Is This the Cutest Interactive Website Ever, or the Creepiest?

Bonpoint, the luxury French fashion house for children, wants you to play peekaboo with its child models.

Fred & Farid Shanghai produced an interactive website for the brand, which asks for access to your webcam and microphone. Adorable children in expensive clothing stare at you while you cover your eyes, uncover them, and shout peekaboo. The adorable children then laugh.

The agency calls it “maybe the cutest interactive website ever,” but I found it super uncomfortable. I took one for the team, tried it out, and had to adjust my screen so the children were “staring” at my ceiling and not at my face. On the plus side, you get to admire their clothing and then click on a link to buy the whole outfit (for $200).

The kids are adorable, and the clothing is beautiful, but something about it—maybe it’s the green light suggesting that you’re being recorded—feels a little bit like I’m starring in an M. Night Shyamalan film.



North Kingdom Crafts ‘A Journey Through Middle-Earth’ Digital Experience

North Kingdom collaborated with Google and Warner Brothers to create a digital interactive experience entitled “A Journey Through Middle-Earth,” promoting The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, the final film in Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit trilogy.

The project is the conclusion of a two year partnership between the parties and the result of eight months of work. Built around an interactive map of Middle-Earth, fans can then explore 21 new locations from the world of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, and the updated map contains “3D animations, highlighting the paths of eight key characters in the films, including Bilbo Baggins, Gandalf and Aragorn.” North Kingdom also created “‘Hero’s Journeys’, an area of the platform that will allow people to relive all of their epic Middle-earth adventures, from Frodo’s journey to Mount Doom in The Lord of the Rings to Bilbo’s final battle in The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.” There’s also a new, peer-to-peer social battle experience allowing visitors to challenge their friends.

“This was an overwhelmingly exciting project for us here at North Kingdom,” said David Eriksson, chief creative officer. “Our challenge was to really push the boundaries of what is possible in a digital experience, drawing inspiration from the world of Tolkien and the drama world that has been built up throughout 14 years of epic films.”

You can watch a trailer for “A Journey Through Middle-Earth” above and head to the site for the full experience. (more…)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

W+K Creates Interactive Video for Honda Civic Type R

W+K London created an interactive video ad for Honda’s new sportier Civic Type R which allows viewers to toggle between two stories.

Using the “R” key, viewers can switch back and forth between two story lines featuring the same main character. Seemingly an everyday dad, one story features the man picking his daughters up from school. But switch to the parallel story using the “R” key and you’ll see that by night he uses his Civic Type R for a more exciting type of mission. We’ve included a (very) short trailer above, but you really need to head to Honda’s YouTube page for the full experience. It’s a clever idea, echoing the experience of drivers toggling on the vehicle’s “Racing Mode,” and W+K executes it pretty brilliantly.

We wanted people to feel Honda’s other side as well as see it, W+K London wrote in a blog post yesterday, “so we dreamt up a technique that brings together both narratives through a simple interaction.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Ikea Gets Dove-Like With a Mirror That Tells You How Beautiful You Are

Feeling a little down? Don’t worry. Ikea’s new piece of furniture thinks you’re amazing.

The Swedish retailer has introduced a prototype of a mirror in Britain that looks you up and down and (thanks to Kinect technology and some “complex coding”) gives you a robo-compliment, which people appear to be as thrilled to receive as the real thing.

This “Motivational Mirror” is based on very scientific information, commissioned by the retailer itself, which found:

• 49% of Brits receive no compliments in an average week
• 43.6 million people in the U.K. are self-critical of their appearance
• 33% of the nation feel they look their worst before 9 a.m. on a Monday morning

But this mirror tries to fix all that.

Ikea also did research into which specific compliments people would like to hear. Among the top choices were “Your eyes are mesmerizing,” “Have you been working out?” and “Your skin is glowing”—all of which are incorporated into this mirror’s uplifting robo-repertoire.

The retailer demo-ed the mirror in its Wembley store to” raise awareness of how simple solutions in the home can make our daily routines better,” according to the release.

