The Bezos Family Foundation recently launched a new website that expresses the mission and vision of the Foundation, while putting a strong focus on the work that they do. Through highly collaborative partnerships with grantees, the Foundation strives to elevate the field of education, create powerful connections, and support the development of young leaders who can make meaningful contributions within our global society.
The 2011 International Symposium presented by The Institute for Functional Medicine.
Last week PBDH’ers attended Woodland Park Zoo’s Thrive event — a major fundraising campaign for the zoo (attended by an estimated 600+ people). Inspiring presentations were given by Dr. Deborah Jensen, President and CEO of the zoo, and Dan Harris, Anchor of Weekend Good Morning America — who shared videos of his visits with zoo conservationists working with animals up close in the wild. A personalized video message from Betty White, as well as a delightful (and very well done) video featuring children enjoying their experiences at Woodland Park Zoo made the event outstanding. And to top things off, in addition to the $600,000 (and growing) donated at Thrive, the zoo received an anonymous gift of $4 million to be used towards building a new tiger and Asian bear exhibit complex!
PBDH recently completed work with the zoo, which was unveiled at Thrive – including a new logo and campaign theme More Wonder More Wild. It is an exciting time for the zoo as a leader in wildlife conservation and education — as well as a fun place to visit and enjoy. PBDH is proud to be a partner with such an incredible organization!
Watch the special message from Betty White:
After careful planning, designing, developing and partnering with our client, National Frozen Foods, PBDH is excited to announce the launch of the National Frozen Foods website this week.
The Unabomber manifesto is nearly 35,000 words. Ted is cranky and long winded! We wanted to explain our perspective with more brevity—and fewer explosives (none, actually). So we created this two-minute motion graphics piece, which is currently featured on our homepage. In two minutes, it outlines how we're different and why we believe that difference matters to clients.
Short videos are exceptionally effective at communicating ideas in ways that print cannot. Rather than Kaczynski-grade blocks of text, these videos often tackle complex subjects in ways that feel easy and effortless. A minute or two of watching and listening feels very different than reading 1,000 words in black and white. Plus, they're easily shared, especially through social media. These are some of the big reasons we've been doing a lot more of them lately. We've done multiple pieces for clients such as BECU and Teo. And we've got several more in the works right now. You can check out our entire online repository at Vimeo here.
But first, check out the digital short for our toughest-to-work-with client: ourselves.
categories// Advertising, Branding, New Work, Social Media, Technology
PBDH has recently launched a 5-piece update of BECU's in-branch motion graphics. These short spots are now showing on LCD displays at many of BECU's Northwest credit union locations...
categories// Community, Design, Interactive, New Work, Social Media
The Sun Valley Summer Symphony’s 2010 Season
"I never knew my full potential until I got here."
Mahcaiyah Wearing-Gooden, School of the Future Graduate, Class of 2010
After opening its doors for the first time in 2006, School of the Future (SOF) graduated its first senior class last week on June 15, 2010. This 750-student high school, a collaboration between the School District of Philadelphia and Microsoft, was built with a vision to challenge the education status quo. The school partnered with Microsoft to plan, build and support a new model for 21st-century learning communities, applying new approaches in curriculum, teaching methods and staffing. All 118 students, who are called "learners" at SOF, have earned acceptance to at least one postsecondary institution–a commitment they made to each other as ninth graders.
Our own Devin Liddell, Director of Brand Strategy, had the opportunity to fly out to Philadelphia to interview several of the first graduating students profiled for the Graduates piece and press materials PBDH designed for the SOF graduation...
categories// Community, Design, Inspiration, New Work, Technology
The intersection between "real life" and a Web presence can be subtle. To the general public, what, really, is Facebook other than Facebook.com? How is ESPN.com different from ESPN as a company?
With some clients, though, the difference is night and day.
Global Diving & Salvage, Inc., is, as the press releases note, "the largest diving contractor company on the West coast." It has an "international reach and a focus on marine construction, infrastructure support services and casualty response". All of that is well and good and impressive, but words alone struggle to capture the...reality... of what the company does. Divers spend hours and even days in cramped submersibles at depths that would crush an unprotected human body. They handle and clean up sensitive materials that can do serious damage to the environment. They work as a team in hazardous conditions every day.
Compare that to, say, me. I type quickly and I know some stuff about the Web. How do I help capture what Global does?
One of the ways PBDH tried to bring "real life" to a browser near you is by demonstrating the scope of Global's projects. Global's new Web site has advanced mapping features that highlight cross North America and even the world, allowing visitors to see highlighted projects as well as where Global is today.
And I do mean today.
Global Web admins have the ability to add and edit projects as progress is made through an easy content management system. Done with the job in New York? Upload some pictures and put it in the archives. Kicking off a new gig in Alaska? Link to a story from a news outlet or embed a video talking about the work. The Web site also pulls in the latitude and longitude information and uses that to accurately place the projects on the maps. Automatically.
This was pushing what we knew from a technical perspective and it was pushing what the available Web applications could do; we brought in a consultant who's been on the front lines of geomapping and he helped us create a custom-designed map that combines real GIS mapping data with project locations stored in the CMS.
The Web site didn't teach me how to weld underwater, but there's a bit more "real life" in this site than in most.
One of the great things about working on interactive development at a brand design firm like PBDH is the variety of projects and clients we get to work with.
It's not uncommon for us to help one company collaborate with a business audience one day and then help another connect with a retail audience the next.
One interesting retail project we are diving deep into at the moment is the retail web site for The Shops at the Bravern, a European-inspired shopping and dining experience that's set to open in downtown Bellevue later this year.
The Shops at The Bravern will feature outdoor plazas, great stores like Neiman Marcus, fine dining like New York-based Artisanal, as well as urban residential towers.
We are heavy into the design and strategy phase of the project and it is exciting to work with folks from Schnitzer West to as we consider all of the things that today's web makes possible.
