Hornall Anderson Blog

We relaunched the Hornall Anderson blog I designed last week. Read my post about it here.

MSVC

Last night a bunch of us went to the Microsoft campus to celebrate the launch of the new Microsoft Visitor Center. Hornall Anderson was responsible for a lot of the interactive and motion pieces on display inside the space.

I worked on one of the installations near the exit.



The first part of my project consists of a photo kiosk that allows people to create a statement ala touchscreen magnetic poetry. Once they create their poem, they then take they're picture. Their photo/poem then join a flow of other visitors who have also created their photo/poem.



The result shows up around the corner from the photo kiosk and is projected on a 13' by 8' foot array of glass panels. From each poem, a "theme" word is chosen and displayed along with other visitors who have used that same theme word in their poem. For example, if I used the word "compassion" in my poem, I get to see how other visitors used the word "compassion" along with their photos. It's just a simple way to show connections.

See some other photos I took during the party on my flickr.

Real Artists Ship

It's been about four months since the last time I've made a post regarding my work as a designer for Hornall Anderson. Most of the projects I've been working on lately have been of the concept car/consultative/exploration variety, where nothing substantial seems to materialize, and I'm left feeling like what's the point?

As with everything it seems, it's an ebb and flow. Now it seems things are picking back up. Right now we're just wrapping up a very permanent installation for a local software company, and just beginning a new project for an arena undergoing a renovation in the "greatest city in the world." The latter, I feel like, could be one the most interesting projects I've worked on yet. At the end of the project hopefully I won't be asking myself "what's the point?"

Jam Session Profile

The project profile of the T-Mobile NBA Jam Session 2008 booth we worked on for this year's all-star game is up. Besides working on the interactive portions of the booth, I got to go down and photograph the results.

Note: I know the Hornall Anderson site really needs captions thank you very much.

Cards

Printed by Evolution Press, whose new identity and collateral were designed by Tara, Kevin and Kelly at Graphiti Associates, who are also redesigning their own collateral. Designing collateral is fun.

Added Officialness

Got a few press sheets of the business cards we designed for our store and they turned out really nice! It probably sounds ridiculous since we've been running the store for almost six months now (time flies), but having business cards somehow makes things seem more official.

On the front side we foiled the logo black on 100# black stock. On the information side we chose to print with pearl foil. There was some concern about whether the pearl would have enough contrast on black stock because it's a little translucent and the type is so thin, but I think it turned out great. It gave us the subtle quality we were looking for, without being overly metallic or shiny looking.

Air Travel = Hard

Air travel is hard. Whatever happened to the glamourous skylines with the beautiful stewardesses serving us cocktails in a skylounge on a giant plane? Instead, our flight out of Seattle was delayed, which meant we missed our connecting flight in Denver to New Orleans. Luckily, our airline put us up in a hotel for the night and got us out to New Orleans Saturday afternoon. Having to fly somewhere for three straight days is something I don't think I could ever get used to.

Hayden and I were sent to New Orleans for NBA All-Star weekend to document the booth experience we produced for the T-Mobile for the NBA Jam Session. Because our flight was delayed, we only had about 24 hours to spend in New Orleans, so we tried to make the most of it.

Less To Worry About

In my spare time this past week I've been working on business cards for the shop. It's been a nice change of pace working on a project that allows me to focus my time and energy on only a few elements—shape, layout, color—trying to make them as perfect as I can (still working on it).

That's not to say that those aren't my primary considerations on interactive projects, but there are a far greater number of other elements to deal with—user flow and experience, information architecture, hardware specs, dev platforms, interface (keyboard/mouse or other), OS/browser compatibilities—that take away focus from the first three graphic elements.

The small sandbox has been refreshing and I'm really looking forward to the satisfaction of having a physical object at the end of project instead of a website or installation that will disappear or become obsolete in the next 6 months.

Just Start Typing

When I was first hired on as a designer for the then named, Hornall Anderson Design Works, the first thing I really wanted to do was redo the old website. It was tired and dated in that it did not at all represent what the interactive team has become over the past couple of years, in terms if aesthetics, user experience, technologically, nor did it meet the very necessary requirement of easy update-ability for a design firm as large as us (100+ people now!). It also did a poor job of representing the most well-known segment of our business, identity development.

