There are so many reasons to love Aviary’s Photo Hack Day. Free food and beer, awesome API’s, and thousands of dollars in prizes and money. And if you attend the weekend-long coding marathon this weekend, you’ll also get to meet and work with the Method San Francisco team!
As one of the in-house design firms for the weekend, our team will will be consulting with Hack Day teams of talented developers, helping them build applications using web and mobile photo API’s. The teams will compete to create the most inspiring and innovative apps, aiming to win big prize money, cool tech gear, and the respect of their peers in the startup community.
The 4th in its series, this weekend’s Photo Hack Day is being held at Facebook’s Headquarters in Menlo Park. Are you attending? Let us know in the comments!
Read more about Photo Hack Day here.
[image: Dark Rye, issue 9]
Congrats to our friends at Whole Foods Market for a James Beard Foundation Awards nomination! Dark Rye, a new online magazine that explores food, art, health, and sustainable living has been nominated for the 2013 James Beard Foundation Award for “Best Group Food Blog” alongside long-running food blogs Eater National and Grub Street New York.
Launched in 2012, Dark Rye brings together stories and people to jump-start the imagination and inspire people to try something new. Method worked with Whole Foods Market to help realize their vision for the online magazine, and with each issue, Dark Rye brings together pioneers of unconventional ideas to explore the edges of the creative life. Thoughtfully curated articles and recipes run alongside engaging videos and gorgeous illustration and photography to create a compelling story revolving around that issue’s particular theme.
This month, Dark Rye released issue 9 based on the theme of the “Future.” The issue explores transportation, small living, urban agriculture, and energy, while featuring futuristic concept art.
Established in 1990, the James Beard Foundation Awards is one of the preeminent recognitions in the culinary industry, awarding culinary professionals for excellence in their fields. The foundation’s mission is to celebrate, preserve, and nurture America’s culinary heritage and diversity.
The winners of the James Beard Awards will be announced this May in New York City. It’s a tremendous honor for food and beverage professionals working in North America, and we are looking forward to the results of the award!
Check out Dark Rye: www.darkrye.com
Media & Entertainment, Uncategorized, Work
NCAA March Madness Live App reaches 45 million live video streams!
As things heat up in March Madness and we approach the Final Four games, viewership across channels for games have already exploded as March Madness On Demand continues to provide fans across the US with exceptional anytime, anywhere access to the tournament!
Method is proud to have worked with Turner Sports to create the NCAA March Madness On Demand suite of products for the much loved tournament. Last week, Turner reported the app has set all-time marks across online and mobile platforms by garnering 36.6 million live video streams and more than 10 million hours of live video consumed during the opening week of the NCAA Tournament.
Also, the app ranked #1 as the top sports app in the App Store and Google Play during the first week of the tournament. It was also the #1 free app across all categories in the App Store during the opening weekend of the tournament.
This week, the app continues to generate record-setting video streams and engagement! Across online and mobile (tablets and smart phones) platforms, NCAA March Madness Live has reached 45 million live video streams and more than 12.6 million hours of live video consumed across digital properties over the first two weeks of the tournament.
Read Turner Sports’ Press Release
Congratulations to NBBJ on their new site redesign and launch! Method collaborated closely with the international architecture firm to help re-articulate their vision, resulting in this new online presence.
Overhauling NBBJ’s previously outdated and difficult-to-use Flash website, Method helped implement a new digital strategy to help them communicate their strengths and brand vision in more interesting and relevant ways.
With a more visually-oriented and modular layout, the new NBBJ.com tells the NBBJ story through bold thought leadership and impressive case study history that focuses on three main navigation items: work, impact, and ideas.
Method is proud to have worked with NBBJ to launch an all-new platform to help translate the firm’s architectural expertise, individual brand, and unique ideas. It was a pleasure working with them, and we’re so excited to see how well the design strategy has brought to life NBBJ’s inspiring and compelling story. In addition, we were pleased to help NBBJ craft a custom and unique CMS that is tailored to their workflow and is extremely easy for the NBBJ team to use.
Since its launch in 2008, Internet Week NY has grown to become one of New York City’s biggest gatherings of design, innovation and tech communities – celebrating the intersection of digital culture and business.
This year, IWNY will take place from May 20-27 to explore how technology has disrupted and revolutionized every industry from food to fashion, to healthcare to education. Method is in the running to join the conversation to be featured on stage, with our presentation The Experience Tells the Story.
The Mad Men era of advertising has passed. But what does advertising and marketing mean in this new age where there is no such thing as a “traditional” agency?
