MODE's Top 10 Methods

I'm a little late with this entry since I saw them over a week ago. But the presentation made by John and Tyler, two of the principles at Mode was so good it's worth mentioning, although a little late.

The definition of Mode is: how something is done or how it happens.

It's a very fitting name for them since that appears to be there company motto, to figure out how it's done and to apply it to others. Mode is an interactive firm ran by a group of designers and developers. As quoted from their website "…with the purpose of creating conversations between clients and their audience." The guys moved down from Boston about 3 or 4 years ago to start a fresh and decided that Charlotte was the ideal city for them and they have been growing ever since.

So the Charlotte AIGA does a series on "TOP 10 Trends and Tips" and recognized that they would be perfect for this. Which brings us back to the night I mentioned earlier where they gave us a presentation on Interactive Media Tips and Trends. This is what the AIGA had to say by it.

There has been a shift in thinking and approach in the design and technology fields to a more holistic viewpoint of the way users interact with brands through visual, mobile, and social media. Learn techniques, trends and business approaches of the interactive movement from the partners of Charlotte-based branding and interactive studio Mode Through their own backgrounds, Mode partners John Pietrafesa (Creative Director) and Tyler Hawes (Interactive Director) personify the integration, trials and triumphs of design and technology, as they steer both their team and clients toward the goal of brand interactivity.

I wish I could remember all of what they said because it was a lot. But they were kind enough to send us all the presentation (click here) which basically used cool websites to anchor each topic. I chose 10 of my favorite examples below to give you an idea.

1. Intro: youtube.com
2. Don't forget the design Basics: jasonsantamaria.com
3. Grid Structures: shopcomposition.com
4. Interactive is more than a website


5. Interfaces Are Evolving: microsoft.com/surface/
6. Engage All Senses: demo.fb.se/e/ikea
7. User Organised/Personalized:
msnbcmedia.msn.com
8. It's Not Static: dopplr.com
9. Interacting With Your Enviroment:
youtube.com
10. It's all about Human Interaction: youtube.com

If you've had a chance to visit all of these wonderful links you'll see 3 very basic messages using incredibly cool examples.

1. Designers and creatives need to work more cohesively to create online tools that are smart and eye catching.
2. This medium is constantly evolving and getting better because these same designers and developers are working better and better together.
3. Because of them anything is becoming possible and they create the trends.

Overall it was a very entertaining evening and I can't thank Mode and all at the Charlotte AIGA people enough for putting up such a splendid night for us all. Personally I hope to learn more about Mode in the future.

Posters Will Never Be The Same

A movie poster is a simple thing. But over the years studios have tried hard to make their's stand out above all the rest. You've probably noticed this when you go to a theater and you've seen the large oversized 3-dimentional poster stands of Wall-E or the next big blockbuster. I have to say they are fun and to be honest most movie theaters are fairly bland anyway so they can use the help. But now with the modern age of the web these same movie posters (and movie trailers) are making it online first and just like theaters they are having to do something different.

If you watch the web much you'll have followed the viral campaigns of Batman or Wonder Woman. You'll see that the studios are trying to get as much of a bang for there buck as possible because views or website hits can become major dollars. So a simple unveiling of a poster online just doesn't quite cut it anymore. These days a movie posters might get an honorable mention or a quick post but that's about it. Because of the viral sites or perhaps because there are now so many posters being unveiled online we are on information overload and so a movie poster has to be different.

Well take a look below (reload the page to see it from the beginning). Just the other day a "motion poster" came out for the new Terminator movie and it's taken a very different approach. I'm starting to wonder why they didn't do this before, it's both very exciting and different. I think this is just the beginning and I imagine we'll see more of this approach in the coming year.

From This Day Forward

Nicole and I are creative people. We do things differently than most and always try to have a little fun of it. After I proposed to my beautiful wife (whom I love so MUCH!)… Nicole, one of our first questions was how are we going to do the invitation?

Invitation: We both agreed that we didn't want to do the typical ornate card. We wanted something a little bolder. In January we had gone to Savannah, GA for Nicole's Birthday with our friends Toni and Hall. We had such a wonderful time there and thought that getting married in a square would make for a beautiful and romantic location. With the location picked we began to get our ducks in a row.