A little more than 6 months ago, with those challenges in mind, we set out to provide ourselves a framework to show off the integrated branding firm—print, interactive, strategy—that Hornall Anderson is today. We finally launched the site a few days ago, and I think we achieved our goals. There's plenty of room for it to grow, as the company continues to grow in size and capability. So check it out and tell me what you think. When you get there, just start typing!

Joe Metro

27 seconds into this new Blue Scholars video is where I work!

Trying to Relax

Had lunch with Joe at Umbria today.







Then headed up to the shop and chilled with Donna for a bit.

Tommy Bahama

Tommy Bahama's online shopping site, a project that I worked on over the Summer, recently launched. There are still some layout bugs, but all in all I think it turned out pretty well. The product photography turned out great. The lighting (highlights and shadows) really makes each shirt dimensional and it just feels on brand.

Our primary responsiblity was translating Tommy Bahama's brand into an online shopping experience, while another firm did most of the development. My role was as a lead designer/art director.

Now The Work Begins

It's been a while since my last post, but with good reason. Over the past month and a half, I have been engaged in negotiations, along with four business partners, to buy a business that affords me the opportunity to work on things that i am most passionate about. More importantly, it's my chance at being my own boss (one of many), and fullfilling on an entrepenureal spirit that until recently, I never knew I had.

The business we've invested in is Capitol 1524, a well-known sneaker boutique here in Seattle. As of late, it's prominence in the saturated sneaker market has diminished; especially compared to GOODS, whose product selection, marketing strategy, in-house line, and overall aesthetic I find to be exceptional.

I don't think I've ever been more scared, excited, anxious, happy, tense, and exhausted. The shear amount of information I've had to absorb from lawyers, advisors, accountants, friends and family has fried my brain. The funny thing is, I know it's only going to get harder from here on out.

I'm still going to be working for Hornall Anderson fulltime to help support Tara and I; but I'm hoping that the store, and all the opportunities it will eventually bring, will be enough to sustain the way I want to live in the future.

We've got big plans for the store which I hope to share with you all over the coming months, but right now we're still crawling.

Bizzy

Things have been pretty busy for me the past month or so. It feels like I'm in meetings every other hour during the week, which makes it difficulty for me to get anything done. I pretty much need an hour just to get started. Rather than actually being able to sit down and DO work, I sit down and TALK about doing work for one project, and then talk about doing work for another project. Today however, was an exception since I had no meetings. I wonder if it had anything to do with my today being my birthday, or if it was just a coincidence.

We're (mostly Drew) also still busy photographing all of the work we're going to launch the new Hornall Anderson sight with. Shooting work for 40+ projects has been quite a challenge, but I learned a lot from this experience, especially why photographers have so many assistants.

Hornall Anderson Dot Com

I almost can't believe it's finally happening. After tons of behind the scenes work, clearing schedules and removing red tape, the new Hornall Anderson site design is done, and we are now in the midst of production and development. Stay tuned till October...

Launched

It's been a pretty big week for us at HA. The SkyQ at the Space Needle project officially opened to the public. I guess the mayor and some other "big wigs" were there for the opening ceremony. Unfortunately I didn't make it in time to tell him to keep the Sonics in town.

There was a write up in the Seattle PI yesterday, and King 5 also covered it on the local news. It's a pretty satisfying feeling to see "real people" using the stations after many months of work.





The other notable launch was Redfin. Essentially Redfin gives people the ability to buy or sell a home over the Internet without the need for a real estate agent, which ultimately saves them money. They've built a model for buyers to shop for homes online, compare their prices to adjacent properties, check property taxes and sales histories, view large photos of homes, and then fill out standard sale documents.

We were responsible for a new identity and the look of the website, which they built out themselves. See their official press release for more info.

Mad Hectic

After a hectic couple of weeks, Drew, Joe and I went up to the market for lunch to relax. Two huge projects with essentially the same deadlines really makes you focus.





And for those of you that haven't already seen it, Joe's Security Pattern Collection has reached 100! Be sure to send any unique patterns you receive in the mail to him and he'll add it to the collection.

