His art form may seem simple. Snapping an image held over an actual object in the city and clicking it to form something that’s both hilarious and thought-provoking. However, this kind of art requires solid mind power and dollops of imagination. This is why Rudy Willingham’s creations, showcased on his Instagram page, are appreciated all over the world.
Willingham, who spent over a decade in an ad agency, is an experienced creative. He took an independent path by launching his company – RudyCorp – to focus on social media marketing for big brands. Says this Seattle-based artist on geekwire.com, “I started RudyCorp because everything on social media looks the same. My goal is to create content that’s not boring and that people actually want to see.”
The idea for this art form struck Willingham when he was doing an ad for Darigold milk for his ad agency. He took cutouts of milk bottles and combined them with lush green landscapes around the Northwest. The end result was a bottle-shaped cutout filled with the scenery. This idea stuck with him and eventually led to his carving his own independent path, culminating in RudyCorp.
For creating cutouts, Willingham uses a Cricut machine that automatically cuts paper figures. He feels this machine is far better than scissors, which took forever. Once the cutouts are made, he places them over the objects in the city to create a form of street art, without even touching the walls of the buildings. For inspiration, he scrolls through Instagram’s Discover page on a daily basis to find out what’s trending. With this knowledge, he creates his own art and social content for brands.
Willingham feels that ad agencies take months to create one campaign, whereas he’s in favor of churning out multiple pieces of creative a week. His idea is to create something to promote brands that are engaging. And this needn’t be a traditional ad but could be a clever design, beautiful photo, or even a PR stunt…anything that grabs eyeballs.
Willingham works out of his home office on Beach Drive, Seattle, USA. On Instagram, he enjoys a fan following of over 140,000.
Rudy Willingham