For 15 years, the Dayton Business Journal has been honoring 40 individuals under the age of 40 who possess inspiring business and community leadership skills. The 40 Under 40 awards is always a popular one, but 2012 has been especially competitive—the DBJ received its highest number of nominations this year.

In its history, the 40 Under 40 program has awarded some of Real Art’s finest, including Mark Kargl in 2009 and Chris Wire in 1999. But we won’t stop with those two! This year, we are proud to announce that our very own Director of Art and Technology, Pat Murray, has been chosen to join the ranks of Dayton’s most “outstanding young professionals.”

Pat has been with Real Art for over 10 years, doing everything from design, to programming, to building some of our interactive machines. He’s worked on some of our most ambitious projects like The Santa Claw in Gizmodo Gallery, 7-Eleven’s Dip-A-Drip, and MARV for Welcome to College.

In addition to his day job, he is also an adjunct professor at the University of Dayton. He has taught their interactive/multimedia design courses for seven years. “Between these two jobs, I believe I have learned how to be a leader as well knowing the importance of staying ahead of the curve,” he says.

But Pat doesn’t just save his creativity and leadership for work hours. Recently, Real Art has added a rooftop garden that everyone can help care for throughout the summer. This, of course, was Pat’s brilliant idea. “The roof top garden really just evolved from the combination of a lackluster set of planting beds and the desire to grow delicious vegetables,” claims Pat. “It really doesn’t make sense not to have a rooftop garden. I’m looking forward the results!”

Moreover, the fun isn’t just out in the sun. Real Art has been participating in what we’ve come to know as “design lunches.” Every so often, members of the Real Art team gather during lunch to share and discuss their ideas, inspirations, and knowledge. “The concept of a collaborative and sharing environment is nothing new to Real Art,” insists Pat, “I believe I have been a big proponent of the translation of ideas and knowledge. So, the culmination of design lunches was just a natural progression that I took on merely to make sure it continued to happen.” He continues, “It is a great thing when people of all backgrounds and skills can share in an open forum. We can learn a lot from each other, especially across different areas of expertise.”

So what does Pat have to say about all of the 40 Under 40 brouhaha? What does he think about being nominated? He admits he was a bit surprised. “I really wasn’t expecting to be nominated, let alone win. I was very honored. I can only hope that it’s because I have had a positive impact on people’s lives and on the community at large.”

Well, Pat, you have definitely impacted the lives of us here at Real Art, and we are so proud to call you ours!

Pat and the rest of the 40 Under 40 class of 2012 will be inducted on May 17 at 5:30 p.m., at the Schuster Performing Arts Center.

Bobblehead Video:

Toothbrush Video:

Neptune Video:

Cake Video:

So…bowling is pretty rad. I’ve got no beef with eating pizza either. Beer?!? Don’t even get me started. That’s how we roll—no gutters, straight business. And where is the best place to conduct that kind of business? Poelking Lanes, son!

We contacted this legendary bowling alley and asked them to place us in the roughest, filthiest, greaseball bowling league they could find. They chuckled, then showed us a path of pure bowling evil…the Pizza and Beer League. After a short initiation meeting held with Judas Priest blaring in the background, we soon realized this league was no joke. These dudes were mean-looking and covered in pizza and beer stains…the true signs of experience. We needed to recruit some bowling talent, and fast. Luckily we just hired a couple scrappy looking designers and I had a feeling they’d thrown down a few beer frames in their day. So we held tryouts and formed an army of 10 to battle the bowling world. Or at least a few locals for now.

Opening day showed up and we rolled out in force. Raging hard, pounding pizza, beer and every one-three pocket in sight. The high fives were flying and we had no intentions of rollin’ Brooklyn—it was time to conduct business. We bashed up our first opponents pretty good—straight slaughtered to be exact. Bobby dropped a 9-bagger on these fools and straight left ‘em for the gutter. Week one’s business was conducted.

After the success of week one, we battled on for the next eight weeks against some of the most respected pizza eatin’ beer bashin’ bowlers on the planet. Winning some and losing some, Real Art somehow managed to roll its way into first place with a shot at the championship. There was only one team standing in our way. It was the famous group of roughneck bowlers known only as “Team 5”. These peeps had a rep for being down and dirty, so we needed to bring the filth if we wanted to dip out, trophies in hand.

Match time was approching and I’m not gonna lie…I was skeered. This was the moment I’d been training for all my life. If we won this thing we could have all the booze, women, and money we could ever dream of. It was time to put the stroke down.

We stormed out in game one, dropping hammers. Jägerbombs and bowling balls flew everywhere; it was a bowling bloodbath. The scores were close, but the game belonged to Real Art. Represent! Game two began the massacre. We showed no mercy, cobra-striking everything and everybody in the alley. The filth was being brought and the Real Art crew was hitting their marks. We were once again victorious. Biggitybooyah! Then some math whiz did some calculations and realized we’d already won the championship. So game three became a boogered celebration of gutter-ridin’ grandma tosses. Awwwwwyeah! Champions were born.