“We all know how that first look in the bathroom or bedroom mirror can determine whether we have a good or bad day,” says Myriam Ruffo, head of bedrooms and bathrooms at Ikea U.K. and Ireland. “That’s why we thought—wouldn’t it be great if the mirror actually told you something positive for a change!

It is a little funny that Ikea is trying to jump into Dove territory. (And yes, the inspirational talking mirror idea has been done before—most notably by the all-female Austin band The Mrs., but also by other marketers.) Still, no real harm done, I suppose?

Just as long as they don’t mass produce this thing. (Worst actual bedroom mirror ever.)



twofifteenmccann Crafts ‘#ThumbMoments’ for Pandora

twofifteenmccann have created a new campaign for online radio service Pandora, entitled “#ThumbMoments.”

Users of the service typically give a song a thumbs up to favorite a song, and a thumbs down to not hear the song on their station again. But on September 5th, twofifteenmccann and Pandora made the thumbs up much more meaningful. Fans who favorited a song by Lindsey Sterling, the song was interrupted by a live message from the star, followed by a one-on-one concert for the fan. Over the course of three hours, Sterling performed seven of these concerts for Pandora listeners. Their reactions form the backbone of the new online campaign, which debuted today.

The emphasis on the thumbs up emphasizes one of the service’s more recognizable features, and allows for Pandora to surprise fans of other artists with similar concerts in the future. Indeed, The New York Times reports that future “commercials will follow the same format, but Pandora declined to name participating musicians.” Additionally, hitting thumbs up for certain (unspecified) artists in the future will result in fans receiving “thumb gifts,” such as signed instruments.

“It was very emotional for listeners, and very emotional for Lindsey, too, because she could see them one-to-one in a way that she doesn’t even get to in a concert,” James Robinson, chief creative officer of twofifteenmccann, told The New York Times of the campaign. “She could see what her music meant to these people.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Burberry's Scrolling Website for Its New Fragrance Is a Thing of Beauty

British luxury brand Burberry has launched a new fragrance, My Burberry, and you can even put your name on it, sort of.

The spot promoting it is your typical fragrance spot (good looking people, nothing makes sense, etc.) featuring Kate Moss and Cara Delevingne, but what really shines is the website.

It’s a beautifully designed, interactive, one-scroll site. The background starts as gently falling rain (“My Burberry is a contemporary grand floral that captures the fragrance of a London garden after the rain”) and includes images of flowers, the iconic Burberry trench, and is generally a lovely Internet experience when you consider all of the alternatives out there.

The bottle itself is well designed, although I think the font chosen for “My” in “My Burberry” kills the look a little. You can even have the bottle engraved—a personalized touch pointing back to brand messaging—although again, I think it takes away from the general aesthetic of the bottle.

I could probably scroll up and down this site for a solid 15 minutes though.



Inventor of the Pop-Up Ad Apologizes for Helping to Ruin the Internet

If you were looking for someone to blame every time a pop-up ad mars your Web-browsing experience, here’s a guy who’d like to nominate himself—and offer his apologies.

Ethan Zuckerman, Internet pioneer and director of MIT’s Center for Civic Media, takes to the pages of The Atlantic in a lengthy essay titled The Internet’s Original Sin. In it, he delves into the myriad issues around something we all might generally take for granted: a free, ad-supported Web. He also owns up to having invented that odious pop-up format, which assaults your eyeballs when you least want it (i.e., anytime), while he was working at the early Web-hosting service Tripod.com in the 1990s. (Though, in a moment agency people might find empathetic, he also sort of pawns off the blame on an auto client, who didn’t want its ad appearing on the same page as explicit content.)

It’s worth reading the whole article if you’re up for reflecting on the current, sorry state of Web affairs. Zuckerman includes a lot of smart perspective on topics like meager digital revenues, the stupefying allure of click bait and blasé consumer attitudes about behavioral tracking, along with how all that ties in with broader financial systems—and why it came to be so in the first place. He also notes that the ad-supported Web was borne of good intentions, though as Fast Company points out, that’s a tricky line to walk, given that it was, on some level, always at least in part about making money.

Toward the end of his treatise, Zuckerman even begins delving into other possible revenue models, like subscriptions, micro-payments and crowdfunding—acknowledging the difficulty of finding solutions and allowing that regardless “there are bound to be unintended consequences.”

