LG Electronics recently launched the LG Optimus, an Android-powdered smartphone that synchronizes with all Google mobile services. The LG Optimus aims to be less intimidating and more user-friendly to first-time smartphone users. Says Dr. Skott Ahn, President and CEO of LG Electronics Mobile Communications Company, “This is a device that was designed for regular people who want to jump into the smartphone experience but have been hesitant to do so because of the learning curve.”
Serial Cut demonstrates the features of the LG Optimus with a 3D illustration in the international campaign by BBH Singapore. A pop-up accordion unfolds behind the phone, each panel representing a different capability. The phone is G-mail and social networking friendly, and perhaps the most unique feature is Wikitude: a mobile application that uses Augmented Reality.
FriendsWithYou bring their signature magic, love, and friendship to Taipei, Taiwan for the Very Fun Park exhibition sponsored by the Fubon Art Foundation. “Field of Dreams” covers the facade of the Fubon Banking Center skyscraper in the eastern part of the city. A smiling cloud nestled in colorful flowers reminds us to look up at the sky, reminding viewers of their hopes and aspirations as children.
Very Fun Park extends throughout the entire city of Taipei, with “Field of Dreams” as one of the focal points of the exhibition. Other artists are displayed on storefronts, outdoors, and more, making the art accessible to all and dissolving the line between gallery and viewer. The theme of “looking up” demonstrates how in a small movement, one can be reminded of the vastness of the universe.
For those of you who were in Toronto June 10-20th, we hope you had a chance to experience the magical world of FriendsWithYou’s “Wish Come True Festival”. Commissioned by the Luminato Festival of the Arts, FriendsWithYou spread their message of “Magic, Luck, and Friendship” throughout the city. Queens Park in downtown Toronto was converted into Rainbow City, a colorful alternative dimension of gigantic totems, magical mushrooms, oversize bounce houses, and inflatable characters that came to life. Appearing in Rainbow City and around Toronto was the Rainbow King, Wish Come True Festival’s very own ambassador. Rainbow King was present at the ribbon-cutting ceremony of Rainbow City, opened the Canadian Stock Exchange, walked the red carpet at the Prima Donna opening night, and more. A walking piece of art, the Rainbow King thoroughly enchanted all the people of Toronto to join in the magic that was stationed in many parts of the city. The Wish Come True Festival was a complete transformation of the city into a beautiful place where dreams and magic became reality!
Hotel.com’s Augmented Reality website “Virtual Vacay” allows viewers to take a virtual tour across ten cities in America without ever having to leave home. Lead by Smart, the star character of the TV spots, users hold up the AR marker to their webcam to start the unique experience. The AR marker can be printed out on a normal printer, or accessed on a mobile phone.
Zerofractal worked with Young & Rubicam and Tool of North America. While Tool handled art direction and the website layout, Zerofractal developed the Flash website, animated Smart, created 3D assets, and integrated the Augmented Reality capability. The Zerofractal team spent hours of research creating the look and feel of the clay character Smart, modeling the landmarks of each city, working with AR, and developing using Papervision – the 3D engine of choice for Flash.
The FIFA World Cup kicks off in less than a week. The 3D Agency, formerly known as Candylab, adds to the World Cup excitement by creating heroic sculptures of the 12 most popular football stars for Nike’s “Write the Future” campaign. Anatomically correct models were built in CG and then transformed into life-sized sculptures that are displayed prominently in Nike Town stores around the world. The CG football players are also featured in Nike print advertising campaigns.
Director/Producer John Moffett explains, “It was a real challenge to get all the players created within the time frame as well as making sure that they were ready to be shipped out as assets to agency’s world wide. Seeing them as real life sculpts in the Nike Town Oxford circus has given everyone involved a real sense of achievement.” View more
FriendsWithYou brings color and festivities to Toronto for the Wish Come True Festival in what will be their largest interactive installation to date. The Luminato Festival of Arts and Creativity has commissioned FriendsWithYou to spread their universal message of magic, love, and friendship throughout the city. During June 10th – 20th, 2010 visitors can enjoy larger-than-life inflatable installations, a gallery show, several pop-up shops, community events, speaking engagements, and more. The highlight of the 10-day event is Rainbow City at Queen’s Park. The Luminato 2010’s festival Mascot Rainbow King leads a host of celestial characters in transforming Queen’s Park with larger-than-life dimensions of giant totems, bounce houses, and inflatable friends.
N.E.R.D. rolls around the California desert in a custom-wrapped Rolls Royce designed by FriendsWithYou for their upcoming music video “Hot & Fun.” The single featuring Nelly Furtado drops in June. In the meantime, teaser music videos by Fro Rojas have been proliferated around the web. FriendsWithYou’s Super Malfi gets some special attention from a few party-goers in Rojas’ “The Party Version.” In creating the one-of-a-kind Rolls Royce FriendsWithYou says “Magical Explosions [were] born, a psychedelic take over of FriendsWithYou cosmic forces.”
