FWA: 13 years of inspiration, and growing

The FWA (Favourite Website Awards) is a recognition organization and inspirational portal that has been showcasing the best of digital since the year 2000. FWA is celebrating its 13th anniversary this month; with over 180 million site visits, it is now the most visited website award program in the history of the internet.

Last year, the organization teamed-up with the multidisciplinary production company UNIT9 to launch the FWA Daily App for iPhone and iPad, which combines all of The FWA Network’s showcased content into one app for your daily viewing. Follow this link to download it for free.

GDUSA: Happy 50th birthday

According to Graphic Design:USA editor and publisher Gordon Kaye, May 7 was the actual date of the venerable news magazine’s 50th anniversary: “The moment the first edition rolled off the printing press.” In a May 7 email sent to subscribers, Mr. Kaye shared this note and let us know that he and his colleagues are committed to celebrating this anniversary all year long. As part of those festivities, GDUSA is publishing the results of a series of 50th Anniversary surveys reflecting input from than 40,000 creative professionals about who and what we most respect and admire. Here are some of the results and findings:

To learn more about the surveys and fascinating results, please visit Read more

Creative Entrepreneurs: Shilo’s Jose Gomez

Over the past year, creative production company Shilo and director Jose Gomez took on the challenge of creating a great deal of stunning cinematic content for Qatar TV, as you can see in the montage featured above. After traveling to Qatar to learn more about the culture and people – and make a lot of new friends – Shilo crafted this original HD content and much more for Qatar TV’s on-air identity.

“We were asked to make each promo a metaphor for different aspirational subjects such as education, business, environment and family,” Jose explains. “The main creative challenge was to render these stories in artistic and simple ways that didn’t require further explanation or language. We focused on conveying a feeling and tone for each subject in ways that are abstract and metaphorical but still understandable.” Read more

Inspiration for life: Toys and stories

How many people out there feel like the blockbuster Pixar series “Toy Story” relates to them, and their own experiences as youths playing with toy cowboys and astronauts? You can certainly count me among them, and of course I know that Woody is meant to be Johnny West, and at least to me, Buzz is G.I. Joe. Those two men were my constant companions when I was a young boy, especially after my older brother had gone off to school. They inspired my imagination and brought adventures to life that are permanently etched in my memory banks. With time, I have come to see that this treasure trove of wonder and endless possibilities represented by the toys of my youth is something of a universal phenomenon.

For example, by viewing the video above, you can learn about the toys that inspired some of the top speakers from recent FITC Events. I was equally fascinated by the subject matter presented in Emma Hutching’s PSFK feature story entitled “Children Around the World Pose With Their Favorite Toys.” Check out the story to view photographer Gabriele Galimberti‘s photo series “Toy Stories” wherein children from around the world pose with their favorite toys.

What’s your toy story?

Famous images: Reuters

The video above was published at the end of last year by Thomson Reuters, the world’s leading source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals. “From the world stage, to the street corner, Reuters presents extraordinary images taken by its global network of photographers in 2012.”

Reuters’ global network of 600 photographers distributes 1,600 pictures each day, added to a growing archive of over six million. Images are transmitted within minutes to the world’s media providing a constant window on the world. Its photographers won more than 60 international photography awards in 2012, including major prizes for Damir Sagolj in World Press Photo and Pictures of the Year International. To explore the company’s archive of images available for licensing, please visit http://reuters.com/pictures.

Facing Climate Change on Earth Day 2013

Every year on April 22, more than one billion people take part in Earth Day. Across the globe, individuals, communities, organizations, and governments acknowledge the amazing planet we call home and take action to protect it. The theme of Earth Day 2013 is The Face of Climate Change. This campaign seeks to harness the power of Earth Day to personalize the massive challenge that climate change presents, while uniting people around the globe into a powerful call to action. Earth Day Network is collecting images of people, animals, and places affected by climate change as well as images of people doing their part in the fight against climate change.

On and around this year’s Earth Day, an interactive digital display of all the images will be shown at thousands of events around the world — from schools to parks to government buildings. The display will also be made available online to anyone who wants to view or show it. Learn more and upload your photos at www.earthday.org/2013.

Juniper Jones steps up for the Tribeca Film Festival

Based in DUMBO on Brooklyn’s waterfront, Juniper Jones is the creative force dedicated to creating custom-tailored solutions. The firm’s rogue team of award-winning directors and designers believes beauty is always in motion, and that forging deep collaborative experiences with clients yields epic results. Leveraging the brand expertise of its clients, the force’s meticulous diligence reveals spot-on insights, which then benefit from legendary storytelling craftsmanship. For the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival (TFF) running April 17-28, Juniper Jones is continuing its TFF partnership by producing the official Pre-Show for the second straight year. Interestingly, two more original projects created by Juniper Jones for the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival will also screen at selected 2013 festival events: Their three-minute “Bring Tribeca Home” short promoting Tribeca Film On Demand will appear on screens throughout official festival venues, along with their “Before the Action Happens” :60 spot.

Finally, for 2013 Juniper Jones is also extending its creative collaborations with Brookfield Office Properties Read more

Transcending dimensions with The D4D

Hoping you will enjoy this behind-the-scenes look at how The Department of the 4th Dimension designed the experience, content and technology for the Lucid Dreams exhibit in Sephora & Firmenich’s Sensorium, the world’s first pop-up fragrance museum.

“In the Lucid Dreams interactive installation, visitors can affect floating holographic dream images inspired by Firmenich’s master perfumers. Using a high tech flower sculpture, the images transform based on the power of the individual’s sniff – triggered by the unique sound transmitted by the physical act of smelling. The multidisciplinary team at The D4D designed the complete Lucid Dreams experience including each room’s architecture, short films, floor-to-ceiling motion graphics, glowing sniff-registering flowers and the software that drives the interaction. Every step of the creative process was taken hand-in-hand with the perfumers at Firmenich to ensure a truly integrated and multisensory experience the brings their fragrances to life.” Read more

Doug Pray: Thanks for the Documentaries

Award-winning documentary filmmaker Doug Pray‘s exuberant portraits of subcultures and maverick individuals have led him to three Sundance premieres, critical raves, numerous awards, and worldwide distribution. His feature documentaries include the Emmy Award-winning “Art & Copy,” a film about creativity and advertising, “Big Rig” a 40,000 mile road film about independent, long-haul truck drivers, “Infamy,” an intense journey into the lives and art of six notorious graffiti writers, “Scratch,” a celebration of hip-hop DJs and turntablism, his first film, “Hype!,” which told the story about the emergence and explosion of the early ’90s Seattle music scene that remains on Rolling Stone’s Top 10 list of best rock DVD’s of all time – and “Surfwise” the amazing odyssey of the Paskowitz surfing family.

Doug has directed dozens of commissioned short films and documentary-style commercials for a wide range of major clients, including Read more

Thornberg & Forester’s time

It has been almost two years since fate connected me with Elizabeth Kiehner, Scott Matz, Justin Meredith and their colleagues at the award-winning NYC-based design and digital production company Thornberg & Forester, and as time marches on, their story just keeps getting better. Most recently, they collaborated with the gentlemen behind Paris-based creative agency VERSUS for a new global campaign for Bisquit Cognac.