PBJ #3: Ahoy, thar’s brainstormin’ off the starboard bow

June 20th, 2011 by erik.taylor@hyperquake.com

Today we sat down to further narrow our scope for PBJ’s yet unnamed project. While we may have spent more time discussing social groups like hipsters, bros, and several other derogatory labels, we did however come up with a unique idea that got several of us excited. While discussing how to differentiate ourselves from other apps or websites that offer event information and feedback like yelp or urbanspoon, Dustin threw out the idea for an app styled after the choose your own adventure books many of us remember so fondly. You could see the wheels turning as we all thought of some of the cool possibilities this could lead to. Map and GPS integration, picture tagging, commenting and social profiles were just a few of the ideas being thrown around. Needless to say we are still in the dark ages of this project, the “create your own adventure app” was something to get excited about. Here’s a recap of a few of my favorite ideas:

  1. plan your night on the fly based on your mood and get recommendations on where to start your adventure
  2. location based check-in and picture tagging to document the adventure
  3. achievements or reward unlocks for creating unique adventures or incorporating new venues
  4. adventure categorization based on social groups
  5. the ability to share your adventure with others and comment on adventures
  6. a profile and social factions of users with similar adventures

These are just a few of the ideas we talked about and we still have a lot of polishing to do from a scope and ideation standpoint, but I for one am excited to see where this goes. Check back next time to see how our idea changes and evolves.

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Posted in Design, Technology | 201 Comments »

PBJ #2 : More Brainstormin’

June 16th, 2011 by Chris Hendrixson

Today we started to narrow down our focus a bit on our yet-unnamed project. More post-it notes and white-board-chicken-scratch. Today we decided that we want to make a product, one that is conjured up out of our collective creative minds as opposed to one for a particular client. So far we are pretty sure we want to make an iPhone app. We are in a debate about whether the app will be more entertainment or more content-delivery focused or (more likely) some combination of both. We are all intrigued by the thought of adding a game layer to the experience, which could come to life in a wide variety of ways.

Some random thoughts from today’s brainstorm:

• Do people REALLY check-in with mobile devices and WHY do they do this?
• Make something cool that we all would use and there is a good chance others will too
• Crowd-source content
• Infuse the experience with “inside jokes” and other funny Cincy stereotypes
• Be upfront and honest about Cincy at all times (don’t sugarcoat!)

Our current mission statement: To show the world that Cincinnati doesn’t suck.

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Posted in Design, Technology | 89 Comments »

PBJ #1 : Brainstorm

June 15th, 2011 by LeAnne Wagner

Today was the first day of PBJ, which is an experiment between our design and tech teams to create a project over our lunch breaks throughout the next month (or however long it takes). In case you’re curious, PBJ stands for Power Brainstorm Jam, which beat out other awesome names like Lunch Storm, Footlong Ideas, and many others inappropriate for listing on here. Clearly our strengths are not in naming. The guide lines and goals we decided on today are pretty simple. 1. Meet every day at lunch. 2. Document the meeting events/progress on the blog daily. 3. Create something that is an example of the type of work we’re passionate about and would like to do more of.

With that being decided, we began trying to figure out what we’d like to make. The post-its in the image below represent some of the topics discussed. After some round about discussion and hazing of Dustin and his hipster ways (i.e. v-neck sunburn) we settled on creating an app for Cincinnati. What exactly that app is doing, we’ve yet to decide, but some of the popular topics were the CAC, finding venues or restaurants, uncovering the “cool” things, Midpoint Music Festival and general connecting and reviews while on the go.

Our next steps will always be outlined here on the blog as follows:

#1 homework:

  • Do some research into the various apps and websites that already exist and play into the spaces that we discussed today. Which ones do you use (or think you would use)? Which ones are doing it right? Which ones have potential for us to build on? Due Thurs.
  • Think of 1-2 app ideas that have something to do with Cincy. Think about something that you would find useful and/or fun yourself.  Due Fri.

Thurs: Share research on existing apps and websites with the group.

Fri: Share app ideas with the group. Hopefully some will bubble to the top and maybe we’ll even get it narrowed down to 2 or 3.