And at risk of being fatalistic, it’s hard to imagine alternatives gaining traction when the vast majority of consumers expect free content and don’t seem to mind becoming the product to get it. But you also have to credit Zuckerman for falling on his sword to help draw attention to the debate.

We’re still not sure we forgive him for pop-up ads, though.



The Sweet Shop Directors Team Up with Google Creative Lab for Cube Project

The Sweet Shop directors Steve Ayson and Damien Shatford teamed up with Semi-Permanent and Google Creative Lab Sydney to create a project demonstrating the capabilities of the new Google Cube.

Tasked with utilizing the Cube — a “six-sided display that integrates motion technology to offer its audience members an active role in the storytelling process” — to tell a unique story in a never-before-seen way, Ayson and Shatford rose to the occasion with an innovative approach. They crafted a narrative “in which the six sides of the Cube would be used to tell a series of short stories in which the characters move across each side of the device, each experiencing their own adventure while simultaneously becoming the heroes, sidekicks, and villains of their neighbor’s worlds.” Intriguingly, the six sides of the Cube each correspond to one of the seven major narratives of literature (ie. tragedy, comedy, etc.), while also completing a cohesive, unified story. (more…)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Canal+ Lets You 'Be the Bear' in Fun Interactive Sequel to Famous TV Spot

I’m roaring with approval for this interactive sequel, of sorts, to “The Bear,” the 2012 Grand Prix-winning commercial from BETC Paris and French movie channel Canal+.

In the original, an ursine auteur sinks his claws into a big-budget medieval action film, fussing like a temperamental Hollywood diva over every aspect of production, from the script and direction to the special effects and score. Ultimately, the spot pulls the rug out from under viewers’ expectations with an inspired visual punch line.

Now, with “Being the Bear,” users can play director and take over a film set, choosing among several genre types to complete a dramatic scene (shown in the first commercial) in which a woman kneels over a wounded warrior who has been shot through the chest with an arrow. Naturally, some of the selections work better than others, but the writing and on-screen details are sharp throughout, and they reward multiple viewings. (The approach reminds me a bit of Tipp-Ex’s pick-your-own-adventure videos—work from France that featured a goofy, scenery-chewing bear. It also recalls the “Film, TV and Theater Styles” game from Whose Line Is It Anyway?)

My favorites in the new Canal+ campaign include the “Porno” option, which lets the actors have a ball, and “Horror,” a gloriously yucky exercise in spit-screen technique. The “Independent” selection yields the kind of self-obsessed, overly-probing dialogue only an audience of film majors (or Woody Allen) could love.

I wish they’d included a “Wildlife Documentary” option, because it might’ve given the bear—who stays behind the camera this time (we just glimpse his paw)—a role he could really sink his teeth into.

See the original spot below.

Via Adland.



This Place Short Film

Le réalisateur Truen Pence a réalisé le court-métrage This Place ainsi qu’une série de vignettes interactives, dans lesquelles on explore la côte de l’Oregon : ses habitants, ses maisons typiques, ses plages et ses forêts. Un beau projet de story-telling interactif et de photographies, signé Instrument.

Behind The Scenes :


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Perpetually Melting Sculpture

L’artiste Takeshi Murata a créé la sculpture Titled Melter 3-D, en forme de boule réfléchissante qui fond sous nos yeux de manière perpétuelle. Cette sculpture est en fait un zoetrope qui trompe notre oeil et donne l’illusion d’un mouvement de fonte infinie. Elle est exposée à la galerie Ratio 3 à San Francisco.


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The Mini Book of Major Events

L’artiste Evan Lorenzen est derrière le livre « The Mini Book of Major Events », qu’il a écrit, illustré et édité. Ce minuscule livre retrace les grands événements et évolutions de notre Histoire : de premiers signes de vie à la découverte du feu en passant par l’extinction des dinosaures. Une jolie réalisation, à découvrir en images.

