top fives: good things

And so onto my highlights from this year... 1. good projects I don't talk about my work that much on this blog. Don't know why that is. But I had a few especially good projects this year. I worked with interesting people, did some naming projects, wrote lots of stuff, art directed other bits, worked on Facebook apps, and was the voice of a brand in various social spaces. I enjoyed them, was tested creatively and in other ways, got good feedback (mostly) and learned a lot. Oh, and Contagious magazine said the first one "put shame in the game of many youth brands". I'll take that quite happily. 2. my son's first birthday Milo's birthday weekend was so, so good. The best two days of the year. We went to see Pop at the Tate Modern, and he loved most of it, especially the Takashi Murakami and Damien Hirst rooms. The next day we had 40 or so friends and family over for his birthday party. There was cake and there were goody bags, as there should be at every good party. And we got him a trike that he loves. 3. watchmen marketing Watchmen was a transmedia narrative par excellence, with games, mock documentaries, printed stuff, music videos and more springing up around it. The distributed story was so good you almost didn't need to see the movie. 4. robots were awesome

Playful 09 - Gamechanging & Change Through Play

View more presentations from Katy Lindemann.

They really were. There were great things like Chalkbot and Katy's presentations for Interesting and Playful too. 5. slow projects Earlier this year I felt like I was losing track of writing for my own fun. So I've made a point of making time for it. It's starting to pay off too. I enjoyed NaNoWriMo, although I didn't get far. I had a bit of success with Leaf Books and a couple of other things. There have also been Crossrail Pop-up Pop and a bigger thing, which I've often obliquely referred to but never got round to finishing. So maybe that'll show up one day soon. The point is to start these things, even if you may never finish.

watchmen excitement goes into overdrive

Was I the last to know?!? I've been shown the Minutemen arcade game today, complete with Double Dragon stylings. Love it. Completed it. Found The New Frontiersman site thereafter. I may not be able to sleep for a week. So excited. Started following @NewFrontiersman on Twitter. Discovered the official movie countdown widget. Head exploded.

watch and learn from the watchmen

A friend sent me this vid promoting Watchmen earlier this week. I'd already seen this one on the origins of Dr Manhattan. I absolutely frickin' love them. Executionally I love the fact there's no super or voiceover to finish them off, they are their own thing. They don't treat you like an idiot. And there are so many sweet touches to make the world of the story part of our own. What a great example of how films can promote themselves, creating content that yields more, making you anticipate more. It's not a first, I know, plenty of others have done it. The Wire's backstory pieces about McNulty, Omar et al spring to mind. And I know from Tash that children's books can also do this. But it did make me think, even if you're not a content brand, how might you spin out the stories about your product or service in a way that interweaves with people's sense of real life? Like Ted says, Howies' Hand-Me-Downs are a good example of backstory being traced into the product. But I'm sure lots more could be done by many others. And what an interesting world it would be.