What has this world come to??

I typically like to keep this blog on brand in terms of writing only about the interactive industry, however I saw a news item on CNN that shocked the hell out of me.

There have been an overwhelming number of mother's killing children, fathers microwaving children, children killing children, and so on... but this next story is just sick!!

A woman killed her nephew, she weighs 1000 pounds so she cant go to jail and is sitting at home chilling out!!!

What a metaphor for our society! I am a very visual person and the picture this paints in my head makes me want to leave this God forsaken country!

Watch it here

Oldy but Newy

I just felt like posting this....

Agencies have a hard enough time producing creative work in general, how many campaigns end up being timeless? Now they are expected to deliver media technologies as well? Smaller interactive agencies have been doing this for years now; we have been innovating new ideas for launching all kinds of brand messages. Minisites, rich media banners, environmental installations, unique kiosks, online games, viral techniques, uploading, downloading, cross loading and more! Agencies are having a hard enough time keeping up in general when it comes to the web. Web 2.0 is all of the things I mentioned above and more, it requires breaking many of the rules that have been established in the Ad Biz and redefining what works and what doesn't and requires going completely against conventional wisdom.

It seems to me that the point isn't are agencies willing to invest in new platforms, because its simply not their core competency, the question is are they now willing to play second fiddle to companies that are creating new platforms. Old habits are hard to break and the agencies have been holding on to the corporate reigns for a long time now, they manage the accounts, come up with the ideas and distribute the money but perhaps that role is now being reduced because of the overwhelming emergence of technology that smaller and younger companies have a better grasp on.

Rather than buying up these smaller companies and driving them into the ground by making them adhere to old rules, why not just play nice and let the experts do their jobs in the environments that suit them best (smaller interactive firms) and let them drive the campaigns. Ideas thrive in smaller open environments and when the stresses of the corporate world take over then the ideas suffer, creating new platforms and ideas requires breathing room and coloring outside the lines and that means that new lines can't be drawn once the color is in place, you cant assume that an agency is ripe to now become a technology firm just because it has the money to do so, sometimes it takes adversity and struggle of being small in order for great ideas to emerge

Legends of the Rise

Check out this new series called Silhouettes!

Big props to Rob Ford for taking a chance on this one...

We have an all star line up of the innovators of interactive design and development.

Stay tuned for a glimpse inside the minds of the great men and women who have blazed the path for where we are today on the web.

Video on the Web Article from Creativity

This is from last year but I only had it in print until now... This was published in Creativity Magazine

By now, HD is a fixture in many household television sets and has even infiltrated the radio waves. But in terms of mainstream web implementation, especially for advertising, it still has some way to go. Bicoastal production/design studio Firstborn is showing creatives how it can be done successfully with its ambitious online initiative for Microsoft and its new business-security software, Forefront. With the support of Microsoft agency McCann and director Dante Lombardi, the Firstborn team realized a bevy of amusing security-themed ideas (like fighting zombies, ninjas, and secret agents) with a meticulous video shoot that culminated in a highly interactive online experience. Firstborn producers Craig Elimeliah and Dan LaCavita discuss the highs and hurdles of creating original high-end video for the web.

Give us a little background on the shoot and the significance of filming specifically for the web.

Craig Elimeliah: There are no static assets on the site whatsoever. Everything is full video. The site itself needed to be localized in 90 different countries and had to talk to a really broad audience. So the design, the video and the language needed to be as broad as possible. We went to Hollywood to film it, and web really had to look at the production as if we were looking at it on the web. It wasn't a typical film where we were going to shoot just any type of assets and throw them up on the web. It was specifically indicated that we design for the web. We understood that the characters must be very elaborate in their motions; we needed to have their clothing just right and not clash with the color scheme of the actual website; and makeup, hair, everything, was really important to ensure that it was crisp and clean. If everything's going to be video, the video has to be perfect. People on the web are sitting an inch away from their monitors, and detail is everything.

The detail factor must explain the decision to shoot in hi-def.

Elimeliah: We were obsessing over the video quality, and we really pushed to shoot in HD. We eventually had the opportunity to shoot in progressive 1080p, which was very important in order to capture, pixel for pixel, every single frame in case we needed to edit specific frames or to do something specific technologically—maybe bring down file size by seaming frames together rather just than streaming out the video. There are a lot of little technical nuances you need to play with in order to achieve that goal. The detail was extremely important because, again, people are going to look at it an inch away. If you look at the places on the opening selection carousel, you see a quality of detail that you don't see that often on the web.

What was the technology used in bringing HD video to the web?