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Fubiz for iPhone iOS7

L’équipe de Fubiz et Blank est fière de vous proposer la nouvelle application gratuite iOS 7 pour iPhone, conçue pour rendre votre expérience plus fluide et vous permettre d’emporter votre dose quotidienne d’inspiration dans votre poche. Découvrez davantage d’informations sur l’application Fubiz dans la suite.

Nouvelle interface iPhone iOS7

Découvrez de manière plus fluide les articles du site, le tout trié par catégories et avec un nouveau moteur de recherche. Un nouveau design et une interface pour un accès plus simple aux médias, galeries et aux vidéos HD sur Fubiz. Une évolution accompagnée par l’ajout des partages sur les réseaux sociaux et sur chacunes des communautés Fubiz (Twitter, Facebook et Tumblr).

Lien direct iTunesSite dédié

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Simplified Subway Maps

L’architecte Jug Cerovic s’est amusé avec les stations de métro du monde entier. De New York, à Paris en passant par Tokyo, il a remis en ordre le métro en démêlant les lignes entre elles et en simplifiant les trajets qui respectent désormais la réelle architecture des villes. De nouveaux plans de métro à découvrir ci-dessous.

Voir Paris en plus grand.

Voir New York City en plus grand.

Voir Londres en plus grand.

Voir Tokyo en plus grand.

Voir Berlin en plus grand.

Voir Madrid en plus grand.

Voir Barcelona en plus grand.

Voir Moscou en plus grand.

Voir Mexico en plus grand.

Voir Beijing en plus grand.

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Jerk Balloons

Shauna Luedtke est une directrice artistique et designer graphique basée au Canada. Elle a réalisé une série amusante intitulée « Jerks Balloons » dans laquelle elle inscrit des messages à ses ennemis en jouant avec une variété de typographies conçues par Neil Summerour, Ale Paul, Stephen Rapp et Mark Simonson.

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Twitter Fans Make DirecTV’s New ‘Get Rid of Cable’ Ad One of the Bleakest Yet

When you leave people to their own devices, they tend to get nihilistic. When they get nihilistic, they make darkly comic scripts for DirecTV.

Case in point: the satellite-TV company's Twitter-sourced fable—created in the style of Grey's long-running "Cable Effects" campaign—of what happens if you don’t cut the cord.

The satellite giant asked its fans to contribute a story line to the campaign by tweeting one-liners with the hashtag #GetRidofCable. The company then selected the best ideas and made a cohesive, disturbing story—read like a storybook in the video below—of getting addicted to cheese during lab experiments, going back in time and undoing your own birth … all because the protagonist refused to say no to cable.

It's actually a pretty good entry in the campaign, even if the last line is a bit long-winded. Then again, despite the medium's limitations, people on Twitter aren't really known for keeping it short, are they?




3D Optical Illusion of 2D Lamps

Le Studio Cheha basé à Tel Aviv a créé ces lampes LED « Bulbing » avec une illusion d’effet 3D puisque les lampes

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sont en réalité complètement plates. Financées grâce à Kickstarter, les designers ont donc pu confectionné différentes formes de lampes : ballons, tourbillon, montagne… A découvrir en vidéo et photos.


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Burj Khalifa Base Jump

Fred Fugen et Vince Reffet ont réalisés un record du monde : sauter du bâtiment le plus haut du monde, le Burj Khalifa à Dubaï. Pour cette occasion, les deux hommes sautent d’une plate-forme construite pour l’occasion. Equipés de réservoir à fumée rouge, le saut est entièrement retracé par cette fumée.

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Magic Carpets 2014 in Casablanca

L’artiste Miguel Chevalier a récemment installé à l’occasion des Journées du Patrimoine de Casablanca cette œuvre « Tapis Magiques ». Rendue possible grâce à l’Institut Français et de Voxels Productions dans l’Eglise du Sacré Coeur, cette installation propose une projection de couleurs vives et diverses en mouvement sur le sol de la nef centrale.

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Suspended

L’artiste Chloe Early et le réalisateur Andrew Telling ont décidé de s’associer pour créer ce film expérimental cherchant à jouer sur des corps en mouvement face aux mélanges de couleurs et aux compositions de l’artiste irlandaise, offrant ainsi une collaboration des plus réussies appelée Suspended.

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