Last weekend I was on my way out of the city through the Lincoln tunnel and drove by the Manhattan Mini Storage building which sits a few blocks from the entrance of the tunnel. They always have funny and or a little politically charged billboards around the city that have taken shots at everyone from Paris Hilton to Dick Chenney. Their new one which has the image of a coat hangar and read "Your closet space is shrinking as fast as her right to choose."

It does it's job and pretty much stopped everyone in their tracks and you are sure they remembered it. It's a dangerous and rarely played move to put your politics into your advertising especially around such a highly charged issue.

I am not writing this to talk about the politics or my views on this issue but because the next day I saw the local network New York morning news interview an agent of Manhattan Mini Storage who said they created the billboard to "start the conversation around the issue". We all know this subject doesn't need anyone to "start the conversation" so can we please but the bullshit. They did it to get press and they don't have the backbone to say that it isn't any deeper than that. You want to advance the community then make a donation to a group that can put the money to use to support your point of view. If not then at least have some honesty so if we can get past the message we can try and respect your brand for being more than a paper lion.

Labels: Offline advertising

Adobe finally got with the program today and announced the latest update for Flash Player 9, code-named Moviestar, which includes H.264 standard video support, AAC audio support and hardware accelerated, multi-core enhanced full screen video playback. This new player will be available later today as a free download from Adobe Labs. It is good to see them finally catch up but they didn't answer the one question I had of when we would see an update to the FLV video encoder.

Labels: Design and user experience

This week Coke, Wieden+Kennedy, Amsterdam and Psyop unveiled the latest installment to the Happiness Factory series which I have written about before. This all started with a really brilliant and creative TV spot that has evolved into a behind-the-scenes feature with animated interviews of "real" Factory employees and now into a very elaborate three minute movie which they debuted in Second Life. I hope they don't think of this as their new Coke Polars Bears and drive it in to the ground but this is a fun extension of this world.

Labels: Offline advertising

Anyone who has seen my office knows it looks like a showroom extension for the Kidrobot store in SoHo so I love a new site I came across tonight called Paper Critters which was created by Ruperto Fabito Jr. as his MFA thesis. The site lets your view, create, collect and share your critters which are a simple 3D toy figures. The Toy Creator combines simple drawing tools with stencils and the ability to upload your own art. The tools are simple but combination of all of this gives you a lot to work with and you can create most anything style you want. Once you get it the way you want you can add it the colony with the rest of the world's creations. You can organize, view and comment on the colony to find the one's that you like. I only wish you could print out and assemble your Critter so it would stay true to it's name but the site and experience are incredibly addictive and fun so check it out and create a Critter of your own.

Labels: Design and user experience, Exceptional creative, Exceptional design, Exceptional experiences, Exceptional Flash, Site review, Viral

I follow the fine art community but I am not a huge devotee. This world was once again trust into the spotlight last year with the emergence of 4-year-old Marla Olmstead who rocketed from total obscurity into international renown. Some called her a prodigy and an equal of compared to Kandinsky and Pollock with her paintings sold for over $300,000. Others called a complete fraud since her parents would never let her paint one of her paints with a witness who could verify that she was the one producing the work. All of this is now the subject of a new documentary called 'My Kid Could Paint That' which looks to final put the debate to rest.

Honda has launched a site looking to stir and challenge the mind of its fans and racing enthusiasts. The site features a series of challenges that test things like hand eye coordination, mental strength and racing trivia knowledge. It eventually will award the smartest and biggest fan with a day with Honda's F1 racing team. Along with the challenge is a series of short films, the history of the Type R model and introduces the new Honda Type R model. The site has great production value and since it is so highly interactive it will engage even the smallest racing enthusiast.

Labels: Design and user experience, Exceptional experiences, Exceptional Flash, Site review

Phillips has launched their follow up to the wildly successful and extremely funny Shave Everywhere campaign and microsite. The new campaign is called Robotskin like the name suggests it is more sci-fi than stand-up.

It stumbles out of the gate with an intro that is too plain and painfully long. with over written sentences that appear on the screen one after another and read like the love child of the Terminator movie and a Gilette razor commercial.

As a side rant, this is not a good thing since I hate Gilette commercials. They are a complete departure from reality and connection with the customer. You get to hear " This is how it should feel" while seeing an atlas like figure in black and white holding up the world while shaving. In reality when I use their product it is 6 in the morning before I am awake and I hope I don't feel anything like this for the rest of the day. But back to the site...

Once I got past the intro you find that the core of the site is a series of mysterious and futuristic webisodes starring the “Grooming Robot”. The initial impression for me was that it was an interesting idea and well executed site but after a few minutes when the execution faded away I was felt scratching my head at how this was going to sell their product. Part of the brilliance of the Shave Everywhere campaign was that the concept and execution kept the product squarely front and center. In Robotskin the product almost invisible and the connection to it through the content is just too thin. The reality is that the site is more of a branded entertainment exercise than a marketing or product campaign. This conclusion seems like it would have been more obvious and faster in coming but I think my view was influenced by the brilliance of Shave Everywhere and I was expecting to be blown away again. When you realize that you are dealing with just branded entertainment and look at through that lens it doesn't muck better. The content is forgettable as entertainment I would have no urge to go back for future webisodes.

