This week (Feb 28 - Mar 11) it's Heart Radio's Have a Heart appeal and our client, More Than, are joining in the fundraising by asking everyone to tweet a pledge of support - for all those that tweet #HaveaHeartWall, a donation of £2 is made.
Lemon built the 'wall' - a microsite that displays a mosaic made from the avatars of all those that participated.
More Than hope to raise £20,000 by the end of the week. Get tweeting at www.morethanfreeman.com
Each year the brightest and the best in the UK digital industry get together for an annual networking event (ahem…piss-up) called Digital Podge.
Hosted by a very popular chap called Phil Jones, the Podge events have become so big each one warrants its own theme and website. Back in September Mr Jones passed the honor for creating the theme, website and print for Digital Podge 2010 to Lemon.
We were thrilled obviously, but we had a tough act to follow. Last years agency, Line, had raised the bar high by developing a rather clever theme and website which had been collecting awards left, right and centre.
So what should the theme be this year…hmmm? It had to clever, current and fun. We had a few ideas, but one rose to the top; this year Podge would be presented in glorious, eye-popping 3D!!!
We decided to take Podge back to where it all began for 3D - back to the 1950’s and the era of the 3D terror movie. Forget all your high tech Avatar crap, much better to have a dinosaur rampaging through the streets of London with some nice B-movie styling in the background (nothing to do with budget you understand).
So please put on your anaglyph glasses and marvel at Digital Podge in Natural Vision 3DIMENSION
Our first project for new client Universal has just launched! It's a desktop app (built in Adobe Air) for new film, Despicable Me.
The concept for the game centres around the user training and working their five Minions to build as many machine's as possible each week. Over-worked Minions faint with exhaustion though, so you need to keep an eye on them. To help, we built extra functionality so users' could check the progress of their Minions through Facebook. The app posts updates to users' walls, letting them know when a machine is built or when the little fellas need a bit of love and attention.
If you fancy looking after some Minions of your own, you can install the app here.
Nice example of data visualisation done by BBC using Google Maps:
http://howbigreally.com/
We're hiring again. This time we're looking for junior digital designer.
This is a great opportunity for an individual with real drive and commitment to constantly develop their creative skills. Primarily you will support the team with your skills in flash and motion design to deliver big brand work for our clients, but you will also get a chance to experiment with new technologies through our Labs projects.
If you are looking for a position where you will have an opportunity to grow quickly, receive direct mentoring from an experienced creative and have the opportunity to work on experimental projects with cutting edge technologies then this is the job for you!
The ideal candidate will have at least 1 years experience working in a digital agency and should be able to demonstrate (through a portfolio) their ability and skills in flash and motion design.
Specific skills required:
THIS POSITION IS NOW CLOSED
We need a new digital producer to join our small but perfectly formed team.
Are you passionate about digital, obsessed with producing work to excellent standards and have a determined attitude that means you always deliver to deadlines?
We need a talented and enthusiastic producer with a can-do attitude. You must be comfortable with taking the lead, owning projects and will enjoy the challenge of growing our accounts. You will be a natural problem solver, highly organised and calm under pressure and have excellent client-facing skills, coupled with a proven track record of delivering digital projects to time and budget.
Experience managing digital banner campaigns, microsites, social networking and mobile apps is a must and ideally you will have at least 2 years experience working within a fast paced digital agency environment.
Your responsibilities will include, but are not limited to:
Specific skills required:
If you are interested please apply to sarah@lemondigital.com
NO AGENCIES PLEASE!!! I will ignore you...
After augmented reality was made available for web platforms such as Flash, it became quite popular to build such AR capable apps. It looks as if what started as a revolutionising way of interacting with virtual interfaces is now as repetitive and pointless as QR codes came to be.
But have we explored all that AR can bring us? As for most "new" technologies, it's not what it does, but how we use it.
In my simplistic mind I separate AR projects like this:
By definition AR is the act of augmenting or enhancing reality. But when all this means is printing a piece of paper and looking at a 3D model on a monitor, it just makes me think: why not just put the 3D model in the monitor in the first place? The answer to which would be the interaction capability provided by the ability of physically handling the virtual model. But then again, it all depends on what you do with it.
Rubbish
If you just want someone to visually explore a 3D model/environment, making them go through the trouble of downloading and printing something is just not the best way. Don't take me wrong though, it's really amazing! But it gets old pretty fast. Also the fact that you have you to keep changing medias can be quite confusing for the user.
If you can eliminate the printed tracker you start making things easier for the user and ultimately creating a fun experience.
Fun
This example, done by Total Immersion, doesn't make use of any printed tracker instead it uses face tracking. This allows you to instantly engage with the AR experience. Only negative side here is that you have to download a special plugin since it doesn't support flash. But they have several other examples that definitely show that not using a printed tracker is the way to do it. For example:
It's definitely amazing and really engaging. But what can be done with it?
Functional
Even though the AR tracking is what makes it really fun to interact with, AR shouldn't be limited to it. This is a nice example of augmenting reality with no real need of tracking in order to convey a powerful message.
Fun and Functional
This card game offers extras and a new interaction with the cards. What's really good about this example is that it doesn't need a tracker, instead uses the actual card.
I'd say there's much to be explored and, as some of these example show, we'll probably still be seeing a lot more of AR.