Good People

Finally, after many years, I'm happy to say that Adrien, Drew, Joe and I are working for the same company. We were finally able to bring Drew to HA Interactive, and I'm looking forward to working with him. Time for the takeover...

Speaking of good people, yesterday during lunch I ran into Graham Stinson outside of Cafe Umbria. Graham was a designer at Dual who I learned tremendous amount from. Congrats to him on girl #2 and I hope that you, Tony, and Paul are kicking ass at Ratio Interactive!

SkyQ: Map Station

Here's a video of another one of the stations we did for Space Needle. It was focused on "extending the view" for Space Needle visitors to the neighborhoods of Seattle via photography, narration, videos, and articles.


SkyQ: Map Station on Vimeo

SkyQ

For the past year or so, I've had the pleasure of working on a project for the Space Needle, a Seattle landmark. For me, this was one of those dream projects where I got to be involved with almost all types of design, including interactive, industrial, environmental, and even a little bit of identity.
The goal of the project was to extend the 360 degree view of Seattle for visitors by use of an engaging interactive experience. The interactive team which I am a part of, at Hornall Anderson here in Seattle, came up with five experiences.

HD Camera Station

camera and housing in the skunkworks shop
one of two HD cameras on the roof of the space needle
Users are able to control a broadcast quality (same kind they use for NFL games) HD camera mounted to the roof of the Space Needle. The video feed is sent to a 1080p LCD where they can zoom in REALLY close to things miles away. There are two camera stations, one facing North and the other South, with the ability to pan the cameras nearly 180 degrees. I'll post more pictures and a video of this in action later.

Map Station

my workspace
capitol hill neighborhood view
The first time we see the a built out station with final hardware
South facing station shows neighborhoods south of the Space Needle
international district history view

Adjacent to each of the Camera Stations are two Map Stations (four total). These provide a richer amount of information as to what you can see with the camera, as well as the things you can't see. Major Seattle neighborhoods are featured along with brief descriptions of things outside of metropolitan Seattle. The interface is built in Flash and it's hooked up to a centralized CMS using Django. It's also hooked up to a couple of live webcams, and we built a custom cloud generator that reads in an xml weather feed that determines the density, speed, and direction of clouds on the maps.

Voices of Seattle Station

Vignette Station Prototype on Vimeo
Early prototype
Space Needle employee watching vignettes of fellow Seattlites
first time viewing for some of my coworkers who weren't working on the project
This station consists of a 42 inch 1080p HD LCD, custom 42 inch touchscreen and two directional speakers mounted overhead (pictures below). We filmed real Seattlites in HD and asked what they loved about Seattle. I'll post a vid of the final version later.

360 degree Time-Lapse Station

SkyQ: Seattle 360 degree Panorama Time-Lapse on Vimeo
Jamie, Dan, Joe
the knob allows by-the-minute control of the time-lapse, the touchscreen allows people to jump around in the 24 hour period quickly

center console for controling time and pan
Twelve 10MP cameras mounted on the roof of the Space Needle took photos every minute for 24 hours to create this. Users can pan and control the time via a central touchscreen and knob.

360 degree Factoid Reveal

SkyQ: Seattle Factoid Reveal on Vimeo
prototype in the skunkworks shop
hand movement revealing illustration and factoid button about Boeing 747 underneath photo

Another panoramic station, but for this we commissioned illustrator James Jean to create a 360 degree panoramic illustration that, well, illustrates interesting facts about Seattle. Each of the five displays making up the station has a touchscreen and a camera mounted above it for motion detection. Users wave their hands over the screen to reveal James' illustration hidden underneath a regular photo of the Seattle skyline. Next to each of the dream-like illustrations are buttons that users can touch to find out what James is drawings are about.

The displays, touchscreens and camera controls are all hooked up to custom server enclosure via fiber optic cables to here:


Sound is output through these crazy directional speakers. This is the type of technology they use for crowd control when riots break out! They literally output a cone of sound. But we're using it to keep the ambient noise on the observation deck of the Space Needle to a minimum.


I'll post more pics and photos of the project as we put the finishing touches on the installation, but you can see the photos I took through the entire year long project at my flickr account or at Adrien's (our developer) account.