I have been waiting all year from some to design something that would get me excited and today it showed up. Sprout is a very cool and very easy tool for building your own microsites, widgets and mash-ups. Their tool will be instantly familiar to anyone who has ever used any Adobe products with a very robust interface that will you work with images, audio, video and data sources from sites like Google and Yahoo. You assemble the pieces you want on different pages, hook it all up to your data, make a nav and you have your own widget from scratch in under an hour. Plus when you make any enhancements they will automatically be pushed put to everyone using it when you re-publish it. I have only scratched the surface and intend on continuing to work on my widget for this blog (which you can see and grab here) but have other idea of things I want to try as well.

I love to see this kind of innovation in digital tools. They are simple yet powerful and I would love to see Blogger and WordPress evolve to a model more like this so we could finally bring more and better design to the "ProSumer" digital space.

Labels: Consumer generated content, Design and user experience, Exceptional design, Exceptional Flash, Great resource, Viral

Don't worry this isn't a political piece on who you should vote for. I haven't decided who I am going to vote for yet so I thought this would be a good time to try and take an unbiased look at how digital and been involved and evolved during this years primary race.


Barack Obama
It should come as no surprise that Barack Obama has put a lot of effort into the digital space with his younger and more technologically savvy base of supporters. His campaign site has undergone 3 re-design in 1 year taking it from a plain site design to it's current Web 2.0 blog inspired design.

When it first launched early in 2007 it looked like this:

In July of 2007 the site had evolved to this:

By the middle of January 2008 the site was re-design to this:


The latest version of the site is slick and attention has been paid to every detail of the design. The layout and navigation are clear and the design is uncluttered in spite of the large amount of information on the page. There is access to every social media you can think of with link off to every social networking site, mobile and even a my.barackobam.com section where you can have your own blog.

The down side is that all of this does come at a cost and the home page is going to load slowly for some people at around 1.2 MB. For the sake of comparison, Hillary’s homepage is 422KB.

Hilary Clinton
Moving from the Obama site to Hilary Clinton's you see several immediate differences.


In comparison to Obama's site this one does feel a bit older and more traditional in it's visual design. The thing that I was the most struck with was that there are three large bright red donate buttons in about a 500 square pixel space above the fold. I understand that in her position fund raising is a priority but with this concentration it almost overwhelms the rest of the content. The rest of the site feels like they were going through and checking off boxes for what content they thought they should have but I couldn't find anything that they were doing better than what I found on the Obama site.

John McClain
As we move on again the digital efforts of John McClain pull up the rear of the three contenders.


The most obvious failing for me is the visual design of the site that looks dated and more like an engineering company than an inspiration to America. I was shocked at the large scale use of black in the design that really makes the site feel somber and heavy. I thought that Obama went over board with the social networking tools but this site goes to the complete other end of spectrum by having them completely missing.

If tends continue and it is Obama and McClain that end up as the candidates it sets up to be a very interesting competition in terms of our chosen medium. They are each at such opposite ends of the spectrum that I am curious to see if it could play a major role to tip the tide in Obama's direction. Should McClain get the nomination will digital become more of a role in his campaign? Only time will tell.

Labels: Design and user experience, Digital culture, Site review

Some of my old collaborators over at North Kingdom in Sweden have created a very cool new game for Coke Zero called of all things - The Coke Zero Game. North Kingdom is calling this their most complicated project ever which got my attention after their success with very cool and detailed 'Get The Glass' game for Got Milk. Right now the site is only in German so you can stumble around the best you can but the English version is set to launch in March. You can see the German site now or go to their blog to see behind the scenes videos that are in English to get a sense of the scope and detail of the project.

Labels: Design and user experience, Exceptional experiences, Exceptional Flash, Online advertising review

To follow up on the post about the Swiss Army launching a new recruitment site from last week, they have also launched a new online ad campaign to support the site. It has similar but simpler tests to the ones found on the site and they make really good use of the smaller space while remaining very challenging and engaging. At the end of the test, like on the site, you are ranked against all other test takers. This makes you want to interact with the test in ad again and again in improve your score and drive you on to the site. It is one of the more engaging ads I have seen but this could be biased by the fact that I had already seen and liked the site it is promoting.

