Chris Nashawaty’s “Mad Men Is So California” prompted one Alta Journal reader to revisit her early-career days at an advertising agency in Los Angeles. Got something to say? We’d love to hear from you. Email letters@altaonline.com. Please include your name, city, state, and phone number so we can contact you. Letters may be edited for brevity and clarity.
CREATIVE REVOLUTION
Thanks for acknowledging that L.A. was a huge factor in advertising around the late ’60s and on. I was there, first in the production departments of agencies and then as an art director: one of about five females out of a thousand art directors in full-service agencies.
I studied at night at the old ArtCenter with the great art directors and copywriters who worked at Doyle Dane Bernbach. They wanted to hire me, but the ’71 recession hit, and they were waiting to be laid off. I joined a boutique firm in Beverly Hills, which is when I created that billboard. Then I started to hit a ceiling, and my learning curve leveled off, so I left advertising and went to Europe.
That Hockney pool? The Hollywood Roosevelt was my client for a couple of years in the mid-’80s.
Stephanie Taylor
Sacramento, California•
