Exceptional Flash
Salt 101 with Alton Brown
Because of it’s ability to seamlessly combine Mr. Wizard, The Muppets and Julia Child in one package, Good Eats with host Alton Brown has been my favorite cooking show for years. Recently Alton has taken to advertising pitchman for brand like Welches Juices and now Salt. This is part of a recent trend where many different vilified ingredients like high fructose corn syrup and salt have turned to advertising to try and salvage their image.
In this case Diamond Crystal Salt has launched a new site called Salt101.com which is a modern homage to a 1960′s educational film. You start off in the lobby of the Diamond Crystal Salt Education and Experimentation Center for the Betterment of Flavor Enhancement where Alton directs you to the two halves of the site – the kitchen and the lab. In the kitchen where you can learn how use salt properly and the lab where you learn how Diamond Salt is different from convention table salt. Both areas are a mix of large, high quality video done with a nice infusion of Good Eat’s style props and humor. Both areas of the site also feature interactive games that do a nice job of turning the passive viewing experience into a fun, interactive learning experience. So while it doesn’t make me want to run out and hike up my blood pressure it is by far the best food site I have seen in a long time.
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MySpace U.K. Makes Music with Facebook
Johnathan Hills and the guys over at Domani Studio have not been resting on their shiny new FWA of the year win and have been busy with the recently launched site for MySpace U.K.. The site turns to either Facebook Connect, you read that right, or the new MySpace version of Connect called MySpaceID to allow users to create personalized videos with major music stars like 50 cent, Alicia Keys and Lostprophets. It’s honestly one of the best external uses of Facebook content I have ever seen as your profile photo is seamlessly integrated into the videos that were all shot specifically for the site to be able to create the effect. It os funny to login, choose some of the video clips and then call a friend over to see their reaction. Now is MySpace could just figure out a way to make their actual site as cool as this experience…
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We Choose The Moon is out of this world
I have to give a belated shout out to Domani Studios and The Martin Agency for their fantastic work on We Choose The Moon that celebrates the 40th anniversary of the historic Apollo 11 mission to the moon. This was one of those projects where it would have been easy to just throw together the archived video and audio into a slide show and call it a day. If you spend time with the site you will be able to see the massive size and scope of what they created instead and how serious they were about paying tribute to the momentous occasion. They were so serious that they launched not just on the same day as the anniversary but at exactly the same time as the original rocket launch. From that launch time the the site mirrored the original mission timeline over the next 4 days telling the story in real time minute with a minute account of the mission. It was done with the first ever assembly of 110 hours of audio transmissions, 400 photographs, 44 archival videos, 3D animation and live Twitter feeds in the voice of the astronauts. I find this site impressive not only because of the presentation and amount of content but that they created the experience to play out in real time. I think that decision was really smart because it allowed people to be able to absorb that huge amount of content in manageable bites which allowed them to focus and not gloss over only hitting the highlights. If you missed the initial launch you can still go through the whole experience as the site has transitioned to a more traditional presentation that is still really worth experiencing.
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Now if I could just invent digital taste buds…
Anyone who has followed my blog for a while knows that I love to cook and get a lot of inspiration from the process. I recently started writing another blog on cooking and that process made me realize how few well designed sites there are for cooking equipment and ingredients. The best one I have found actually just launched for Chocolatier Pierre Marcolini. The site has a really nice minimal design direction and interface that consistently heros the product throughout the site. I also like the way the design will dynamically adjust to different window sizes so the placement of the site elements always stay well positioned in relationship to the photography. It is surprising that for a subject matter that is so photography rich that you don’t find more sites that take advantage of the material. If you have any favorites post it in the comments.
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Cartelle Flash Toys
This is one of those posts that is nothing deeper than I thought the Flash toys that the Amsterdam based agency Cartelle dd were simple, perform well and are really cool. Click here to check them out.