20110615-010940.jpg

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Posted in Design, Technology | 158 Comments »

@Peanutweeter

June 9th, 2011 by LeAnne Wagner

As a fan of the Sunday comics (which I continue to read weekly, though I’m not sure why, because I’m pretty sure I haven’t actually laughed at any of them since 1997) the @Peanutweeter blog caught my attention. Nothing revolutionary here, just funny stuff. “The site arose from the concept that the amusing and sometimes outrageous tweets out there would be even funnier or sometimes darker if they came from someone that everyone could identify with,” site creator T. Jason Agnello told Wired.com by e-mail. See T. Jason’s top favorite 30 here.

Posted in Uncategorized | 56 Comments »

McDonald’s Pick ‘n Play

June 8th, 2011 by erik.taylor@hyperquake.com

If I was to say “Golden Arches,” I bet the first thing that would come to your mind wouldn’t be technology or innovation. It would probably trigger thoughts of Big Macs, Egg McMuffins, Happy Meals or if you’re like me, thoughts of indigestion. As easily one of the most recognizable brands in the world, McDonald’s knows that they need to do very little to grab your attention. Honestly, have you seen the mayhem that is followed by the annual re-release of the McRib? But, what does a fast food giant like McDonald’s do when they want to grab your attention? One might gravitate towards one of the hundreds of TV commercials we have all seen over the years, or one of the dozen or so catch phrases like “I’m lovin’ it.” But for a chain that serves nearly 50 million people each day worldwide and opens a new location every four hours, drumming up a silly slogan just won’t do. When your revenue stream is off the charts, you can afford to think outside the box and give away some free food as well, all in the name of getting people talking.

Enter an interactive challenge, where you can play to win free food. McDonald’s rented out a jumbotron on The Stureplan Hotel in Stockholm Sweden, where you can play traditional pong using your mobile device to control the paddle. The coolest part? You don’t need to download anything, just go to the site on your device and it uses geolocation to ensure that you’re in the game area. If you last 30 seconds against an increasingly fast computer opponent, you win your choice of several products and the coupon is sent directly to your mobile device. For more information, check out the video below.

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Posted in Fun, Technology | 173 Comments »

Gatorade: Evolution of the G Series

June 7th, 2011 by Dan Barczak

Gatorade: Brand Videology (short) from Tether on Vimeo.

Since I can remember, I’ve been more attracted to how things get made, rather than the finished product. I loved watching Jerry Rice play as a kid (except for when he beat the Bengals in Super Bowl XXIII in ’89), but love even more how he trained in the offseason, running more miles than most distance runners. Or how a Ferrari is meticulously crafted in Maranello, hand-stitched, etc…not just what the car looks like finished. That’s boring. The making of the Thriller video blew my mind as a kid. B-Sides. Movie deleted scenes. Behind the scenes at Pixar. How a novel was written. The making of the perfect sandwich.

I love the process. That’s why I love design. So when I stumbled upon a gorgeous stop-animation video by Tether (Seattle) which chronicles the Evolution of the Gatorade G Series over 16 months of Research, Concepts and Designs…well see for yourself. I love how other creative minds tackle problems…how they approach even the most mundane or minuscule tasks and turn them into something much larger.

Great work, Tether. (also came across it via Creative Bits)

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Posted in Design, Thinking | 134 Comments »

Moustache Bandit!

June 1st, 2011 by LeAnne Wagner

Ok, I’m going to hop on the hipster train for this blog post and do a little writing about moustaches (or mustache if you prefer, personally I like throwing the “o” in there so I can pronounce it “moose”stache, but that’s just me.) Anyway, I was sent a link by one of our clients in NYC about the Moustache Man. If you live in NYC  this may be old news, but for those that live in other locale (like Cincinnati, which has been notoriously dubbed by Mark Twain for being 10 years behind the rest of the world) this may be interesting. The images are from NYC subway ads and have been spotted around the city for about a year. Judging by an interview with the artist, the Moustache Man (aka Moustache Bandit, Madcap Moustache Man, etc) there doesn’t seem to be any agenda behind the moustaches, just plain ‘ol fun, which I generally support so I’m sharing it with you.