Thornberg & Forester designed and animated a motion billboard for Disney’s Mary Poppins Broadway musical, working with agency Serino Coyne. The simple yet bold design on 47th street and Broadway stands out among the maze of flashing lights in Times Square.
Chief Creative Office of Serino Coyne Sandy Block says, “In what is the most advertising-inundated location in the world, how better to evoke the larger-than-life magic of Disney’s MARY POPPINS than with the biggest sign you could possibly imagine: a 230-foot high by 80-foot wide, 12-screen, digital display with 15,000 square-feet of LED power. Now, put that in front of 100,000 visitors every day at the epicenter of the most popular New York City hub, and you’ve got yourself the perfect match-up of show and signage.”
KTV Media International works with the Brooklyn Brothers to create the new iPhone app “IamaDalek” for BBC America. The app converts any recorded message into the voice of a Dalek, a fictional extraterrestrial race of mutants from the cult British science fiction television series Doctor Who. The new era of Dr. Who premieres Saturday at 9pm on BBC America. Originally created by Terry Nation, the grating voice of a Dalek is ingrained in many a heart of science fictions fans. Thanks to the “IamaDalek” app, now anyone can become their very own Dalek. The iPhone app is available for download at the iTunes app store for free.
The latest in design and technology is Augmented Reality. Ogmento, a mobile media company, brings years of gaming, new media, entertainment, and software development experience to their groundbreaking AR content. AR combines camera, image recognition, and more to identity one’s surroundings and overlay information and content on a screen in real time. Users view a special image through a camera, either a mobile phone’s or a computer’s digital camera, and watch the 2d surface of the image come to life on the camera screen.
The March/April 2010 Communication Arts Interactive Annual is for sale on newsstands now. Featured in the magazine is Capri Sun’s “Disrespectoids.” The tagline for the campaign is “Respect the pouch” and the Disrespectoids are “a motley crew of kids who innocently but foolishly ‘disrespected’ the pouch and were transformed into physical representations of their disrespect.” Working with Ogilvy & Mather, Tristan Eaton designed the 10 Disrespectoid characters that are the center of the campaign.
FriendsWithYou has been very busy bringing magic to life. They paired up with US Sydney to produce the latest animated spot for Match.com. It’s never too late to find your match! “Better Together” tells the animated tale of a pea and a carrot destined to find one another. From strawberries and cream, fork and knife, to rabbit and hat, watch beloved duos connect in Friends With You’s delightful universe.
Goodby, Silverstein & Partners launched the “Plug into the Smartgrid” Augmented Reality campaign for General Electric. The power grid that energizes America hadn’t been updated in 112 years and GE was doing major overhauls. To educate consumers about GE’s powergrid updates, GSP developed the first campaign ever to use Augmented Reality. People were invited to print out a special AR marker that could be held in front of a webcam for a virtual experience of the Smartgrid.
The response went beyond expectations. What first started as paid media took on a new meaning when the campaign blew up on the blogosphere and began getting picked up by media outlets such as The New York Times, the official publication of the United Nations, Popular Science, and The Wall Street Journal. The augmented reality demonstration video on YouTube received over a million hits, which was then followed with over 80,000 views of user-generated videos of Augmented Reality.
To demonstrate the success of the campaign, GSPSF hired Serial Cut to build 3d information graphics for an animated case study. The engaging two and a half minute video demonstrates facts and figures from the campaign in a light-hearted tone, paired with the 3d informational graphic world that Serial Cut created. The case study is shown above, to view more work from Serial Cut click here.
With B-Bot iphone App, contacts can be turned into customized cartoons designed by Tristan Eaton, founder of Thunderdog Studios. Users have over 400 shirts, pants, shoes, hats, sunglasses, accessories, hairstyles, eyes, mouths, and more to customize their B-Bot character. Make your own, have friends build their B-Bot, or let shuffle do the work for you – the possibilities are endless. One reviewer stated, “B-bot is one of the most creative and alluring apps on the iPhone.” iPhoneAppsPlus, a site that displays app ranks and reviews from all over the world, awarded B-Bot a “Best” reward.
November is National Homeless Youth Awareness Month. Virgin Mobile declares that youth homelessness is public enemy number one. Through RE*Generation, the charity arm of Virgin Mobile, a charity concert with performances by Public Enemy, Blink 182, Weezer, and more was held at the George Washington University Lisner auditorium. All proceeds went to Sasha Bruce House, a non-profit shelter for homeless youth in Washington D.C.
Contributing to the night was Textual Healing, “a series of interactive public projections and performance formats that encourage creation of dialog through text messaging from mobile phones.” At the concert, anyone could text their message to a specific number and see it projected it onto the auditorium wall. Txtual Healing has done a series of projects a round the world, you can view more of their work here.