Elimeliah: We started off in typical web fashion, putting our designs together in Photoshop. We had some photography to work off of that McCann had done for a film shoot. But we really didn't expect to get the type of quality that we got. It was great to be able to have the high-definition assets to work with, and it just made the site come alive. From a design standpoint, everything was done in Photoshop. We work in Flash, and that's our sweet spot.

Dan LaCavita: In our intro, we created everything from scratch with 3ds Max. So we used 3ds Max, After Effects and then Flash for the final deployment of the technology.

How did the relatively brief time frame affect bringing the Forefront assets online?

Elimeliah: It's funny that way because there's so much more that has to go into the web. If you look at it on the front end, it seems pretty, as if maybe we cut and pasted. But the programming that was involved and the flexibility in order to localize this for every different country, the load times, the buffering . . . we not only had to do the programming of the site, we had to do a lot of testing in order to make sure the videos loaded up and played properly, that things worked. For those three and a half weeks, it was working every night until 11, just pounding away and figuring out the best possible way to do certain things.

What were other main hurdles in implementing the original video online?

Elimeliah: We're used to doing static intros and transferring those to do whatever we want with them. But now we're working with gigs and gigs of high-definition video, which takes a lot more with gigs and gigs of high-definition video, which takes a lot more time to work with, to render and to load up. You could be really creative with how you do it. When you have only a few seconds to work with, this is not a video that can be buffering and playing like a DVD. This is something living in an environment. What we capture is only going to be a few seconds, so you have to be really creative in what those few seconds are going to be and the impact they're going to make. The files are so heavy, it won't work if the quality isn't perfect.

www.easyeasier.com

League of Bust!

I honestly thought the days of poorly rendered video were done. I really thought everyone "got it" when it came to video on the web. I really believed that there was a general consensus that when it came to big brands that video needed to be as good as images and copy... i was wrong.

Gatorade put out this new site that is absolutely horrible. The entire execution is bad, everything from the video to the animation to the speed and the navigation and even the text sucks.

Check out this site as an example of what NOT TO DO! If your site looks anything like this one, then redo it now!

No Silverli(ing)ght

Microsoft licenses Adobe’s Flash Lite: The motives in a nutshell we will do whatever Apple doesn't do. Looks like good ol Ballmer decided to base his decision on Job's refusal to install Flash on the iPhone.

I guess Silverlight isnt the Silverlining around the dark cloud hovering over Microsoft. Adobe seems to be sitting pretty these days. Who knew the design software makers would emerge as the powerhouse in the software arms race.

Acrobat and Flash has propelled them into the running...

Getting Physical on The FWA

I got Physical on The FWA today... had to give props where props were due. My excitement for the medium cannot be contained, its like getting new toys to play with every single day!

Check out this new article I wrote for The FWA

Enjoy!

Go Green Today! Drink a Beer and Hug A Tree!

NIN Sees Dead Places...

NIN took a major step forward with the new album entitled Ghosts. Although after downloading and listening to the track I feel that it is simply an instrumental version of their typical industrial style, what I do think is important is that Trent Renzor has applied his talents to the Interactive realm by producing a body of music that is meant to accompany places that are meaningful to him.

I think it is also important that he is using an alternative method of distribution via the web for his new release and that he is being sensitive to the fact that there are people who will pay top dollar for a premium product as well as those who will certainly download it for free. Rather than making it illegal he has embraced those fans as well and given them a means of attaining his music free of charge and perfectly legal.

I also like that with his free download he gives people web graphics, backgrounds, icons and similar branded media as a means of allowing a very vocal group further market his NIN brand and to help it develop into the web cult that it seems to be heading for. Reznor has been waiting for the web his whole life. Its a playground for him and a place for him to thrive. And there is plenty of room for many people like him to do so.

I applaud this move by Reznor. I hope to see more artists take this route when releasing any type of medium be it music, video, art, animations, whatever!

Behind the Times

Being an artist, a designer and a true innovator a person MUST be one step ahead of the game.

2.0 is upon us and its purpose is to finally establish standards, design practice and solid medium for the platform. It is about ease of use and data visualization. Flash, video, layout online and a maturation of the platform as a whole. 2.0 is about being comfortable in our skin and laying down another foundation for the most rich and robust medium in history.

I think that we need to focus on philosophy, analytics, and delve deeper into the human mind for 3.0 we will see motion sensors, touch screens, reaction and emotion. Databases and data visualization will also be sent to the forefront of this push. Things will be smarter, faster, more engaging and strategic.

