Sometimes Our Work is on TV
Armchair Media's labor of love; the Sometimes I Work In... books were recently featured on NBC's 11 Alive. To see the full video, visit 11 Alive or go directly to our Sometimes I Travel web site. Thanks to Donna Lowry, 11 Alive's Education reporter, for taking an interest in the books.
Perfect 10 x 10
Some of you might have seen this incredibly thought-provoking piece. It's by my all time favorite multi-disciplinary designers Charles and Ray Eames. Now online! The Powers of Ten.
MSN Lost
In trying to demonstrate the depth and breadth of their search product, MSN created "MSN Found." The site features six 'hip' twenty somethings with blog-like diary entries that point users to search strings for topics that interest them.
You have to give them credit for trying something different. The thing is, I don't care enough about these six people to wade through the UI to get to know them, much less click to see what their favorite searches produce. Instead, it comes off as another big corporation trying to be hip by using blog refereneces and video to attract an audience. Overall, it lacks authenticity.
Help Us Grow
If you've done business with Armchair Media over the past three and a half years, chances are you've worked with one of the original partners. We like being a small company that's able to include just a little piece of our original creative vision in all the work we do. But we now realize that to maintain our high quality of work while increasing the volume of our business we need help in the form of new team members. And we're reaching out to our friends online to help us find the right people to join the company.
We've already made a great start with the addition of Raj Singh. Our next step is to add to our production capacity by bringing a new producer on board. A full job description is linked here. If you know someone who would be right for the job, or if you would like to apply yourself, please contact us. We may have an Armchair that's a good fit for you.
One car, one dog, two slackers...
...get spun in circles, Matrix style. Here's a fairly well executed hybrid TV-commercial-meets-web-engagement for Mini Cabrio.
Yugo Nakamura hypnotizes
A friend of mine sent a link to a clever clock this morning, which led me to revisit other projects by Yugo Nakamura. Hypnotic and inspiring, this is the kind of work that's is best pulled off when the creator, designer and engineer are one in the same.
Christiane Amanpour's eRaq
CNN.com has been running a hilarious TV marketing campaign lately, placing CNN's on-air talent in Spinal-Tappish situations. It's nice to see CNN let down their hair a little. A slick website, designed by Andrea Facini and his in-house staff takes it to eleven.
Raj Singh (according to the yellow monkey)
A new employee has been seen walking the halls of Armchair Media. We can't get him to talk, but his yellow monkey has told us all about him. His name is Raj Singh and he's our new Technology Architect. He has eight years of software development experience specializing in web and internet technologies and consulting experience in analysis, design and implementation. Occasionally the yellow monkey will scream "There's an error in the code! There's an error in the code!"
Blind Boys of Alabama - An Armchair Media Classic
Congratulations to our friends the Blind Boys of Alabama - as they garnish the mantle with yet another Grammy. Their website was one of our early assignments - please visit an Armchair Media classic
Issey Miyake: Brlbrlbrl! Bling!
My favorite part of this site? The video (new collection). It's large, grainy... but wait. There's more! Move your cursor out of the browser - brlbrlbrl! - you fast forward. Click on a frame - bling! - it cleans up and pauses. Enough to entertain this blogger for hours...
Virgin Daters
Valentine's Day is coming up. Virgin Mobile's Dr. Date assists you if you need to run for your life.
Lincoln Fry loses
The basic concept works pretty well:
(1) take inspiration from an Internet phenomenon
(2) use blogging to build buzz around a fabricated urban legend
(3) unveil the campaign with a big TV ad push that ultimately points to a fantastic interative site
For McDonald's Lincoln Fry campaign, concept minus execution plus big dollars = much ado about nothing. First off, the blog was sprinkled with obviously fake comments (does every other blog commenter really use the word "dude"?). The TV ads were simply uninteresting (who really cares about a fry that looks like Lincoln? It's no virgin mary cheese toast). Furthermore, the site is watered-down, corporate, unengaging, irrelevant, overbranded, and seems to have as much input from lawyers as designers and content developers.
Yes, this type of marketing can be terrifically successful, but the content and execution have to live up to the concept.
Nokia and Snakes
Nokia unleashes a goofy brand engagement project about snakes. —Snakes? Someone please explain the relevancy. Until then, A+ for effort.
Principal Voices
TIME, FORTUNE and CNN, in association with Shell launch the Principal Voices project, a concept aimed at solving the worlds problems. Disappointingly, this massive undertaking comes equipped with a website that, at best, serves as a dusty online brochure.
I think I'd rather take my world problemsolving to Bruce Mau's Massive Change.
GUI flip-flop
Brace yourself for Microsoft's massive campaign to promote their new search product. It's slated to reach 90% of US households over 40 times in the next 8 weeks.
Maybe next up the product team will settle on a consistent interface. I found three variations in just a few minutes of url-fishing (see above). The search is superfast, though, and the Encarta integration is pretty sweet.
campaign tip from adrants