Labels: Design and user experience, Online advertising review, Site review

A friend sent me a link yesterday to a new widget from Apple called My iTunes which I hadn't heard of before. That fact alone was suprising given how the Apple PR machine is able to make everyone aware of every small update and advance on anything. My iTunes is a simple widget that is self-updating add-on to your web page, social-networking profile, or blog. It lets you share your top reviews, favorite artists, new music, movies, and TV shows from the iTunes Store with anyone who visits your site. One of the nicest things is that you can customized the size and style to create a look you like. The customization is limited to 5 color schemes and 3 layouts but it is more than I have seen out of most any other widget. The last thing worth noting is that you can also use the My iTunes feed with any standard RSS or ATOM feed reader which opens it up to a lot of other uses as well.

Labels: Consumer generated content, Design and user experience, Digital culture, Viral

Since I arrived at Starwood last September I have had a lot of very exciting projects in the works and the first of those is now live with the launch of the new Starwood Preferred Guest site. This site is 9 months in the making is the most functionally and technologically complex and innovative site I have ever worked on.



This site not only launches a host of new functionality but also the new brand image and position for SPG. Two of the main attributes of the new brand position are aspirational and access which are two things that do not want to co-exist easily. Since aspirational site design uses a lot of large photos while access needs menus, forms and functionality to let the customer do what they want it was a really challenge to make all of this work.

MY SPG
The first piece of major new functionality appear on the home page with the My SPG module. It is a completely customizable personal portal that lets you control what parts of your account, site content and functionality you would like on the home page. It also allows us to add a nearly infinite amount of new functionality without needing to re-designing or changing the page.




SEARCH RESULTS
We spent a huge amount of time re-designing and architecting the search results from the ground up and so it houses the real horsepower and innovation for the site. Unlike current sites where searching for a hotel requires you to constantly flip back and forth between search results and hotel details pages, the new SPG uses AJAX to let you expand a panel which contains photos, hotel info, specials, current and future weather and more. We also created a new rate display technology that allows members to see the best available rate, the price in Starpoint and the price in Cash & Points at the same time, making comparison shopping and booking quicker and easier.

HOTEL EXPLORER
All travel sites cater those people who know where they are going. But what about travelers who don't know for sure, are looking for a weekend getaway, are open to suggestions or more aspirational travelers? The Starwood Hotel Explorer gives those travelers an opportunity to find travel destinations and hotels based on their travel and activities interests not just price or location.

Projects like this are never finished and there is a lot more to the site than just this, a lot more planned and all the tweaks that always come once something of this size and complexity is put up live.

Labels: Design and user experience, Shameless self promotion

I saw this print ad today for Lawyers.com which may the first ad I have ever seen for anything to do with lawyers that actually made me stop and think. The visual design is a test sheet and the core concept is simple in pointing out that guilty people are human beings who make mistakes. The fact that the thought at the core of the concept is so simple and human that makes it stand out and resonate. I have been told there are more ads in the campaign and I am trying to find them and will post them if I do.

Labels: Offline advertising

I got an email this morning from a designer over at Kelliher Samets Volk that they had launched a new micro site for the wireless company Unicel to support their new "What's Bubbling Up" campaign. A any company doing the millionth tired iteration of a user generated micro site usually get me about as excited as fighting the tourists in Times Square but this site has an interesting spin I haven't really seen before.

The visual design and interface is as simple as all the content being displayed in stylized thought bubbles you can roll around to explore. Newly posted bubbles glow white for the first 24 hours and then become part of the crowd. All bubbles have a nice touch where they teases to the content inside by only displaying the first few words of the post so it makes you want to explore around more than usual.

It is disappointing that there isn't any functionality or a cookie that would let you find your bubble after it is posted because it almost instantly gets lost in the crowd and finding it again from the beginning is almost impossible. Some kind of simple search functionality to help you comb through all the content and let you find the things that would resonate with you would have been a nice addition. Over all the simple visual experience makes it surprisingly engaging and breathes some life back into a very tired concept.

Labels: Consumer generated content, Design and user experience, Online advertising review, Site review, Viral

My portfolio site, blog and numerous client projects are all hosted with MediaTemple who have always been a great hosting provider. Today I got a note that they have launched the world's first iPhone enabled web hosting control panel and I was intrigued but skeptical. It is so very rare that the first of anything to market is actually worth anything but in this case it is. You can buy domain names, reboot your server, add emails, pay your bill and get support all through their very nicely designed interface that looks great on the iPhone. Having had to find and dash into a Starbucks's with my laptop after getting a call from client needing me to do all these things I am one happy camper.

