Thinking Interactive

The Visual Repertoire of Obama’s Run for the White House

I think I am going to have to start a separate Obama links blog. The man has generated an endless amount of great links.

“The project is an analysis of the wide range of visuals which accompanied the 2008 presidential campaign of Barack Obama. Obama’s campaign was mounted on numerous platforms and provided and triggered multilayered…”

I really want to get my hands on that journal, but in the meantime, we can settle for the images.

I Lego New York (courtesy of Adam)

I love Lego. I love New York. I love this. Christopher Niemen did a wonderful set of Lego illustrations of New York through the lens of everybody’s favourite interlocking plastic blocks. There’s a few of them below, but be sure to check them all out here.

TED Talks Updates via Twitter

I’ve always been a huge TED fan, but all the updates via Twitter gave me a much richer feel for the experience, cementing attending TED as one of my life goals. @austinhill, @loic and a number of others did a great job keeping the rest of use filled in on what was going on and I am glad that they did.

Check out the first TED Talk of the year below. Bill Gates talks about battling Malaria and improving the education system.

It’s Nice That (courtesy of Eve)

It’s Nice That is a gem of a blog documenting different forms of creativity (like the sweet Cookie Monster cupcake below). It also has a clean, elegant layout.

Better the World Launches

Better the World is a new start-up with a clever business model that allows users to raise money for the cause of their choice by installing a browser sidebar or search tool. 90% of the profit from the ads you view go to the charity of your choice. 

Disclosure: Better the World is one of our incubation projects at Idea Couture.

Obama’s coronation er… inauguration had the entire world (and by extension the Interwebs) buzzing and some great links came out of it.

Clouds Comparing Bush’s Inaugural Speech Versus Obama’s

I thought David Wescott did a clever thing punching the two transcripts into Wordle. Have a look below and tell me which one is Obama’s and which one is Bush’s (I desaturated the images. The colours made it too obvious). There a few commonalities, but a couple of the prominent words are dead giveaways.

Collage of Newspaper Front Pages from the Next Day (via @jasonfried)

As Jason said, “Anyone know who this guy’s PR firm is?”
 

CNN’s Photosynth of the Inauguration (via @kevinrose)

Television really didn’t do it justice. They should have done some 360 degree pans. Interestingly enough, when you zoom in from some angles it captures moments when Obama isn’t on the podium. How is that even possible? I assume that 95% of the photos taken would have been while Obama was on stage.
 

Obama Skywalker

This is one incredibly detailed action figure with some awesome accesories (sold separately no doubt). Check out the link for the full photo shoot.

My President is Black - Jay-Z Remix (via @vasta)

I don’t care if the Young Jeezy/Nas version was first. Jay is the man.

1. Auditorium

This game is one of the most pleasurable experiences I have had online in a while. The interface is breathtakingly elegant and remarkably intuitive.

2. Wired Deconstructs a Girl Talk Track

Wired does some brilliant information design to show the 35 samples and their relationship to one another on one of the tracks from Girl Talk’s Feed the Animals.

3. The Independent Explores Torrent Legend aXXo (Thanks @hartleyglobe)

The Independent delves into a subculture that you surprisingly don’t hear much about given the abundance of articles written about piracy in general. This is a must read for torrent fiends.

4. Twit Apps’ Replies

I find I am either in Twitter mode or I am not, but I am always in email mode. Twit Apps‘ Replies forwards any Twitter replies to your email inbox and you don’t even have to give up your Twitter credentials (UX folks check out the registration flow, it is pretty clever, if not a little limited). 

5. The Best iPhone Apps of 2008

Bryan Barletta from AppVee has done a great rundown on some of the top iPhone applications for 2008 for TechCrunch. For anybody looking to pitch or build iPhone applications in 2009, you could do a lot worse than to start by looking at this list.

1. AKQA’s Christmas Card (Thanks B1)

A lot of people are hating on this because it is fake. Who cares? It is awesome.

2. A Charlie Brown Ad Agency

I don’t know who did this, but it is brilliant.

3. The Design Process of the Obama Logo

I love seeing the progression and thought process behind logo designs. Logo Design Love lays it out very nicely here. You can also watch a video of Sol Sender, one of the designer behind it discuss the process below. It is interesting, but be forewarned, he is not the most charismatic guy in the universe.

4. Unlike (Thanks Fred)

This is the next logical step for a company like Lonely Planet, except they didn’t do it… Unlike did instead. I wish I knew about this service (if it was around) two summers ago when I was in Vienna and I will be sure to use it next time I’m in Europe. 

5. Happy Holidays From IDEO Labs

My apologies for all the Christmas content, but that seems to be what is going around. Also, I love Rube Goldberg machines and I think a bicycle-powered music box qualifies.

I think everybody could benefit from considering the first few paragraphs (I was tempted to say stanzas, but it’s not a poem).

Stop doing what is comfortable.

Contrast is good.
When broad, go narrow. When tall, go low.
When wide, go tight. When bright, go dark.
When certain, get lost. When obscure, go clear.
Too much of a good thing is not a good thing.

Always look at the work on your desk from varying distances.
Every distance tells you something different.

Contrast is to architecture as dance is to a dervish.

Always honour the context.
Go first with camouflage.
Then illusion.
Then interpretation.

Always listen.

You can find the rest here.

Coming in later than usual this week, but it has been a crazy week for me, but I am hoping to write a few real posts over the holidays so stay tuned. 

