Scrabble points equal Wi-fi minutes in Paris

In this age of smartphones, tablets, emails, text messages and instant messaging, one thing has become slightly neglected: spelling.

To try and address this, at least in part, Scrabble and Ogilvy Paris have created wi-fi hotspots in areas that normally have no internet connection across Paris.

The catch? You have to earn your time by playing Scrabble. Given some letters users must create a word, the higher the scrabble score for the word, the more wi-fi minutes they get.

A clever idea to promote proper spelling, Scrabble and remind people of the fun they can have with words. Take a look at the video case study below.

Scrabble WiFi - Case Study from Ogilvy Paris on Vimeo.

LED flowers for film festival opening

A new LED installation has been designed and fabricated by BWArchitects for the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival.

1,600 LED bulbs were made into pink and blue “flowers”, swaying in the wind at night on the courthouse steps in NYC. 

The reusable flowers were made by hand over several days and mounted to painted wood boards held in place by sandbags. For the opening ceremony a field of the swaying LED 'flowers' was mounted to thin metal rods, once the lights were activated, the wind provided the movement at different rates due to the varied lengths of steel.

Justin Weiner of Studio Kenji created a short video of the installation which can be seen below.

Tribeca Film Festival Lighting Installation from Justin Weiner on Vimeo.

Interactive sculpture in motion

A new collaboration between Hyundai's Advanced Design Centre and Berlin-based WHITEvoid, an interactive art and design studio, has created Fluidic.

The project sees 12,000 suspended spheres acting as 3D pixels or voxels which are illuminated by an array of high-speed lasers. The magic happens thanks to 3D cameras that detect a person and react creating patterns and shapes based upon their movements.

The piece was part of Hyundai's involvement with Milan Design week, the third time it has participated in the show, and was housed at the Temporary Museum for New Design. The interactive sculpture was inspired by nature and its ability to continuously adapt to a changing context, which Hyundai think of as part of their general design philosophy.

On April 8, the day of the preview, the German choreographer Nikeata Thompson directed a special performance featuring art, music and dance in the presence of the press and opinion leaders. In the days dedicated to the public Jan Jelinek of SCAPE, a seminal figure in contemporary electronic music, gave a special performance describing the rhythmic confluence between design and sound titled "Fluidic Art meet Fluidic Sound ".

Whilst many would have missed the chance to experience this for themselves, as it was only open to the public on the last weekend of Milan Design Week, 13th -14th April, there are plans to take it on the road, updates to be posted on the Fluidic page.

Watch a video of the sculpture in action below and visit the Fluidic page for more information and images.

FLUIDIC - Sculpture in Motion from WHITEvoid on Vimeo.

Interactive art that mimics

Daniel Rozin's Mirrors seem to be pretty normal sculptures until you take a step closer, then they shift to mimic you. 

Currently exhibiting at Bitforms in New York until the 6th April, his 'mirror' pieces shift the patterns formed on them to mimic the viewers shape in real-time. This is done via cameras that detect shapes and cause the LEDs to change the pattern on the screen. Whilst not recreating a persons image perfectly, the screen will copy movements made until the person steps out of range.

The exhibition, called Angles, features some of the artists other kinetic work, which also interact with their surroundings and work on a principle of merging the geometric with the participatory.

Bus stop with a window seat

We've all been stood waiting for a train or a bus wishing we could be somewhere else; perhaps a beach in Spain, visiting the vineyards of France or even taking a gondola ride in Venice. Scandinavian Airlines has played on this idea and created an amazing experiential bus stop ad.

The campaign was designed to promote the 16 new destinations that the airline has started to fly to.

A bus stop in Oslo was fitted with a digital screen and a mock airplane window. When the shutter on the window was closed and re-opened a new scene was displayed, with the view being of one of the 16 new destinations.

A clever way to advertise and encourage people to book that next holiday. Watch a video highlighting the campaign below.

Toyota's Family Tree

To celebrate 75 years, Toyota has released a family tree for their cars.
The interactive map allows you to go through the entire range of cars they have made since the company was established in 1937 and it's plant operation began in 1938 (the first cars were released in 1936).