Labels: iPhone

Trying to prove that doing the same idea twice must make it twice as good, Crispin Porter is back with another Burger King microsite called My Posh Twin. In a strangely familiar experience you upload you photo, customize some accessories and create your alter ego who is supposed to be a rich and stuffy version of you. I have no idea if this ties back to any campaign or where it came from but I am sure that these photos will be flying around the internet in no time.

Labels: Online advertising review

HP has launched a new campaign target at teens called The Society for Parental Mind Control. The design looks like it is based on the Twilight Zone meets Grateful Dead Given and given the great visual and creativity of the previous campaign "Hands" this site is a snore. There is no real interactive content since you can only click to see a mission statement, products and video clips which are all a passive spectator experience. The concept sounded like it help a lot of promise for great things that could really come to life online but this version leaves you more sleepy than mezmerized.

Labels: Integrated advertising, Offline advertising, Site review

OK, so a few weeks ago I said I was going to wait on getting an iPhone and as you can see from the photo I lied - sort of. It was a present from an insanely generous friend for my birthday.

I am a technology junkie and this is the greatest piece of consumer electronics I have ever owned. The funny thing is that like so many other Apple products there isn't some revolutionary idea here. It is robust content that's integrated through multiple applications and wrapped in a simple user interface.

I have spent about 24 hours with it so far and I won't be me if I let it get it get off that easy. The only issues I have found so far:

Flash & Javascript - Web browsing is night and day ahead of what you will ever find on a Blackberry but it falls a little short of the promise of the "real internet". The two most glaring problems are the almost total omission of Flash and limited Javascript support. I am sure this will addressed in future updates and I don't expect the iPhone to replace my MacBook Pro but the addition would really open up a lot more sites and content.

Color accuracy - I moved some interface design JPEG's over to the phone and found that the color was close but not spot on. I'm sure 98% of the public won't ever find this a problem but obviously for me it could be an issue. I am still exploring to see if this is a color profile mismatch, iPhoto glitch or what might be causing it.

No IM - There is no built-in instant messaging for AOL, Yahoo!, etc. which I do miss. I did find a link to Mundu is a really worthy replacement with simultaneous log-in to Yahoo, AOL, Gtalk and MSN all at once. The interface looks beautiful on the phone and is super simple to use.

Keyboard key placement - There has been a lot of noise around the keyboard but I think it is really easy to use and you do get better at it over time. The only thing I would change is the placement of the backspace and enter keys are right over each other so the smallest mis-hit will send you back to the beginning of your form or URl address.

Adding content - The biggest thing I have had to get used to is the way you add content to the iPhone. I expected to be able to go into iTunes and drag songs, photos, video and whatever right on the iPhone like you do with any iPod but that doesn't work. The iPhone handles all content through playlists and sync settings which was a surprise since they have trained us in one usability ritual that they would change it now.

I am still working, playing and banging on it and will post any new developments, tips or tricks as I find them.

Labels: Exceptional experiences

Got the link to this simple microsite for Nestea. The beverage category has always seen to struggle with what to do online and the site does a nice job of letting the product become the interface. You can explore the different products and play a simple 2D fighter video game. With four main options it keeps the experience short and simple which isn't a bad thing.

Labels: Design and user experience, Site review

I am seeking a full-time Interactive Art Director to work with me at the Starwood Hotels and Resorts Interactive experience design studio which I lead. Before you wrinkle up your nose at the thought of working for an internal design group at a hotel company think about this:

- Help will help lead cutting edge visual design and concepting for the entire interactive channel including web design, interactive marketing, mobile and more for 10 worldwide brands. I know you hear this kind of thing all the time but since we are our client unlike at an ad agency we are able to really able to make it happen - just look at Virtual Aloft in Second Life and that we are one of three launch partners for Microsoft Surface which you could be one of the first to design for.

- Work with and help lead the world's best creative talent at agencies like BBDO Atmosphere, EVB, Firstborn Multimedia, North Kingdom, Avenue A/Razorfish and more.

- We are structured like an internal advertising agency that services 10 world class diverse brands. We are a small but extremely talented and passionate group who is able to produce work far beyond our size.

Your duties will include:
- Ability to clearly articulate thinking behind creative solutions, and to communicate successfully with other team members
- Responsible for producing world-class design solutions, apply motion when appropriate, and recommending coding techniques for web site visual designs
- Visually integrate and enhance the creative concept, architecture, UI and navigation design for web sites, online advertising and mobile
- Acts as a link between the design studio and the account and technical development teams
- Stays abreast of the latest software, design and advertising trends to help invigorate the design team
- Works closely with senior creatives and copywriters to develop creative solutions
- Experience with the travel industry a plus

Required Qualifications
- A passion for producing excellent breakthrough creative solutions.
- Expert knowledge of Photoshop and Illustrator, ImageReady and Flash and ActionScript (AfterEffects is a plus)
- Familiarity and ability to design with Web enhancement technologies such as Ajax and JavaScript
- Refined understanding of the programming and technical aspects associated with each project.
- 3-5 years experience as an Interactive Art Director

Interested or know someone who might be? Contact me now!