We realized that because we were only inviting a hand full of guests we could make the invitation personal and special. While Toni was visiting us Nicole mentioned the infamous book, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. We all agreed that nobody has ever received a book as an invitation before and that would add the personal touch of Savannah. Neither of us liked the name so it was retitled, "From This Day Forward" and used our favorite photo from our trip in January.



It was cool because we just changed out the dust-jacket with all the official Wedding information and the guests could then read the book to get an idea as to what Savannah is all about. To include all the extra information about traveling, lodging and the schedule we came up with a book mark. Once we had all the pieces we just wrapped it in craft paper and illustrated it with a gold pen.

Thank You Card: The Wedding day was everything you want it to be, full of happy moments and great memories. We wanted to carry on the personal touch so we wrote a book review of our Wedding/Book "From This Day Forward" with some of the highlights, see below.

"I Need an Ad" – Prutech

This was one of those unexpected "I need an Ad right Now!" calls you get occasionally. The company had purchased AD space but didn't have an Ad! So I sat down and tried to think of all the ways IT effects our lives. I have to say that I like the lines, I'm not a writer, but when I need to, I can usually put something descent together.

Bocce From A Different Angle

Bocce is an age old game that's been around forever. The premise is simple, get your ball as close to the white one as possible.

I was asked to design a logo for a Bocce that embodied that feeling. So I did some Bocce research and found that every logo has a Bocce ball in the "o". This seemed to obvious, but that was the case with every Bocce website I went too. I felt the logo could be something more. After looking at the name some more it occurred to me that by turning the "B" and positioning the "o" it made three Bocce balls like you would see on a Bocce ball lane.

With a lot of playing the above is the logo. But as you can imagine, they didn't go with it and instead wanted the Bocce ball in the "o".

A Little Gem of and Idea

I had just come back from the HOW conference and the first thing I was given to do was this AD for Bluff Magazine. While I was gone the Marketing Dept. had been brainstorming ideas. They were all fairly descent, but obvious. One stood out though and it was "You + 7 Buddies + HUC = One Hell Of a Poker Night".

Now maybe it was seeing all the cool stuff at the conference that led me to come up with the idea there and then, I don't know, but this one seemed right. I know this is a "1+1=2" approach that's typically not very smart. But what I liked was that the Heads-Up Challenge table is an unknown, which makes it complicated. So this approach actually fits. New products scare people because we all like what we are used too.

I took the line and designed it to be fun and simple. I also designed the layout to point towards the table. I think all layouts need a flow, whether by using type or white space to direct the reader to your objective. That way the reader understands what it is in seconds, versus a minute. We all know how fleeting a readers eye is.

What also helped was the use of color. The gold flat tone helped the table kick off the page as well as stand out from all the other poker ads that are usually dark in tone.

This is one of those occasions where had I chosen the headline they wanted me to use it probably would of turned out like usual. In talking with my colleagues and digging a little more I was able to find a little gem of an idea and do something a little different.

What's Under The Mask?

Billboards are a cool medium when you can do something fun and daring with it. Then when you have a client that also wants that, the hard part is over. That was the case with this. Trevor Baker, a long time friend and coworker brought the project to me with an idea of a mask covering the billboard that slowly revealing itself.



The idea was so simple I mocked it up and the client approved it immediately. The next step was to actually make it look real. We looked into an actual vinyl mask, but we quickly realized that the elements and reality would make it difficult to choreograph it correctly. So in camera was the prudent approach.


What you see is the end result. The client has had an overwhelming amount of attention and it has placed their Neurosurgery ahead of the pack.

An Evolution: PlayHeadsUp.com

I've done many a website, but none more complicated and evolving than PlayHeadsUp.com. It required an extensive amount of planning and developing , plus the major help of a brilliant programmer, Brady Gaster.



The website is for a brand new amusement table called, Heads-Up Challenge. It was introduced over a year ago and since then has been placed in more than a thousand bars around the US and the world. Like any new product it needs a website. But the problem was, how can we explain what it is to players, Operators and Bar owners? That question immediately took us down a path of shooting lifestyle and video so we would have the assets to work with. Click here to see the video.

