Sketches

The internet is a big place, with lots of people and companies trying to carve out territory for themselves. What would it look like if you could visualize the current landscape of the web? Which players are holding dominant positions? Who is making a move into new lands? Blend has teamed up with the great folks at the Web2.0Summit to find out!

After several months of effort and a lot of continent shuffling, we are pleased to announce the launch of the Web2.0Summit Points of Control Map!

This is really a first iteration of the map, with additional functionality to be added in upcoming releases. We hope you enjoy!

Here are a few behind-the-scenes notes:

The team at Blend included and Joe, Nate on the development side. Karla and I did the design and illustration. We worked primarily with John Battelle and Janetti Chon from the web2.0 team. Their vision and broad knowledge of the current state of the web is what really enabled this map to become what it is. Read more »

Apparently I am an edge case. Greeting card manufacturers know what sells. A quick look down the card aisle reveals that women make the bulk of the buying decisions here (glitter seems to be a strong deciding factor). Any attempt to expand the appeal quickly devolves to “beer and bodily functions” style humor. Not really what I had in mind.

But I did want to send my brother something tangible to supplement his birthday gift…

When in doubt, break out the sketch pad, right? I seem to be on some kind of hand-drawn typography kick lately. I came up with this seal, surrounded it with the names of a few cold weather explorers, and tucked it behind the formidable silhouette of Mt. McKinley. The perfect fit for a guy getting ready for a month of fun in the Alaskan back-country. I can’t imagine why Walgreen’s doesn’t carry something like this… Maybe right next to the section with the sparkly pony cards.

Here is a closer look:

Read more »

I recently got the chance to play a little banner badminton, and get featured on the ever-famous Graphic Content blog. This is the craziness that I submitted:

Although it really makes perfect sense as is, you could always delve further into the colorful back-story, and see how it came to this.

It is years overdue, and months in the making (around all that pesky paying work), but it is finally here. Blend Interactive has launched our new website!

Karla designed the old version of our site nearly four years ago. I think that’s about 127 in web years. I always thought it aged very well. However, we have been growing and changing as fast as web technology. It was time for a refresh. We hope our new site can better communicate all we have been up to, and give visitors a better understanding of what Blend is capable of. Just like moving into a new house, we are still unpacking, shuffling content around, and getting things situated where we want them. Check in often to see what is new at Blend!

Blend’s new site: http://www.blendinteractive.com

We have finally launched the Palm Trend Tracker!

The site allows you to delve deeper into what people are talking about on Twitter. You can compare how often topics are mentioned over time, see when a topic popped onto everyone’s radar, and even where in the world a topic is trending! Note the “pre trend watch” where the site predicts the next topics that will make it to the top 10. Overall, this site can do some pretty cool stuff. I think Joe, Nate, and Tim might have broken a few laws of physics to make it happen (something about downloading and parsing the whole internet in real time…), but cool none-the-less.

Check it out here: http://palmtrendtracker.com/

We recently launched a site for Kohler, espousing the importance of conserving water. There are some cool ideas on the site, and a gallery of water-themed graffitis from a contest on Facebook.

This project actually went relatively smooth. Considering we took this from nothing to a live site in about two weeks, the campaign has gone off pretty well. Chris knocked out the dev side of things, with Tim filling in around the edges.

Check it out at: http://www.h2ovisions.com/

Recently launched!

I designed this mini conversational marketing site for Intel (Tim rocked the development end of things), and it seems to be performing fairly well. After all, who wouldn’t like $5000 in free tech gear? The contest is still open, so get in there and win some-o-them tasty microchips!

www.needatechmakeover.com