Labels: Online advertising review

Nike has recently launched a new site for their Jumpman brand called Suite 23. The site is created as a hotel brought to life in an early video game style 3D. You navigate the space by clicking and holding to reveal a circular ring where your movements inside of the ring translate to front, back right and left movements through the 3D space. There is a more traditional menu that appears at the top of the site but it leaves you wishing it was created as uniquely as the rest of the site.

It is an impressive display of technical 3D and video prowess at this point in the Flash players development. As for the concept, I am growing increasing tired of writing the same criticisms over and over again about how there needs to be a better balance of style of substance. In this case the product technique is cool but when it is all boiled down the site is little more than a glorified photo and video gallery.

Labels: Design and user experience, Exceptional Flash, Unique interface design

One of the better design news sites out there is the TAXI Design Network which is a nice mix of news, articles and design work. I am a slave to their Design Competitions Calendar which is the only way I can keep all the deadlines straight and make sure my work gets entered in time.

They asked me to write an article for The Driver Speaks section which was published today in their latest issue. The article called 'Online Strategy' details my process for creating an effective creative strategy as the basis for any advertising or design challenge. If you like mt rants check out the article and TAXI is a good site to cruise through at least once a week to stay in the loop with what is going on with your fellow designers.

Labels: Great resource, Shameless self promotion

I was out this weekend and walked by a local store window which had this poster hanging in the window. I found myself compelled to take a picture to document that something called Typographers Dream was being promoted with a design that is anything but.

Labels: Offline advertising

My former employer which most people still know as Temerlin McClain that then became t:m advertising and just re-branded again to TMA has launched a new site for American Airlines called The Flagship Experience. The site was created to re-launch their business and first-class seating on international flights. It is the most visually rich airline site I have ever seen but it feels like one of those projects were the client asks you to create a site with no assets and too little information.

You can see the seat in it's various configurations but since we are all jaded travelers we know that the backdrop is an over promise and the experience will never be that spacious and experiental. Additional information is limited to three text based pop-ups and no additional photos which leaves you wanting more. If this site can evolve and get deeper content then it could become a real standout in the space but right now it's sadly more sizzle than steak.

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

The Swiss Army is taking an interesting new approach to their recruiting.
Instead of using TV they launched a new web site that gives visitors a battery of tests covering multi-tasking, spacial thinking, memory and concentration which are all the areas you would use a real-life battle.

The site and tests are audio driven by an accented and authoritative voice that leads you through the experience. The tests are a simple combination of graphics or problems like in multitasking you have to drag a ball in a semi-circle without letting it wander out while also clicking on a certain color ball when it pops up randomly on the right and also solving math problems. Your score is then ranked against the average test taker so you know where you rank.

The whole experience is engaging and the fresh approach to the problem really works. I even love how it has the clean and minimal design look you would expect from the Swiss. It is worth checking out and see if you are military material.

Labels: Design and user experience, Digital culture, Exceptional creative, Exceptional design, Exceptional experiences, Site review, Unique interface design

Porsche has launched a new site to support their latest TV campaign called 'Bloodlines'. The stated purpose of the site is to prove that it's gasoline and adrenaline that runs through all incarnations of the brand but for me the site runs thin.

There are 12 different main navigation options but this number is deceiving as none of them amount to much in the way of content or engagement. You can navigate through the heart of the site that are the 6 main Porsche models parked in different locations. Each model only has one main photo with a short blurb about it's features and the ability 'Rev the engine' and trigger the corresponding audio clip. Like so many sites lately it is well produced but seems confused about it's purpose as there isn't enough content to either entice or engage a new buyer or interest an existing owner. The only section that offers anything of interest and tries to tie it all together is the 'Audio IQ Test' where you can guess the car based on the sound of it's engine.

I would have thought Porsche would have wanted to cater to the passion of car enthusiasts and made this a deep and rich experience that would have really would have delivered on their heritage and bloodline. For me, boiling the bloodline down to a sound byte doesn't do justice to the passion and heritage of their cars and makes the cars and brand feel small and cheap and anyone who has even driven their cars or seen their price tag would agree neither is the case.