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GE Smart Grid goes web 4.0 with augmented reality
During the Superbowl GE launched their new ‘Plug into the smart grid’ campaign and also launched a supporting web site. The site is very well done with simple but very rich and detailed 3D animations to illustrate the content. But far and away the coolest part of the site is called ‘Augmented Reality’ where you print out a solar panel marker, hold it up in front of your web cam and it generates a digital 3D hologram you can manipulate my moving the paper around. I have seen technology like this in video games like Eye of Judgement for the PS3 which used card to spawn the digital holograms but this is the first time I have seen it in a branded form. I like it because it is a very cool technology but it is done with a purpose and it is done for a brand where it’s use makes sense. GE and this campaign are about innovation and imagination, here the use of this technology supports both of those brand attributes. If anyone has any links to other uses of this technology post them in the comments because I would be interested to see how it is done, who is doing it and if there are any better examples.
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Intuilab custom Air multitouch
This morning one of a friend of mine forwarded me an interesting link to this video showing a multi-touch interface built on Adobe’s AIR platform from Intuilab. This video is from Adobe MAX in Milan showing off the solution and it is a really interesting example of how far you can extend the Flash platform. The downside is that to create the solution they had to built the entire solution from the hardware to the software from scratch.
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Doritos opens Hotel 626
With Halloween right around the corner, Doritos has launched a new horror-themed campaign called Hotel 626 to promote the re-launch of the Taco and Four Cheese flavored chips. The first thing you will find out is that the site is only live from 6pm to 6am EST. This decision to limit access to the site to only nighttime is an interesting one not only to create atmosphere and I can’t remember another site that has done something like this. I did play a hunch and found a cheat because it appears that the site reads the clock on your computer so if you change it be in the right hour range you can access the site during the day.
The experience begins in a first person view with you waking up in your hotel room hearing strange sounds coming from the hall way. From there it grows into an experience that reminded me of playing Silent Hill as you explore 13 different rooms and I recommend you have your webcam and microphone turned on to get the most out of it and to help you get past some of the challenges. I am not going to give away too many details or surprises but in order to get out of the hotel you have to complete tasks like chasing ghosts and listening to a mad man so you can get out of a locked room (hint: count the red items).
So without going into too much detail for those who haven’t had the experience I will only say that this is a compelling experience that draws you into it but does it make you want to buy Doritos?
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Taking a wild ride with XM
The guys over at Firstborn Multimedia have launched another great site and this time it is for XM satellite radio. The site is called Wild Ride and follows the adventures of a group of animals taking a road trips through a landscape drawn in the XM illustration style. You navigate the site by using the arrows keys to steer their car from an over the shoulder perspective. You can change lanes to avoid traffic on the road or take an exit off the highway to get to the site content. I fspent 10 minutes just driving down the road exploring the world which is beautifully create and populated by imaginatively themed towns based on XM channels like rock or country music and sports. It brings their advertising style to life in a way their commercials never did and makes it a fun and compelling experience that works seamlessly works as the site navigation. The site content is made up of games and videos that are interesting but don’t match the unique experience of exploring the world. This site proves that a simple but good idea that is well executed can create a fun and compelling experience.
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Japanese typography as art
The name Morisawa & company probably isn’t familiar to a lot of western designers. They are a Japanese company that sells fonts and software for typesetting and have been around since the 1920′s. They have just released the second version in their Font Park online series that is pretty cool.
The original Font Park was a series of 4 Java applications that would let you play with Japanese characters by doing things like dropping them in water, using them as a paint brush or having them form a semi-organic looking tree. This new version, un-originally called Font Park 2.0, continues what was started with the original but takes full advantage of the change from Java to Flash. The site let’s you create artwork by using either Japanese characters or any character you want by entering it into a form field as a brush you can create with. You can use different series of clicks and mouse actions lets you manipulate the characters so they work the way you want them to. Once you have finished your creation you can save it to a gallery where it can view and rated by visitors to the site. The twist that makes it work for me is that the gallery saves your creation process so viewing the art means you see how it was created from a blank canvas to the finished product. The only big miss is that it doesn’t have a mute button because the sound effects can get real old, real fast.
It will be interesting to watch the site and see how it grows and how much work gets created. I have been blown away because since I started writing this entry this morning the amount of work has doubled.
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