We are on a fast pace towards the future, everything is accelerated and it is upon the designers, the developers and the innovators of the world to keep up with that pace in order to make sure the future is well organized, pretty and makes sense...

Motion sensors

It takes a real belief in the medium to put something like this out there.

Check this out! Make sure you have a web cam active. go to HRP.com

Publicis & Hal Riney deserve massive props for taking the first step into the split sea....

Way to go guys!!! Took a simple execution to change the future!

SoDA

SoDA, you're so full of bubbles, when I drink you you solve all of my troubles.

Those RFPs are so naughty forces us to be real haughty.
Big bad agencies throwing their weight, but thats not going to seal our fate!
We will not budge on that second line, and indemnification should be just fine!
2 directions are all you'll get, thats what we discussed when we first met.

SoDA, you're so full of bubbles, when I drink you you solve all of my troubles.

Those big agencies are starting to learn, our proposals are no longer difficult to discern.
Our rules are simple they benefit all, you have that site by early fall.
Our ideas were never free, and another design will incur a fee...
Day and night we break our neck, and you still expect our work on spec??!

SoDA, you're so full of bubbles, when I drink you you solve all of my troubles.

Squeeze me

I had gotten tons of feedback on an article I wrote a few years ago called Art Vs Design and this is one response to that article that I really enjoyed.

You can check it out here


I especially liked Jennifer's conclusion:

While this article does a great job of defining the basic distinctions of the Artist vs Designer, it doesn't take into account the entire 21st century role of Postmodernism in art. While the Modernism movement might have agreed with the distinctions between the two types of visual composers, Postmodernism is defined by it's antithesis.

I like what she said because I strongly disagree with it!

First of all this whole "modernist' and "postmodernist" bullshit is simply that! Bullshit.

Art transcends all "terms" and these terms are usually added to subjects because of the desire for people to organize things in such a way. Art is expression, and expression is not only timeless but time bound, it lives in the moment and hangs there as time passes. You may mark its creation but it lives on regardless of that mark.

So to use terms such as modern, or post modern only strangles the subject and makes it even more elusive.

To me the very term POSTMODERNISM is absurd. Everything that isnt yesterday is modern, postmodern is just a distinction that helps those who need to tag and clarify for the sake of organization, do so. The question still stands. Am I an artist or am I a designer?

The roads remain parallel yet they seem to be crossing at every turn.

"The term is closely linked with poststructuralism (cf. Jacques Derrida) and with modernism, in terms of a rejection of its bourgeois, elitist culture."

This is a complete farce... Art begs for attention, it is the deep desire of most artists to have their expression accepted by the world and to be lavished with the riches of the bourgeois and the elite...

Great New Design Book

Come one come all... Oprah has her list... here is where I start mine...

Graphic Design: A New History is a great new book that is helping to kick off the new age of design. Interactivity has posed new challenges to designers and they have stepped up to that challenge. Check out this very well written book by Stephen J. Eskilson

http://www.amazon.com/Graphic-Design-Stephen-J-Eskilson/dp/0300120117

congradzulations...

To Diablo Cody for her breakthrough script that I personally didnt care for but adore her story...

To the Europeans! Viva Them!

La Vie En Rose was one of the most powerful lessons I learned all year.

Bardem was evil!

Coens are JEWS!

Michael Jordan off the court...

The following is one of the most articulated and honest advice given by a sports star and it shows why MJ really is much more than JUST a basketball player...


The NBA doesn't have an image problem. It has young guys who have young ideas. Maturity comes later, and sometimes too late to realize you should've done this or you should've done that. Kids shouldn't come out of school as early as they do. A year in college isn't enough. They shouldn't be allowed to come out until they are adults—21 years old.

Now, why shouldn't a black kid who isn't wealthy have a chance to provide for his family? That is an issue; I'm not walking away from that. The problem is some kids are mature and ready to deal with the whole NBA atmosphere, but many more kids are not.

I was a mature guy coming out of North Carolina, so when a negative thing happened—someone misinterprets what gambling means to me—it didn't stick. I stepped forward and said, "This is what I did, this is not jeopardizing anything, this is not an addiction," and the public listened. But I was a lot more mature when it happened. If I'd been in that position and had been asked that question at 18 or 19, I may have had a very different way of handling it.

When I turned pro, the league was looking for a change. I had the personality and the game and a style of play, and all that came together at the same time. All the stars lined up and catapulted everything that came after—23 different shoes, Jordan Brand, everything. It's a phenomenon. How do you explain a phenomenon? You can't. The only advice I can give to someone in the league now is to be original. The consumer isn't dumb. He or she can sense things being knocked off. Originality is what lasts.