Labels: Design and user experience, Site review

I read an interesting article in the paper today that the New York City borough that was home to some of the biggest careers in the ad industry is now going to the home of a new advertising high school. The New York City Department of Education has approved the High School for Innovation in Advertising and Media which is expected to be up and running by September 2008. Organizers hope the school will get young minorities in to a career in advertising which has long been criticized for its lack of diversity. Who knows maybe the next great ad mind will pull a LeBron James and will take over the industry straight out of high school.

Labels: Digital culture

IKEA is at it again with a new site called You Need a Quiet Space. The site promotes their bedroom furniture and goes back to the conceptual execution of multiple settings that you can move through to see what is going on. The set-up for each part is that your life is hectic and you need a quiet place to escape - your IKEA bedroom. You explore the setting in slow-motion video by clicking through multiple angles to see the scene and all the furniture.

It is all well done and executed but since this is the fourth or fifth site that used this same core executional concept it is isn't enough and it is getting worn out and tired. They need to evolve and/or deepen the content to make it feel fresh. There are details like if you want to find out more about the furniture you are taken off the site and back to their corporate site but is a breakdown in the experience. Make the furniture as interactive as the room or something because I expected there to be some small about of information in the microsite and not have the polar options of either the name and price or the whole product sheet.

In the end for me it is a shame that their advertising is starting to feel as modular as their furniture.

Labels: Design and user experience, Site review, Unique interface design

One of the favorite commercials from the Super Bowl was for Tide and the Talking Stain which featured an unsightly, chatty shirt stain on a guys shirt during an interview.

The microsite that was tagged at the end of the spot and supports the campaign does a good job of recognizing how a commercial like this can take off in different ways online and gives consumers the tools to encourage this movement. First, you can "be the stain" by uploading a photo of you or a friend to be the face of the stain and dialing an 800 number to voice the stain yourself. The site also is the first I have seen that gives you the tools to create and upload your own spoof to Tide's YouTube channel. They will then pick the best one at the end of the contest. I think it is really smart to embrace and encourage this behavior because it gets consumers in invest something person into your brand and has them creating viral content for you. It is a really nice change to see a smart, integrated campaign like this that is so smart about how is it using digital to support and extend the offline campaign.

Labels: Consumer generated content, Design and user experience, Digital culture, Exceptional experiences, Offline advertising, Online advertising review, Viral

My hope has always been that this blog could be a place where what I have to say is discussed, debated and enhanced but for whatever reason over the past two years it hasn't come to pass. So I thought I would take advantage of the Groups in Facebook to create a new place where I would try again to see if that could happen. Click here to join the group and post your favorite sites, links, designs, thoughts, comments and feedback. Let me know what I can do to make this work as a community because I want to hear from you so this is more than just me ranting away.

Labels: Digital culture, Shameless self promotion

I have always been disappointed that entertainment industry has never done a better job with interactive. The sites and digital assets always feel like an after thought which I never understood since they have content most of us would kill to work with.

FOX recently released the Family Guy Star War remake called 'Blue Harvest' and were really smart about how they used interactive to promote the release and used digital to drive DVD sales.

They created a Collectible Figure Widget that you can embed on Facebook, MySpace, Windows Live, blogs and a host of other platforms. Creating content for these places isn't unique but since they understand that the content is fun and the fans want to collect and interact with it. So by taking the time to create the widget with a good amount of content and an new design like the original Star Wars action figures they create something that fans would flock to post.

What they did for the release of the DVD was unique and something I hadn't seen before. When you purchased a physical of the DVD you also got a digital copy for your computer, iPod or iPhone for free on a second disc. Put the disc in your computer, it launches iTunes where you enter the code from the packaging and it starts downloading the digital copy for free. It is the first time I have seen a studio embrace the fact that consumers want to access their media in multiple place in multiple formats and by doing this they have create a true DVD extra I really want.

Labels: Design and user experience, Digital culture