agency in town that had its own building,” Jack said. C/R remained there until 1971 when it merged with Ogilvy & Mather. Jack retired from Ogilvy on June 1, 1982 and died January 6, 1989.

Jack Roberts was born in Portland, Oregon, attended the University of Washington and Art Center College. He met his partner, Ralph Carson, while working at Arts & Architecture magazine in 1946. “He ran their advertising department and, after school, I was the art department,” Jack said. “We formed a symbiotic relationship long before we understood the meaning of the term.”

Roberts served as president of the Los Angeles Art Directors Club, was regional chairman of the International Design Conference at Aspen in 1955, a member of the IDCA and vice chairman of the conference 1960–62. At the Art Directors Club of Los Angeles 41st Annual Awards Banquet in November 1987, Roberts was honored with the club’s first lifetime achievement award. At the dinner, Saul Bass talked about Jack’s accomplishments and their 40-year friendship. “Jack proved that Los Angeles could successfully compete with New York. He demonstrated that innovation and brilliance could just as easily move from west to east. The other great regional agencies that started on the West Coast should all light a candle and bless Jack once a day. He and his partners were the trail blazers who made it easier for them to be taken seriously.”