Monday, October 24, 2011

Words That Play

Ji Lee, a designer and creative director at facebook, puts together a really engaging collection of type treatments. The concept or challenge behind his effort here was to make words that work as images. It's not only very clever use of letters, but it makes for a brilliant communication device.

If you want people to pay attention to your words, this kind of thinking can achieve it. You can purchase the entire thing, entitled Words As Image, at amazon.com. Or for fun, pick out a word and try to come up with a like visual for it. In honor of Halloween, I'll pick... ghost... oh wait, I can't see it.

Monday, October 3, 2011

Defining a Terabyte

So... the new Panasonic BWT800 3D Blue Ray disc recorder holds a whopping ONE TERABYTE of content. That's right, one whole terabyte.

So... "How much exactly is one terabyte?" you may ask.

Well, Panasonic, with a corresponding marketing campaign, is setting out to define what this massive number means to you. Because after all, one terabyte is big enough to record high-quality HD video for 684 hours or 28 days. This kind of room gives you the power to appease the recording habits of your wife, your kids, your relatives, your neighbors, your neighbors' relatives and your relatives' neighbors. 28 days is an absurd amount of TV.

To hype the magnitude of this number, Panasonic is producing and of course recording 28 days of entertainment entitled, "The Persecution of Rommy Gulla." And unless your name is Rommy Gulla and you live in Australia, this sounds like a pretty fun idea. As described in the video below, Rommy is about to endure 28 very long, very painful days -- all to help quantify one terabyte. You can watch the series via Facebook or Youtube. Viewers can even suggest a prank, vote on pranks and win Panasonic stuff. Day one involved a late-night police invasion and helium.

Overall, this looks like a great example of engaging consumers and showing, not just telling, what your product can do. Now, what prank should I suggest?