David Stern hates when I say this, but in some ways he created his own problem. Look at the way the league markets its players. When I came in, they marketed the athletes themselves, how they performed, what they accomplished. To reinvent someone is very difficult. When you say a player is today's Michael Jordan or today's Magic Johnson, the first thing the public will do is compare him to the real Michael Jordan or Magic Johnson. When the public doesn't see the same degree of success, you've just dug yourself a deeper hole.

You have to show the consumers something they haven't seen before, someone about whom they can say, "Hey, that guy is pretty cool." Magic, Larry Bird, Charles Barkley, myself—we didn't start out as the league's partners. We evolved, then the league made us its partners. That's what the league has to do now—find guys who can grow up to be partners. Don't take guys and force them into our mold.

One thing to learn from me is that everything I've ever done has been me, not something that someone calculated me to be. It goes to my upbringing, my parents. I didn't grow up in the inner city. I grew up in a rural area, where values were magnified. You were taught how to operate in society, to be articulate, honest. Kids growing up in the city, they're more materialistic. My kids are going through that now.

I can wear a suit today and jeans with holes tomorrow, and yet people know they are seeing the real me in either outfit. I had cornrows when I was a kid, but it was before anyone knew who I was; would the public or corporate America accept me if I had them today? If I was willing to say, "This is who I am, I'm not trying to be so-and-so," maybe, but even then I'm not sure. When you see Michael Jordan today, you see Michael Jordan as a totally honest person, and when I say honest I mean real, genuine. I am who I am, and that's comprehensible to the masses and in many languages.

It's a tough task for the league to create a similar image for itself. It has to find the right mix between corporate and street, believe in what it's doing and live with whatever the response may be. Too many of the league's decisions are made based on the bottom line. People pick up on that. You can't be afraid to fail. The stars you have now might not live up to the icon of a Michael Jordan or Magic Johnson, but maybe they will create an image that delivers an impact for you 10, 15 years from now.

All I know is—for the league and its players—don't try to duplicate something that has been done before. Do it your own way, and see where it goes. It might not hit the way you want it to. You may not make as much money as you want to. But there's value in remaining true to yourself.

the year that was 07

I remember 1987 and 1997 both very important years in my life. 2007 also followed suit. They all hold very important shifts in my life. My parents divorced in 87, my first marriage was in 97 and my second marriage was in 07, very big events, many other things happened that I am not getting into but it seems that the 7th year in the decades of my life are significant times.

07 was the year maturity finally hit me, i moves on from FB and stepped into my new role at Touro. Produced some of the finest projects ever and really felt good in my skin.

OH! forgot to post this link for the Merit Award at the One Show for FILA

Its always good to make your resolutions public because then people can hold you to them.

I expect 08 to be the beginning a a creative renaissance for me. Writing, film making, designing, producing, directing and creating in many ways...

A year of focus, maturity, responsibility, growth and mucho love.

I want this year to be somewhat peaceful and nurturing, exciting and above all creative!

just needed to get that off my chest

New Years Resolutions

Penned a new article for The FWA today. Nothing very profound, but a nice little piece for the new year.

I apologize mostly to myself for the lack of activity on the blog. One of my resolutions this year is to try and post something each day.

Enjoy and Happy New Year!!!!!

FWA! Zune...

Zune rightfully won today's FWA award.

Makes me really proud to see that come full circle.

Finally!

Worked really hard to get this project. Its my last project with Firstborn and McCann SF. I'm really proud of it because its wonderfully executed and really fun. I admit I am a huge fan of the iPod but the new creative for the Zune campaign is really cool...

...regardless, the ZuneJourney.net site is wonderfully breathtaking and a true step in the right direction for MS. The site is vibrant and ripe for additional content, a media platform for all that is Zune.

The player may have a tough road ahead but its on that road and willing to take on the mighty iPod with small jabs, creative kicks and a website that will give it a bit more credibility.

The site tells the story well, an exploration inward, its smart in a very creative way. What I especially liked was the seamless convergence of audio, video, depth, movement, interactivity and product.

I will not be putting down my beloved iPhone anytime soon but I definitely have a new understanding for the product philosophy behind the Zune.

Check it out here

Huge props to Mathieu, Joon, Eric, Tim and the rest of the Firstborn team for bringing this to life and for all their hard work on this.

class act

Recently saw a post on The FWA for a site done by Mark Ferdman's shop Freedom Interactive for the Matthau Company

Its really well done, great use of typography and imagery I was very impressed.