Impressive Spam

We’re used to dealing with spam, but we’re seldom impressed by it. Today we were pleased to discover a blog-post-worthy viagra ad in our collective IF/THEN inbox. Some unknown spammer lovingly crafted the word “viagra” using colored table cells. It’s simple, uses web-safe colors, resizes nicely, and is sure to please.

As seen in Communication Arts

We just found out that we got 2 mentions in the latest Communication Arts magazine. It’s CA’s 50th anniversary issue, and they included the Vancouver Culture Guide in their 50-year timeline of influential work. It’s a great honor to be included on the list along with some amazing designs.

In the same issue is a feature on egg which includes a shout out for Jim’s work on Better World Books. Congratulations egg! And if you need a buy a book, check ’em out.

IF/THEN vs. THE hotel

We recently returned from Las Vegas where we attended the MIX09 conference, following our branding work on it. We booked our stay at THE hotel at Mandalay Bay. What follows is an exploration in branding gone off. An exercise in bringing up the banal and selling it as THE exclusive. A coup for the lazy marketeer. Never mind the inconsistency of application. What matters here is THE idea!

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Frye Art Museum website and Henry Art Gallery website win awards at Seattle Show 2009

We launched two museum websites in 2008 and they both recently received awards at the Seattle Show 2009. The Frye Art Museum website won Silver for Information Design and the Henry Art Gallery website was recognized with a Merit Award for Information design.

New site up

And not a moment too soon. After quite a titanic struggle that lasted all of February, we now have a completely remodeled web-home. More usable, searchable and most of all, more complete. Stay a while, enjoy that “new site” smell till it lasts, and let us know if you find kinks.

IF/THEN at HIVE

AIGA Seattle kindly asked us to present at HIVE along with Gabe Kean from Belle & Wissell. The theme of our presentation was “Honesty” and how honesty influenced the design approaches we applied for three recent projects; Frye Art Museum, Henry Art Gallery and MIX 09. Thanks to Jeff Barlow, Halli Thiel and HADW. Check out the video.

Holistic Project Planning

One of the great things about working in Interactive Media is that by nature it brings together a wide range of creative disciplines. I think that those of us who choose to work in this area tend to be people who like to wear more than one hat and think laterally.

One of the frustrations I often see as a Project Manager is the creative gap caused when the creative players are unable to see the project holistically. A common example of this is the disconnect between content and design that seems almost inevitable in web design. Content is often given little thought, in favor of concentrating on having a cool looking website. Either that or the content is so dense and over-thought that it interferes with designing something useful or elegant.

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How Not to Buy a New Video Camera

Today was our first day of shooting for the Henry Gallery’s NW Artists DIG module - an interview with local artist Claire Cowie in her studio. Andi’s friend was kind enough to loan us his professional equipment and save us some rental fees.

The moral of this story, to spoil it for you, is always attach the expensive camera to the tripod before you walk away from it.

The camera was ON the tripod. It looked attached.

Andi walked over to attach the wireless microphone to the stand-in (Ricky) and the DP innocently went to frame the shot, and by just thinking about touching the camera it crashed to the floor. Time stopped for a moment, as bits of plastic flew from the camera. The camera survived with some cosmetic damage, and the shoot was a success. But Andi felt so bad about breaking his friend’s camera that he went immediately to Glazer’s and bought an even nicer one for him. So we now own a slightly used, slightly roughed up video camera.

New Kicks

I never understood why some women have a closet dedicated to shoes. I mean, why on earth would you need so many, especially if you never wear them all? I am a “one-shoe-fits-all” kind of girl, and for the past 5 years, my shoe has been the Adidas Samba Classic. No frills.

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Fog Monster

We were too late to save Queen Anne from being eaten by the fog monster, but we did manage to document its demise.