As newly crowned champs, the bossman saw it only fitting to throw us a kegger party to celebrate. So the following Friday we stopped working early, tapped a keg of Yuengling and conducted some more business. It was rad! Props to C. Wire.

On a more serious note, we are honored to be champions of the 2012 Pizza and Beer League, and much love to the other teams and Poelking Lanes for letting us roll out and act like a bunch of fools. It was a lot of fun and we plan on defending our title next year. We love you, Karen!

I’m Jordan Weaver and today is my last day. I have been the printern here at Real Art since February. I have really enjoyed my stay with these warm wonderful people. I could talk for days about the fun I have had at Real Art but I think I am supposed to talk about me. I don’t have a problem doing that either.

I just graduated Sunday from the University of Dayton and will be moving to Cincinnati. I am an avid cyclist and I like cats, bow ties, traveling, surfing, and knot tying.

Congrats on your graduation, Jordan, and thanks for being our printern!
- the Real Art team

It’s springtime, and Real Art decided to build something fun in our front windows for baseball fans walking to Dragons’ games. If you’re in the neighborhood, swing by and be part of our latest project, the Real Art Air Band.

After just one week of setup, the stage is yours. A full band is standing in front of the window—guitar, drums, keyboard, amps and all—but they are waiting for one key band member: You!

How does it work? Three cameras will detect if passers-by stop and start to play their best air guitar. It is a full rock band, so you can be a guitarist, a pianist, or of course, a drummer! Then, the more you rock, the louder your music gets. Play enough, and the spotlights come out. And—icing on the cake—if you have all three members in your air band, the disco ball will start to spin.

So if you have always dreamed about playing on stage with the Who, the Beatles, or Led Zepplin, bring your sense of rhythm and play some air rock at Real Art!

Technology trends, the future of Facebook, cloud computing, and big data—this year’s Technology Innovation conference will be a good one. Chris Wire, Real Art’s president and creative director, will give one of four keynote presentations this Friday, sharing insights into marketing on Facebook and the network’s future potential. Visit Technology First for the full schedule.

It is sadly our final day in Real Art…

We really enjoyed our internship here, and we recommend to all design students who want to have a great experience in an active and original company to come here! We learned a lot.We want to thank the whole team that helped us in different projects and allowed us to feel like true Real Arters! Anyway, we will keep following your new projects on the blog.

And if one day, you want to come in France, come most of all in Nantes, we will be happy to welcome you in our design and architectural city!  We will show you in person, all you saw yesterday in the Le Voyage a Nantes tourism video.

We hope to come back to visit the United States and Ohio.

A bientot!

Max & Sebastian

Who says that a company can’t have a garden? Not Real Art! A new project is beginning in the building: we’ll be planting fruits, vegetables, and flowers on the roof of our Dayton office to beautify it and get some fresh produce all summer long.

Even with our limited space, we found some awesome plants that love sunlight and grow well in small areas, like tomatoes, strawberries, cucumber and some herbs.

Now, we just have to remember to water them every day so they can grow big and delicious.

If you have any ideas to help us to make this the most beautiful and useful garden it can be, feel free to comment on this post!

Hello everyone!

My name is Sebastien Vaucelle. I’m a French student and now a Real Art intern! I’m here for one month, and I am really excited to work with all of you. It is my first experience in the design world, so I’m here to learn a lot and, of course, do my best!

Let me give you more information about me:

• I come from La Gacilly, a small village in the West of France, and I study in Nantes in a business school.
• I am in Dayton now because I studied international business during one quarter at Wright State University.

• I do lot of sports and music. I practice tennis and kayak and I have played saxophone for 12 years now. I specialize in free jazz.

• I love travelling and do some road trips. The most crazy trip I did was to hitch around France and finish in Barcelona. My next trip will probably be in Japan.

• I watch plenty of TV shows and movies, and 99% of them come from US.

• I like playing video games with my friends especially when I know I’m gonna win.

I am glad to join everyone on the Interactive floor here at Real Art!

Hi there.

My name is Maxime, but please call me Max…

I am the new intern in Dayton. I’m French (frenchies are back), from a city called Nantes, in the west of France. I am studying business in a French business school, and I was at Wright State University for the winter quarter. My major was marketing.

It’s good to be here! And I’m ready to begin this new experience.

More about me:

I will be graduating next year.

I have been a top athlete in Ice Hockey and I played for Wright State University’s team.

I love music and I played when I was younger.

I love traveling. I have been to South America, Africa, Europe and North America.

I think cinnamon rolls are the best things I’ve eaten in the states and I love sushi.

Don’t hesitate to correct my English and please don’t tell me that you like my French accent, I think it’s a terrible accent.