Warner Music Group and Paramount Pictures needed a game to promote the release of the Transformers soundtrack, and they needed it fast. The idea was to create a scavenger hunt that would send users to the Web sites or MySpace pages of all the bands on the album, retrieve some sort of information and come back to a single page to play a game, armed with the knowledge to play it correctly.
The result is a game that uses a matching game engine, but the twist is that none of the pictures actually match. Instead, the images are associated - one band picture and one movie still create a match. Only after the users visit all of the artists’ sites and find the game widgets will they know what images “match.” The payoff for the game is downloadable content - avatars, wallpapers, etc.
Role: design and programming. Freelance.
I can’t express what a thrill it is to work with a property like this. I am the target demographic and can still name most of the Transformers on sight. Because of that, this project was more fun than work for me. You can check it out here.
The blog section: reviews of music artist Web sites and forthcoming tutorials for bands in need of cheap DIY Web sites.
[UPDATE: Steven Levy wrote an editorial in this week’s Newsweek about a tangential issue, namely how the pricing of music affects buying habits. He quotes an experiment that showed how to increase sales six-fold. Fascinating, counter-intuitive way to make more money and please the consumers.]
Consumers drive every industry, I think it’s safe to say. Therefore […]
My portfolio of work, clients include Warner Brothers Records, NBA, NHL, NFL, Visa, Nestlé and more.
Warner Brothers Music needed a Web site to promote the motion picture soundtrack to Beowulf, but the catch was that it needed to be launched soon after they contacted me. How soon? Three days. I don’t like backing down from challenges, and the opportunity to create a design for the property was an interesting proposal, […]
E-mail me or download my CV. Interested in custom work? Submit an inquiry here.
My route from musician to graphic designer to interactive and new media designer reflects my desire to constantly learn new things. I hold a Master of Arts degree from the School of Visual Communication Design at Kent State University (studying under AIGA Fellow, J. Charles Walker), where I focused on interactive design and motion graphics.
Not being the type of person to follow traditional paths, I started my own design service after graduating. My first task was to update the identity system, print and online collateral for Nosco Pharmaceutical Packaging, a national company whose clients include Alcon and Abbott Laboratories. I also began adding music artists to my client roster by contacting people in my network from my five-year stint in my touring band.
In my current role at DigiKnow, Inc. in Cleveland, Ohio, I walk the fine line between designer and programmer by switching between art director, designer, animator, Web developer, and JavaScript/XHTML/CSS/ActionScript programmer.
Need front-end Web design or development work? Need to see proof? Click the link below to download a PDF of my CV with links to my recent work, personal info, contact information, and really self-congratulatory biography.