The Ugly Mug Coffee Co. campaign

Young and Laramore art director Trevor Williams and writer Bryan Judkins had this idea to put "ugly mugs" on the sides of the bags of coffee made by this company out of Memphis. They wanted "portraits" of 8 people who would be ... appropriate for this application. So when we cast for this shoot, we didn't always make a point of saying who was the client, until our subjects arrived at the studio. Unless they asked. At which point they had questions.

When people did arrive, I had to be honest with them. Everyone was a good sport about it. Truth be told, these were actually attractive people -- each was appealing in their own way. Stylist Tai Rising Moore (yep, that's her real name -- daughter of Canadian hippies) had the task of making them look like they just came off a 3-day coke binge.

This project got some ink for Trevor, Bryan and Y&L, in the New York Times. Here's a link to the article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/25/business/media/25adnewsletter1.html?scp=1&sq=ugly+mug&st=nyt

Here's what the bags look like.

One of the print pieces.

The website home page.

This coffee seem like ... you? Here's the website: http://www.uglymugcoffee.com