The timeline covers the lives of different cars they have developed and allows you to search through it based upon year, body type or model.

The spots on the tree have pop-up images of the vehicles, which are click-able, and allow you to look through the different generations of a model of car like the Land Cruiser or Avensis.

Their 75 Years of Toyota landing page also has a clever scrolling timeline which focuses on the company and it's growth over this period.

Take a look through the vehicle lineage here.

There is also a lineage page for engine type here.

Walk into this painting

We love interactive art, and this amazing piece called "Indian Chamber" fits the bill perfectly.

Created by Australian artist Anna Kristensen, the piece is a 360 degree panoramic painting of the Jenolan Caves' Indian Chamber, in New South Wales.

Painted onto curved plywood panels, viewers enter via a door into a cylindrical room and are then surrounded by the painting.

This incredible piece has been on tour across Australia, visiting Gallery 9 in Sydney, Shepparton Art Museum in Victoria, Artspace in Sydney and Bathurst Regional Art Gallery.

Top 10 public spaces

Boca Do Lobo has  featured on their blog  the Top 10 public spaces, architecturally speaking.

The feature has some amazing examples of innovative design and amazing engineering from all over the globe, including the Floating Movie Theater, Thailand, El Bosque de la Esperanza, Colombia and possibly our favourite the170 foot Trampoline in Russia.

The list is a great representation of architecture from 2012 that is accessible to all, and helps to make the world a better and more fun place to live. Enjoy!

See the full list and read more about them here.

Grand Central terminal celebrates centenary

Last Friday Grand Central Terminal in New York celebrated its 100th Birthday. To mark the occasion, they surprised commuters and tourists with an amazing light show.

Performed by over 100 Improv Everywhere participants, they used led lights and camera flashes to dazzle onlookers along three floors of the grand windows. Improv Everywhere worked with the MTA Arts for Transit to produce the show, according to their blog.

Watch the show below.

Talk to street furniture in Bristol

The winning project of the first Playable City Awards will allow residents of Bristol to text lamp posts, post boxes and other street furniture.

"Hello Lamp Post" is an interactive art project, that allows users to text a number with the message hello, the objects name and the identifier code used on all street furniture. In turn they will receive a reply from this item, leading to either a conversation or possibly a game.

The project was conceived by London-based Pan Studios and locals will be able to start conversing with bus stops and more from June this year.

You can download the full proposal here.

Make it snow in the City with Evian

This week, as part of a new advertising campaign, Evian has set up two adult playgrounds in London, which are linked to snow machines, meaning the more you play, the more it snows! This is part of their on-going Live Young Campaign.

The playgrounds will be at Canary Wharf from Monday 7th January to Wednesday 9th, then at Finsbury Square on Thursday 10th until Friday 11th.

Find out more on Facebook

Creative Distraction - Draw a stickman

If like us, you're back at work this week, then you may find this a welcome distraction.

This site has two interactive episodes and a game which allow you to express your creativity, even if you are not the most artistic of people.
The idea is simple, you start by drawing a stickman, and it develops from there into your very own animated story.

Why not give it go here.

Your friend the lamp

Pinokia is an innovative lamp that brings the Pixar logo to life, replicating the moving lamp through the use of a host of servs, sensors, microphones and a webcam that can detect facial expressions.

This animatronic lamp is designed to be aware of its surroundings, exude emotions and interact through sound, movement and touch.

See more below:

The corner shop comes to life with Red Stripe

This stunt for Red Stripeby ad agency KesselsKramer (along with Stinkdigital director Greg Brunkalla and creative technology consultancy Hirsch&Mann) popped up in a convenience store in East London.

They rigged up loads of products in a corner store to suddenly start dancing and making music whenever a customer picked up a Red Stripe from the fridge.

It a great bit of fun but knowing these types of stores well the late night crowd may get a bit freaked out!

Take control of the gifs

Take a look at this great website that features a load of animated gifs that you control through your mouse.

Skydiving cats, tumbling gymnasts and Gambang style - you take control.

Click here.