Note the m”U”stache imposters that have also started popping up.

Another noteworthy stache endeavor is the Mustaches for Kids program. No it’s not an outreach program that helps poor needy children grow mustaches as one of my friends gullibly believed at one point. Mustaches for Kids is a volunteer-run organization started in Los Angeles in 1999 to do good and have fun by growing Mustaches for children’s charities. Typically a bunch of guys will get together and use it as a charitable excuse to grow mustaches for a month. It’s good fun to watch them attempt to “out man” their friends, specifically the follicly challenged and it goes to a good cause in the end. If you’ve got time to kill, check out the rules, kind of funny.

Another charitable mustache cause is Movember. Pretty much the same deal as Mustaches for Kids, but this one happens specifically in November and benefits Prostate Cancer research.

And for good measure I’ll end on another fun one. Carstache. Pretty self explanatory.

Posted in Uncategorized | 662 Comments »

The New Digital Wallet?

May 24th, 2011 by Chris Hendrixson


Well, it’s finally starting to happen. Don’t throw away your velcro wallet just yet but I would reconsider buying a new one anytime soon. Today, Square CEO Jack Dorsey unveiled two new products that hope to drastically change how a small business accepts payments from customers. One of those is Square Register, which basically allows your iPad to function as a cash register that also collects data about purchases. According to Dorsey, “This obsoletes credit card terminals and cash registers.” The other new product is called Square Card Case which, according to the company, allows users to “explore local businesses, view menus, track and store digital receipts and open digital tabs to make instant, effortless purchases.” Dorsey had this to say about Card Case, “We want to take away all of this clutter, all the paper, all the mess. Get rid of the take out menus, get rid of the loyalty cards, get rid of the receipts, get rid of it and replace it with one clean digital card.” Read more here.

Posted in News, Technology | 114 Comments »

Facebook or Feltron?

May 19th, 2011 by Dan Barczak

For all of us who’ve said at one time or another, “I want an app that does ___________,” there’s a new app for you. Social Memories is an app (beta) from Facebook that takes your social data and conveniently aggregates it into slick infographics to page through/look at digitally in a simple way. Or as Facebook puts it: Your social activity on Facebook, analyzed and commemorated in twenty eight elegant pages.

A spread from Felton's 2007 Annual Report

I think it’s a fantastic idea. But I’ve got a slight problem with it. The aesthetic style way-too-closely mimics the look set forth years ago by Nicholas Felton…the same Nicholas Felton that has a cult following for his amazingly designed (personal) annual reports, which you can see on his blog/studio site Feltron.com and his blog. Felton’s work is something that has inspired me for years. We’ve even created an installation in the past inspired by his work. However, taking a look and using it as inspiration is one thing…ripping it off and feeding it to the masses is another. Facebook, I love the idea and the execution. It’s brilliant. The visual data design is just too close for comfort.

Interesting perspective from Fast Co.

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Posted in Design, Technology | 178 Comments »

Are QR Codes cool or lame?

May 13th, 2011 by Chris Hendrixson

Great weather in Cincy means a stroll down the street for a food truck lunch. Today’s choice was Cafe de Wheels. They do a lot of things right, one being the Tower of Power Burger (beef + BBQ pork, mmm). On their window is a QR code that directs people to their Twitter, Facebook and website. After I find a QR code reader app and take a picture of it I wonder if the payoff is really worth it. QR codes and the possibilities that come along with them are really exciting to me, but I just don’t feel like too many folks are nailing it yet. Tons of potential though. Give me something really great on the other end of that QR code. Make it some kind of scavenger hunt game or even give me a coupon. It’s pretty dang awesome that in 2011 I can point my phone at a visual code and reveal something directly on that device. It makes me feel like a spy. When companies/restaurants/teams/stores can tap into this excitement and deliver exclusive content that a user can only receive by snapping a photo, THEN we will start to see QR codes become a fun and relevant part of our daily lives.

Posted in Uncategorized | 209 Comments »

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