1. BMW Product Navigator

As somebody who has previously worked on automotive kiosk experiences, I would really like to try this out first hand. Also, it is nice to see Microsoft’s Surface technology popping up more regularly.

2. How to be a 21st Century Capitalist

Umair Haque has a nice (albeit slightly abstract) post on the redefining capital and capitalism (something Adbusters and a whole bunch of other folks have been harping on for years). It is nice to see those ideas making it into more mainstream strategy discourse.

3. Woordle

Woordle creates word clouds based on text you provide. Below is what they automatically generated based on the RSS feed of this blog. I would love to see a word cloud of a week’s worth of the words that come out of my mouth. Now imagine that tracked over a year with robust analytics. I could pinpoint exactly when certain words became played out in my mind, compare my social vocabulary to my work vocabulary (I bet there would be a lot more cuss words than I would want to see in both) and do a whole bunch of other awesome stuff. There is definitely a nice business application or at the very least a cool art project here. Somebody please do this.

4. TechCrunch’s Interview With Lord Zuckerberg

It’s always nice to hear a bit about the vision for everybody’s favourite time hole.

5. Let Me Google That For You

Now when somebody asks you a question they could probably just Google themselves, you can really step up your jerk game by using this service to send them custom Google instructions to answer their question.

1. Citizen Coverage of the Attacks in Mumbai

While the attacks were both saddening and tragic, the use of Twitter, Flickr, Wikipedia and Facebook to provide first hand coverage and keep open lines of communication between loved ones was not only fascinating, but also prompted some lively debate about citizen journalism and the role of social media.

More links:
With Twitter, a Desperate Need for Context
Following Mumbai Attacks via Social Media
Twitter and Streaming Coverage Make Debut in Mumbai Coverage
 

2. A History of US Government Bailouts

Pro Publica provides a nice perspective on the history of US government bailouts (spoiler: they usually turn out better than you would think).

3. Art of the Title

Ian and Alex do an awesome job exploring title sequences.

4. The Grumpy Owl

I stumbled across this blog through Twitter somehow and I like it. Ryan Oakley vents his rage in clever and well-written prose. Check out A Selection of Weaponized Umbrellas.

5. Boxee

Fred Wilson is calling this “the Firefox of media software”, which you can take with a grain of salt given that it is one of Union Sqaure Venture’s portfolio companies, but all you need to do is check out the video below to see that it definitely has potential.

quick intro to boxee from boxee on Vimeo.

1. Turducken Wrapped in Bacon

I love turkey. I love bacon. Happy Thanksgiving!!!

2. Slate Getting Serious About LOL Cats (Thanks, Emma)

I thought they were just funny picture of cats with hilarious captions, but it turns out they are really an exploration of the tragedy of the human condition.

3. Stock Twits

Do you know what you are doing when it comes to the stock market (or like to pretend that you do)? Do you like Twitter? You will love Stock Twits (there are actually some really smart people worth following using this service). 

Introduction to StockTwits from Knut Jensen on Vimeo. 

4. Tree Tents

There is nothing like having a portable tree house. Sleeping on the ground is for chumps.

5. New Sketches by Banksy

According to Tech Crunch, they are looking for a partner. I was sorely disappointed by Facebook’s first and sole attempt at classifieds, which they named Marketplace, not only was it an underachieveing piece of junk, it also made me looks like an idiot (I am pretty sure when it was initially announced I declared it the Craigslist killer).

While some believe that there is something inherently flawed about social classifieds and cite Marketplace as proof, there was no real attempt to map it to the social graph in a meaningful way or even give it half decent search and browsing functionality. If Facebook could just knock off Craigslist and then layer on top its oft-rumoured but still vapour warish transactions platform, I think we would have a game changer on our hands and the opportunity for some serious revenue for Facebook.

The downside of that is that Facebook would be opening itself up (well it is already open, but inviting themselves) to all the types of slimeballs and scammers that hang out on Craigslist, but I doubt they would be too different than the folks who are buying their ad inventory currently (yes I want some green tea extract that will give me a chiseled 6 pack, yes I want to chat to hot girls in my area live on webcam).

So I missed November 2 - November 8 so my apologies to the one person who cares what I loved that week. Sorry mom. Anyways, I have changed the title of this feature to 5 Things I Loved Last Week because having this week in the title pretty much mandated that I would have to write these posts every Saturday night in order to ensure I included the best stuff I ran into that week, which would be very difficult as I spend Saturday night watching taped re-runs of Growing Pains.

So without further ado…

1. The Periodic Table of Awesoments (Thanks, Jackie)

“In the 300 B.C., years before the birth of black Jesus, Aristole postulated that all good things were made of ‘win.’ That was a pretty good guess, but he was drunk and probably also having an orgy. Modern day awesominers know  there are actually 118 fundamental “awesoments” that compose all good things. The Periodic table of Awesoments can be a very useful tool.  It’s designed to show the relationships between awesoments, and often one can even predict how awesoments interact simply by their positions on the table.”

It is amazing how little what is awesome has changed since I was 13.
  
2. Obama Doing Weekly Addresses on YouTube

Obama’s Internet savvy knows no bounds. I also love that he will be appointing a CTO for the country. Yet somehow 46% of Americans still managed to vote for a man who doesn’t use the Internet.

3. The Eyeballing Game

Test your ability to eyeball angles and such. I don’t know why I find that so fun, but I do.

4. More Good Stuff From IDEO Labs

IDEO brings us a nice idea on how to rapidly prototype mobile device interfaces using a Nokia 770 Internet Tablet and Flash. I love those guys.

5. Clip Art Fun