Talk:Jazz (design)

Creator of Jazz Design

My name is Dennis Marsh, and I am mentioned in the article regarding the Creator of the Jazz Design. I would like for this issue to be resolved once and for all.

I worked for Lily Tulip/Sweetheart Cup Company as "Chief Designer" in the Graphic Services department located in Springfield, Missouri from June of 1983 through March of 1998. During this time, three different Graphic Services Departments from Baltimore, Maryland and Wilmington, Massachusetts were consolidated into one department located in Springfield, Missouri. There was a need for cup designers and other support functions to provide the cup graphics that were necessary to support the Special Print area of the company. Several artists, who mostly attend Southwest Missouri State University (SMSU, now Missouri State University MSU), were hired to provide the needed graphics to support the Sweetheart Sales team located throughout the country. As a result, the department grew from 11 total people to as many as 63 people in the late 90's.

Personally, I was responsible for National Account's such as McDonalds, Wendys, Taco Bell and several other accounts. I was also responsible for the Creative Services department which entailed several designers who provided graphics under my direction. The companies marketing department was located in Chicago and I was constantly touting the talent and abilities of the designers that we had hired in from SMSU. The marketing department used outside ad agencies for marketing material, such as 4-color process brochures and other collateral pieces that were needed by the sales force in the field. Those same agencies were called upon to design stock designs that could be used and sold into markets that didn't necessarily want or need their own special print designs. Sweetheart had a design called Preference and some other designs, which had all become dated. There was a need for a new stock design that could be run at high speed and didn't have print registration constraints. The large flexographic printing presses that were used in all of the company's facilities, were old and didn't have good print registration capability. I took it upon myself to sell our designers talents and abilities to our marketing department in Baltimore. The ad agencies that they had historically used, were not familiar with the design constraints that our internal artists were very familiar with and had to deal with every day. My selling job succeeded, so our Graphic Services department was given the opportunity to create a stock design.

Working directly with our marketing department, I put together a design contest for our internal artists to create a stock design using a plate and a cup as the products to design for. All of our artists were eligible to create some designs, and a certain amount of time was allotted for them to design. A small award was designated for the winning design. From this contest, the Jazz design was created by Gina Boyd-Burgess (now Ekiss). The Jazz design was chosen over approximately 4 other finalists, with the ultimate decision being made by the marketing department in Baltimore. I can provide the names of several marketing people that were involved in the selection process. I also attended a focus group, in Baltimore, where the finalists were shown to several random participants for their feedback into each design. The Jazz design was designated as the winner.

We then had to adapt the Jazz design to all the different product configurations that the design would appear on - and "the rest is history". The Jazz design has become "an Icon of the 90's". It has been seen on television shows throughout the years since it's creation. The Graphic Services department has since had reunions to celebrate the contribution of the art department and our overall contribution to culture lead by the Jazz design and other designs created by our department.

As for the claim by Stephanie Miller that she is the creator of the Jazz design, I have no idea of where she would come up with such a claim. Gina's claim that the design originated with her, is true and accurate. I have looked extensively for the Brush Stoke design that Stephanie supposedly designed in 1988. I have not been able to find it anywhere. I challenge her to show the design to everyone to support her claim. Stephanie claims that someone set her Brushstroke design in front of Gina and then Gina changed the design so as not to infringe on copyright issues. The someone that she refers to, would have been me - Dennis Marsh, and I did no such thing. Gina came up with this design using her creative talents and knowledge of the rules set forth by myself. I have no idea as to what would motivate Stephnie Miller to claim such as thing, except for the fact that it has become an icon of the 90's and she just want to claim it for herself because it's so iconic and still popular.

After I left Sweetheart, I was interviewed by Todd Schmidt at Imperial Bondware for a job. I turned it down deciding to stay in Springfield, Missouri with my young family. If I would have taken the job, I would have probably been Stephanie's boss and would have discounted her claim - to her face.

I am prepared to give Wikipedia specific names of the people in the Sweetheart marketing department, who definitely would have done a design search to ensure that there was no copyright infringement issues with the design that we now know as the "Jazz design". I also can provide the design contest parameters that I previously mentioned to support my claims.

Once again, I challenge Stephanie Miller to produce the so called "Brush Stroke" design, which is the missing link with her claim. As they say, "A picture is worth a thousand words". Her claim is unsupported and for that reason, should not even be considered as a viable claim to be used in the Wikipedia article regarding the Jazz Design. I would hope that any mention of Stephanie Miller being the creator of the Jazz Design, be permanently deleted from that article, and Gina Boyd-Burgess (now Ekiss), be recognized as the true designer of it, as she truly is. Dennis Dean Marsh (talk) 18:09, 5 October 2024 (UTC)