Archives for Creative
The Demise of Stock Photography
Access to cheap images has improved dramatically with the rise of the web, and consequently, the web (and marketing in general) has become cluttered with low-quality images. How'd this happen?
What Adobe CS6 Should Be- One Modular Application.
What’s the worst thing about Adobe’s CS suites as a whole? In my opinion, it’s 10+ different RAM hungry behemoths, sometimes with a great amount of overlap in functionality. Need to encode a video? You should use Media Encoder. But you’ll need to fix the aspect ratio (or some other menial, yet complex, task). Then you [...]
Websites with Linger
Two years ago, my wife and I took an amazing trip to Northeast France and Belgium. We spent four days in Bruges, which is maybe Europe’s most picturesque town. Bruges is home to some of Belgium’s best beer destinations, including several amazing beer bars, beer-themed restaurants and a brewery museum that showcases Belgian brewing circa [...]
QR! What is it good for?
Absolutely Something. Here at Pop Art, we like to embrace emerging technologies (Dave Selden is currently the world’s only Beenz millionaire). So with that in mind, we’re about to debut new business cards for all of Pop Art’s staff, with a very useful twist- QR codes. QR Codes are popping up everywhere, with the intent of bridging the physical ”meatspace” with the [...]
Nobody’s Perfect: Apple’s iTunes Terms of Use
“Easy. Intuitive. Effortless. Friendly.” These are all words often heard when describing Apple’s products. As a longtime Mac user, I’m constantly amazed at the trouble Windows users are willing to go through in installing software, cameras or printers. Apple builds great usability and attention to detail into every product they release, and this commitment has [...]
Augmented Reality Promotion for the Oregon Lottery
To build buzz and excitement around the new Mega Millions® product, Pop Art and the Oregon Lottery® teamed up to create an experience that allows users to envision what their lives would be like should they win a Mega Millions jackpot. This program leverages Augmented Reality technology to allow users to create a unique, virtual [...]
Humanize Technology or Become Mechanized?
An interesting question in these technologically driven times. The title of this post sums up the “big take away” from the recent Web Visions 2010 conference. Leave it to Portland, Oregon to put on a mind bending technology palooza of trends, implications and applications. Brad Smith’s brain child, the event celebrated its 10th anniversary this [...]
Top 5 Office Pranks in Pop Art History
We work pretty hard at Pop Art. There are late nights, and there are late nights. Booze sometimes takes the edge off, but where to turn when sobriety is your only friend, and there’s stress you need to relieve? Laughter is the best medicine, and it’s best enjoyed at a co-worker’s expense. 5. Jello Stapler VP of Client [...]
Decking Our Walls
Underwhelmed by the thought of another agency lobby with a flat screen mindlessly cycling through our work and potentially burning images into the retina of our clients’ eyes – Pop Art decided it was time to get some real art on the walls. Selecting art that portrays the culture of an agency is not an easy [...]
Geolocation; localized content hits home
The online user experience is becoming more localized and we expect to see major growth in the coming years as AT&T, Google, Yelp, Foursquare and others get into the action. We already have geo-targeted ads, segmented content and social search serving content in a more personalized way. But now, we are seeing the emergence of [...]
To Microsite or Not To Microsite?
I’ve been part of several conversations in recent months about when to build a microsite, or when a certain type of content is better placed within the confines of the corporate web site. To that end, I developed a quick little graphic that illustrates my thoughts on the matter. In my opinion, your corporate web [...]
Interactive Advertising on the iPad
Let’s say Apple’s iPad takes off. It would be unrealistic to expect it to be as ubiquitous as the iPhone, but for the sake of argument let’s say somewhere between that and the Kindle. Thats reasonable isn’t it? Sure, the current impressions based on it’s debut are somewhat like that of the Segway, but the iPad [...]
Great Clients make for Great Campaigns
A friend once told me that behind every great campaign is a great client. Of course, what they meant was that a client who trusts you take their brand in new directions will likely be a collaborator in the creative process. This could not have been truer than in the case of the latest online [...]
Did You Really Think This Was a Good Idea?
Technology that Failed, and Hard Since man first used a stick to dig under some roots and accidentally caused a tree to fall on him, humans have been doing stupid things with technology. Since the invention of the microprocessor and instant mass media, this has only become that much easier. Thankfully 2009 is gone, and with it one [...]
What I wish the Apple Tablet Was
Last night, I was secretly hoping this long-rumored Apple device was just a big hoax. Seriously, how funny would that have been if all the rumors were nothing but … rumors? But as Anton and I got to talking about it, we started imagining the purposes a keyboard-less, WiFi-enabled touchscreen might have in our daily [...]
I hate Fred Meyer’s Holiday Ad
Ahh, the holidays. The time of year when retailers turn the dials up to 11 to clear storerooms and shelves. The holiday ad has always been of particular annoyance to me, particularly those with catchy new lyrics set to old songs, tending to the punny. This year, however, a new low has been set. Northwest grocer [...]
If I Could Tell All Young Writers One Thing…
Passing into the waning end of my twenties during a recession (which makes you age in your career faster) means I can now get away with two things: I can say “back in my day” when referring to anything before 2006. I get to dole out useful information to students and other people trying to get into [...]
On Design Portfolios
I was talking about design portfolios with our supremely talented intern Shawna a few months ago, and the subject of format came up. Her graduation was coming up in June 2009, and she was already thinking about the job hunt, yet another sign of how sharp she is. For those of you reading who aren’t [...]
We Want a Traffic Jam
Everyone wants more site traffic. More traffic means happy client, and happy client means happy agency. Marketers invest huge amounts of money to pay for methods of generating traffic to their microsites and applications like SEO, social media and the all-encompassing category: viral. Even though all these methods exist, several sites fall by the wayside never to be [...]
Content Marketing is not what it used to be
For the last 15 years, I have made my living as a content developer. I started off as a photographer documenting and telling stories through static images. At first, this was a pursuit in art and process related to photography but these explorations opened the door to many other mediums. Along this journey I bridged [...]
Sticky Wall 2.0
This year, Pop Art participated in Colaboratory for the first time, Portland Ad Fed’s revolutionary new internship program. We had three different interns over six weeks, from both the design and writing disciplines. Each intern was here for just eight working days (Monday – Thursday), which was some of my initial hesitation in participating in the [...]
Intelligent Defaults Save Time
Have you ever been a regular at a coffee shop? The barista knows you by name, and every morning when you come by, she’s already got your Triple Non-Fat Sugar-Free Vanilla Latte waiting for you. That’s an intelligent default. She doesn’t know for sure that’s what you want, or even that you’ll come in today, [...]
Top Ten Ways to Beat the Heat Without AC
If you live here in Portland, you’ve noticed that Mother Nature is playing a cruel, cruel joke on us. If not, I’ll just say that it’s been in the triple digits for the past few days, and I know more people here who own kayaks than have have AC. Unfortunately I have neither, so I’ve [...]
Twitter’s new home page
When I talk to people outside of the interactive business world about Twitter, most people don’t get it. “Why would I want to know what Thom ate for lunch?” they ask. For those who haven’t been paying attention, Twitter is a micro-blogging system which allows people to say something to the world in short “tweets”. People [...]
Key Takeaways from An Event Apart
I’ve attended An Event Apart four years running now. It is, hands-down, the finest web conference around, and if you work on the web at all, whether you’re a designer, developer, copywriter, or client-services, I cannot recommend it highly enough. Reviewing my notes from previous conferences, I noticed that there were some running themes. Each year, [...]
