After a couple months of hard work, the PDX crew was proud to put the finishing touches on a beautiful, immersive, brand-focused site for Newcastle Brown Ale (big shouts to our friends at Vitrorobertson and TWC). As the site went live, we were reminded of something we had almost forgotten (but not quite): Our very own Patrick Marzullo (aka Tricky, Trickster, Scrap of Man) is featured quite prominently just below the Opening Acts hotspot on the Record Store page.
You see, the hired talent just wasn’t up to our rigorous standards. We needed someone who could look at records and swig beer like a champion… and, well, Patrick rose to the occasion. Check out the entire Newcastle experience HERE. And check out the entire Patrick Marzullo experience HERE.
Today’s Site of the Day on FWA is none other than the recently unleashed LEGOCLICK.com, designed and developed by the dudes and lady-dudes of Struck/Axiom in association with Pereira & O’Dell. (If you haven’t seen it yet, you should check it out.) To mark the occasion, we’d like to share a technical peak behind the curtain of one of the more popular features of the site – removing a block of content.
Like any good children of the 80s, we love LEGOs. So when our friends at Pereira & O’Dell hollered at us with a couple LEGO projects (the LEGO Photo iPhone app and LEGO CL!CK site), we didn’t hesitate. Coming into the studio to work/play with LEGOs all day—physically and virtually—has been ridiculously inspiring.
Now that the results of a few (okay, more than a few) late nights are alive and kicking on the Interweb, we’re predictably giddy about the positive response. LEGO Photo is the #5 Free App in the iTunes Store as of today. Good (and incredibly smart) people from Fast Company, Mashable, KRonikle (the Kidrobot blog!), app.itize.us and WIRED have all had nice things to say about the projects.
So. Download the app. Get inspired on the site. And… please upload your LEGO-fied photos to the Flickr group we just discovered. You can see some of the early results of the collection here:
Today at noon, the folks behind Avatar released something they’re calling an Interactive Trailer. Intrigued by the the word “interactive,” I downloaded and installed the Adobe Air application. There’s no doubt that the movie looks amazing (and it should, James Cameron has spent practically the whole decade obsessing over every detail), but I’m a bit confused about what, exactly, makes this trailer “interactive.”
I suppose we all have our own thoughts about what “interactive” means. Quite simply, I think it means that the user’s action should create a unique and variable experience—and I don’t believe that’s the result of the Avatar Interactive Trailer. Everyone has the same basic experience: Watch the trailer then click a thumbnail to watch additional video content. The user doesn’t actually interact with the video, just around it, above it or below it.
After fiddling with it for 20 minutes or so, I don’t get it. I don’t see how this application is any different from a standard movie website that offers a series of videos. So, I have questions: Why build this as an Adobe Air application? What does “interactive” mean these days? Does just clicking to watch additional content constitute an “interactive” user experience?
In this case, ”interactive” just seems like the wrong label—especially when it comes to video content. The bar has already been set high by truly interactive video pieces like Arcade Fire’s Neon Bible and Cold War Kids’ I’ve Seen Enough. And the Avatar Interactive Trailer certainly doesn’t live up to that standard.
During today’s Twitter outage, something completely obvious hit me upside the head: Twitter is legit. Given the TIME magazine cover story and the Ashton vs. CNN showdown to 1 million (not to mention Kyality’s recent jump
onto the USS Tweetie), I should’ve seen this coming a long time ago. So why did it take a 2-hour outage to spark the lightbulb over my head? Because I finally realized that everyone freaking out about the failure is actually a good thing for Twitter.
You see, the outage was a sign that we’ve crossed over from “What’s Twitter?” to “HOLY CRAP, TWITTER IS DOWN! HOW WILL I EVER GET THROUGH THE DAY?!!” It’s a step that shouldn’t be overlooked. People freak out when Google goes down, when the cable TV goes out during Gossip Girl and when the wireless router forces us to get up off the couch and restart it. We don’t freak out when MySpace goes dark for an hour or two. We don’t freak out when Rhapsody is out for a half a day. We don’t even freak out when the mailman doesn’t show up for a day or two.
The bottom line is this: Outages and crashes show us what people value. If people freak out when something you’ve built goes down for a couple hours… then you’re probably doing something right. (But you’d also better fix the problem. Right. Now.)
struck will be continuing to exploit young underprivileged creatives this summer and beyond! above is a set of ads that we just released last week to promote our internship program. there are no specific dates attached to your time here and you will be paid. we’re looking for everyone from interactive designers and developers to print designers and especially writers.
the copy reads “Agencies are hard to get into. That’s where we come in. Writers, print designers, interactive developers and designers send your book to internships@struckcreative.comWrong Turn 3 divx
will never be the same. Struck partnering with Goodby Silverstein & Partners, has created an unheard of site taker over for the new Nintendo Wii game ExciteBots™: Trick Racing. Instead of just creating the standard expandable banner. We have created an interactive racing game that allows users to race around various nick sites unlocking videos, and finally unlocking the ExciteBots™: Trick Racing screen saver at the finish line.
is sporting the cover story: 50 Years of Creative Excellence. And Struck made the list with ShaveEverywhere.com ! Congrats to all the Struckers, past and present, who contributed to this game-changing site. Congrats to our ECD Steve Driggs also for sneaking his Theft Identity spots for Citi into the mix as well!
We are creating a stop motion piece for an upcoming banner project. The piece requires a cellphone to disassemble itself revealing it’s inner workings. To create accurate storyboards we wanted to take apart some phones to reference the insides. We could have bought a screwdriver to do the job, but Adam L was angry that day and thus the carnage began.