Having the assets to build the site was only part of the solution. The design of was also key. For this I took direction from the table it self. Other than the monitors on the table, it has no 90º angles. So I attempted to introduce as many curvatures as I could. That and the primary colors of gold, green and black helped me to create the aesthetic look of the site.

I can program a sites, but it's not really my cup of tea. PokerTek has a "do it in-house" philosophy. So Brady Gaster, one of the programmers was available and eager to do something different. Through a process of wire frames and design we were able to develop a strong repore. We decided that with the table constantly evolving with new features so fast that we'd have to be able to change the content regularly. So Brady built a whole back end to it using Graffiti, a very good user friendly Content Management System. I've never dealt with Graffiti before, but I will now. It allowed me to easily adjust the design and content with a click of a switch.

Like I said, it was an evolution. I'm very happy with the site. I feel that it answers the question we started with so long ago. What is it? It's a kick ass game.

It's Time To Make A Change

Whether you recently voted, have financial problems or just had a new addition to your family, change can be a difficult thing. We don't know how change will effect us and in what new directions it will take us. The idea that we aren't in charge of our own destiny makes me feel like a plastic bag in the wind. Change brings insecurity and makes you yearn for the old days. But change can also mean good things, the possibility of new challenges. The chance to make a difference and the belief that everything happens for a reason.

I once heard a story, maybe a myth. A long time ago a king recognized that his people were going through tough times and unfortunately it wasn't going to get better. So he decided that his people needed to be reminded of a positive message. A message that would give them piece of mind and security. A message that would last after he was gone so that his people's people would also see the truth in it. So he called for all of his wise men and told them of his concern. They deliberated for a long time and finally after the king had almost moved on to another solution they came to him. They told him four words, to which the king immediately saw the truth in and immediately had them chiseled above the gates so that all who walked in and out of his kingdom would see them. And just as he wished, the words stayed. The gates eventually fell but the words remained. Those words ring true as much today as they did back then and give me great comfort now, "this too shall pass."

Election Day! Still Need A Reason To Vote?

Today is November 4th, Election Day! Nicole and I waited almost two hours in line this morning to vote for Barack Obama and it was worth every minute. This election is by far the most historic election I've ever seen and I've never felt more a part of something in my life.

Earlier this year I voted for another Democratic Presidential Nominee, click here, and was quite saddened at the outcome. For a long time I felt unsure about Barack Obama until I went to a rally here in Charlotte (informed by Facebook) and was amazed at the turnout and what Barack had to say. It was enough to make me see him in a new light and give me the inspiration I was looking for. After that I signed up on a bunch of Barack Obama website and was introduced to 30Reasons.org.

The organization 30Reasons.org is a pro-Barack Obama website and for 30 days prior to Election day it emailed me pro-Barack Obama posters. Every day I would expect a new poster in my inbox and each one gave me a different reason to vote for Barack Obama. Each new poster took on a new topic and the topics ranged from the economy to McCain being just another Bush. Some were smart and insightful and others were crap and childish. But what I liked about them all was the interesting approaches they each took on. All the different perspectives reminded me that we all see things differently and it's amazing that we can vote on anything!

My only complaint was with the whole objective of the organisation. I think it would have been better had they done the saem for McCain also. That would have shown us the "yang" with the "ying" and given us the opposing perspective which is something we all need when we are making a decision on a candidate.

Overall I found it very inspiring! I've never seen anything like this and to be honest I'm going to miss it.

Official Coraline Poster Hits!

The new poster for Neil Gaimen's "Coraline" has just come out! Why am I excited about this? It's directed by Henry Selick who brought us "Tim Burton's A Night Before Christmas" and many other amazing and inspiring stop motion movies.

Neil Gaimen wrote the book specifically for young adults which always seem to border on reality and fantasy. It's about a curious girl who unlocks a mysterious door in her family's new home and enters into an adventure in a parallel reality. On the surface, this "Other World" eerily mimics her own life - though it is much more fantastical.

The poster is just beautiful and really captures the imagination. I love the logo, The font and the button are okay, but it has more weight when you see that the "l" also symbolizes a cat. The colors are both eerie and magical. I also love the figures, they have a fairly unique look to them, almost look like they are stick figures. One of the better movie posters to be release in some time.