Blackboard Is Born

Visitors to Houston Helm Fattal Collins’ offices in Marina del Rey, Calif., can’t avoid the blackboards. They’re hanging in the hallways, in the open-space work areas and, of course, in the conference rooms. Not surprisingly, when the agency decided to make a long-planned name change, it decided to call itself Blackboard.
In late 1998, ad agency Houston Helm, which handled traditional ad accounts such as Kirin beer
and Hunt-Wesson, acquired entertainment and design firm Fattal & Collins, a new-media trendsetter that developed The Spot, one of the first content Web sites.