Today, a brand’s communication and engagement strategy is no longer a separate and distinct practice from the design of a product or service. The two are intertwined. The product is the marketing, and the marketing is the product.
This panel, hosted by Method Principal Ted Booth, will challenge how both marketers and designers approach the development and growth of brands, products, and services. We will bring together both sides of the advertising and product worlds as well as practitioners that sit at the center to answer questions around what it takes to create and grow a successful brand and its products and services.
Congratulations to the Global Lives Project and Method teams for winning in the Brand New Awards 2012! Out of 714 submissions, only 75 were selecte...
Congratulations to the Global Lives Project and Method teams for winning in the Brand New Awards 2012! Out of 714 submissions, only 75 were selected, with our project winning in the “Basic Identity Application” category. View the full list of winners here.
Global Lives is a nonprofit, volunteer-driven effort between filmmakers and translators to create and curate films that capture 24 continuous hours in the life of individuals from around the world, building a video library of those life experiences. Watch the video below to find out more about our work with the Global Lives Project.
Method spent a busy weekend at SXSW Interactive, teaming up with comedian, writer, and founder of Cultivated Wit, Baratunde Thurston, exploring the design innovation process – asking “what’s so funny about innovation?”
Saturday evening, Baratunde joined Method Principal Paul Valerio for a session to explore the parallels between comedy and design.
The session was close to capacity as Baratunde and Paul took the stage for a full Q&A asking what design leaders and innovators can learn from the deliberately counter-intuitive comedy industry. The session exposed how successful innovations, like successful comedy, is both simple yet complex in targeting an audience to make relevant and emotive connections to translate a brand’s value.
Take the session online, we challenged people to tweet questions. ‘Read more’ to check out Paul’s answers to some of your questions below.
Earlier this year, Method participated in the The Blue Button Health Design Challenge, winning 3rd overall. Challenging various design teams across the country, the competition aimed to explore the patient record system, and how it could be better designed for an easier and more responsive user experience.
Software Advice’s medical blog, The Profitable Practice, recently covered the Blue Button redesign challenge, featuring the winners, including our iteration of the product:
“[Method's] Blue Button design makes it easy for medical professionals to access critical information in emergency situations, but without making it difficult for the patient to use on a day-to-day basis. When accessed from the Web, it’s much easier to drill down and get more detailed information that can then be printed if desired. And they built in a novel “pocket guide” that could be printed, folded, and put in the user’s wallet to expedite information communication.”
Read the full article here.
Community, Design culture, Design of government
Santiago Matheus on the London Tech Scene in the Evening Standard
Image from the Evening Standard
London has positioned itself as the up-and-coming global hub for tech, design, and innovation. With US industry giants like Facebook, Google, and Microsoft all taking notice, the city is quickly becoming grounds for a highly competitive, and entrepreneurial tech-oriented market – predicted to contribute to the next generation of leading startups and organizations
The Evening Standard reported on the growing tech scene in London, speaking with leaders from the innovation sectors, including Method Managing Director and co-founder of Method Design Lab, Santiago Matheus.
“London is inexhaustible,” says Santiago Matheus, who in 2011 set up Method Design Lab, a programme run in conjunction with London’s Central Saint Martins School of Arts and Design. “Even when things are really choppy London keeps flying, because you have the government, the media, the creatives, the finance … At any one time, even if two or three of those are struggling, the others keep the engine going. That’s what makes London the capital of the Western world.”
Read the full article here.
No Admission After 8 (NAA8) is an innovative approach to DJ dance events, aimed at incorporating a blend of varying music genres with an immersive digital-physical experience to create an atmospheric, audio narrative.
Launched by Director of Interaction Design, Alexander Grunsteidl, NAA8 will be held next Friday, March 8th at the Village Underground in Shoreditch London. DJs and set designers will be collaborating to create a unique musical experience – passing through 5 musical moods – Walk, Pulse, Bounce, Shine and Breathe, synchronized to an immersive light show:
The journey starts in near darkness with an ambient soundscape leading to a scene of shadows moving from classical music to dance. As the music on one of the best sound systems in London intensifies, the space will be defined by a low ceiling of pulsing light planes. An intense fog of bright light will introduce the climax.
Towards the end of the journey the space returns back into darkness immersing the audience in an ambient chill out soundscape that stays longer than the early morning end.
The show is produced by a collaboration of DJs and set designers with a shared love of creating magical experiences.
Get your tickets to NAA8 here. Be sure to follow NAA8 on Twitter (@no_AA8) for updates and announcements.
Take a listen to the 7 minute music sketch below giving an impression across the whole event.