When our friends at PepsiCo (in connection with our other friends at Undercurrent) contacted us about an interactive installation piece for their Senior Management Meeting, we knew two things: 1) We didn’t have much time; and 2) We wanted to build something beautiful and intuitive. I suppose we also knew something else: We could do it.
In just a few short weeks, PepsiCo asked us to help them visualize some of the social conversations happening around the PepsiCo brand. What we delivered was a simple, elegant multi-touch installation—packed with information. During the multi-day conference, PepsiCo executives could walk up to the 60-inch screen and use their hands to navigate the virtual space. In addition to the conversational excerpts, execs could also dive into a single conversation to read the full text. A Twitter panel also illustrated the real-time conversation.
We’re not too humble to say that our installation was among the most popular in the venue. With a business-minded focus on online conversations about nutrition and the environment and a fun factor that bordered on futuristic awesomeness (A 60-inch touchscreen! Grab the jetpacks!), this installation is set to evolve. Stay tuned!
So I had a thought late last night. What would happen if I used our newest site Flame It created for DreamWorks’ How To Train Your Dragon to flame the very site itself? Would it A) form a galactic singularity with the power to consume our entire solar system? B) create a cataclysmic parallel universe where we all have fire-breathing doppelgangers? Or C) work just the way it does on other sites. Answer: C… thank goodness.
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.
We were going to do a 2K10 version of last year’s addy post but then this monster was delivered to our front door. And I don’t think anyone wants to see a shirtless designer in the aftermath of one of Deer Valley’s signature Chocolate Mousse Cakes. We’d show you what the scrumptious layers look like inside but considering it’s been a few minutes since we took this picture, it’s probably too late. But we will give you some tips on how to get a chocolate cake of your very own: partner up with some great clients, create great work for those clients, submit 5 of your pieces to the Addy show, win 6 Addys (one of the pieces was so nice it got double-crowned), get chocolate cake. Sounds good to us.
Winners:
Deer Valley Winter Campaign ‘10: Gold, Judges’ Choice Award
With a bit of a luck luster winter thus far for us Utahans, images of the pow-days of yesteryear are running through my head. Because I can’t really give you my head I decided to spend some putting together a few ski days from last year.
If you didn’t already know, Utah just beat out Tahoe in Travelocity’s Roaming Gnome contest! We’d like to think we had a little something to do with that. Apparently the Gnome seems to think so, he just stopped by our SLC office on his tour of the State.
Destinations are pitted against each other, and fans on Facebook can vote to determine where he gets to go. Utah and Tahoe were the combatants, and the final tally on Wednesday was close. Here was his status update:
“And the winner is……….UTAH! But sweet fancy pickles, was it close. Of 285,482 votes, 142,709 (49.98%) of them went to Tahoe and 142,773 (50.01%) to Utah. Congratulations, Utah! And thanks a billion to all of you for voting. Now let me get packing!”
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.
StruckAxiom just finished the branding and digital design for Utah’s first digital conference called PushButton Summit 2010. This event will be Utah’s premiere digital media summit for animation, gaming, mobile distribution, interactive and entertainment. It’s a two-day event and is intended to bring together world-class industry and technology leaders, entrepreneurs, students and executives to discuss the latest in what’s pushing the creation and use of digital media. We just finished this teaser thanks to the talents of our own Tosh Brown as well as Bob Zagorskis.
Enjoy and better yet, come to SLC and check out the big event!
Our fearless founder, Jason Bangerter, spoke to a inspiring group of students at Skyline High here in the Salt Lake valley last week. This excited group was engaged and had a ton of great questions. We’re constantly impressed with the level of excitement and coming from high school age students in the region. They’re hungry to learn about the industry and we’re more than happy to tell them anything we can about the opportunities out there. Some of these high school students have set their sights pretty high and amazingly enough, many of them have skills to pay the bills too!
PS: Jason swears the administration lady in the blue-grey sweater right, center isn’t asleep. Sure Jason, whatever makes you feel better : )
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:
