Ruby's BBQ interior

Bots for civic engagement was led by Alex Leavitt (PhD Researcher, @alexleavitt), David Bausola (CEO, Philter Phactory Ltd, @zeroinfluencer), Erhardt Graeff (Researcher, MIT Media Lab, @erhardt) and Greg Marra (Prod Mgr, Facebook, @gregmarra) who are all interested in the use of bots for civic purposes. They discussed how bots are in use today on the web such as @stealthmountain on Twitter that replies to users’ tweets to correct their spelling from ‘sneak peak’ to ‘sneak peek’ and imageoptimiser on GitHub that creates a pull request for code repos to optimize their images. These are example of bots that perform predictable actions consistently while the real power of bots lies in their emergent behavior and ability to learn from activity on the web and as a result be ‘intelligent’. The ideal scenarios for these bots would be if they were able to respond to users’ questions algorithmically such as “I’m in Austin, where can I go?” or “What do I need to vote on election day?”. This to me is the most interesting use of bots as mediators and guides. However there are growing ethical concerns with bots. The most approachable and trusty bot is an honest bot – one that discloses itself. This is true for many bots on Twitter that declare their intent openly. It is also essential that the frequency and quality of interaction with bots be tuned so that it is not seen as unwelcome spam. The panel discussion was useful in bringing light to the growing universe of bots and how they can be designed to be useful to citizens in political, social and media activism spheres. A collection of some of the friendliest Twitter bots can be found in the BotCache.

This panel is available on SoundCloud and Storify.

Bots for Civic Engagement panel

Re-Imagining Toys: Merging the Physical & Digital was a talk by Dr. Mike North, CTO of Nukotoys, to talk about the convergence of physical and digital interactions in children’s games. Mike’s talk began by highlighting that the global toy market, worth 84 billion dollars, is dominated by very few players – mostly large corporations such as Mattel that are struggling to innovate. At the same time, kids are playing with fascinating new digital tools such as iPads, iPhones and leaving physical toys behind. Nukotoys is using a toys-as-a-service model for their games. Kids purchase physical trading cards that are then used to influence play in a digital world. Nukotoys can easily measure user interaction via analytics in the digital games and change the response generated in the digital world without changing the physical object. This in turn allows for games to be iterated remotely and gives kids new ways to play with the same physical object. The ability to iterate games combined with inexpensive ways to create toys via 3D printing presents a unique opportunity for game companies of any scale. North believes that innovation in toys will be driven by the growing need to encourage creative education in the US. North encourages toy developers to embrace the challenge to create game interactions that combine the physical and the digital experience in a meaningful ways that will drive the future of play and innovation.

Culture Hack: Libraries & Museums Open for Making was a group panel by Antoine Isaac (Scientific Coordinator, Europeana, @antoine_isaac), Emily Gore (Dir for Content, Digital Public Library Of America, @ncschistory), Rachel Frick (Program Dir, CLIR Digital Library Federation, @rlfrick) and Sam Leon (Community Coord, Open Knowledge Foundation, @noeL_maS) on open data in libraries and museums. This panel discussed two subjects that are close to my heart – open data and museums! The panel introduced me to a growing open data movement being led by the Linked Open Data in Libraries Archives and Museums (LODLAM) summit. LODLAM has been leading the discussion of opening data in libraries, archives and museums. The panel speakers have been involved in this movement in their own organizations and presented their motivations and challenges in creating efficient, accessible, inter-operable systems. The panel also discussed the degrees of openness that are permitted and what content is accessible via their apis. For the most part it seemed that metadata i.e. description of objects is easily accessible while the actual content (media) may be restricted by rights. This movement has allowed for developers to create interactive apps with the data and some really cool examples can be found in the project archive of the OpenKnowledge Foundation. I was excited to see that developers are making some really wonderful projects using historical, educational data as a result of LODLAM and this community engagement is giving more visibility to cultural institutions that house and protect this data. One of my favorite examples was the Timeliner that allows users to upload spreadsheets of data to automatically create historical timelines, this is an example timelining ‘wars’. Additionally, the Digital Public Library Of America (DPLA) is due to launch their platform for engaging users with millions of materials from American libraries, museums, archives and other cultural institutions and I am looking forward to see how they present this data for all their audiences (students, teachers, hackers, general public and so on).

This panel is available on slideshare.

Fohlin and Pritika in Austin

1 – Golden Krishna and his critical take on the UI

I’m going to have to second Brian’s enthusiasm for Golden Krishna’s provocatively-titled “The Best Interface is No Interface”, which was full of sound rationale supporting an insightful perspective. Not much to be said here that Brian didn’t already mention, but I thought I’d at least pay homage to the quality of Krishna’s delivery, which stood out amongst the many speakers we saw throughout the week – a meta-highlight, if you will. Check Brian’s post for more on Krishna and his enlightening take on technology.

2 – City hacking and the Government

This panel laid out ways in which open-source digital initiatives, hacker culture, and social media are changing the way in which nonprofits mobilize and how New York City has been improving its emergency management strategy. The panelists were heavyweights in their fields (New York’s Digital Deputy Rachel Haot and Abhi Nemani, Chief of staff at Code for America) and they touched on how crowd-sourced data and social media was cutting through the red tape in the municipalities in which they’ve worked. To be frank, much of their strategies seemed like common sense to those of us in the industry – the real value lay in hearing about how they managed the friction they encountered as they advocated for digital solutions in the face of great skepticism and institutional sluggishness. The panelists have formidable experience in navigating tense political waters and their anecdotes lent insight into the difficulties we still face as a society. This was most palpable in the obviously ironic concept of governmental ‘hack-a-thons’ held to improve New York’s digital operations: the audience pounced on this in the lively Q&A that followed, where it was pointed out that hacks were no way to go about building stable solutions for serious problems. It quickly became clear that definition of ‘hack’ was at stake, reinforcing the fact that our governmental bodies still have a long way to go before they really grasp the potential of digital media to solve serious problems on timelines that can make the difference between saving a life and, well, the alternative.

For more about how digital initiatives are working for New Yorkers, check out the Made in NY site and pitch in.

3 – Unreal and iOS

This all-day workshop was a day-killer, but well worth it for those of us excited about the possibility of mashing up spatial navigation with the mobile experience. Zak Parrish, whose books have been the go-to reference for working with the Unreal Development Kit (a free download here), hosted the session and gave a satisfying tehcnical orientation to porting Unreal content to iOS devices in addition to covering some of the nuance and foibles of the UDK, which can be a bit cantankerous despite its achievement in making game development accessible. Although zombies and elves are not really my thing, it’s easy to see the possibilities that lie outside such flights of fancy in Unreal’s flexible interface building tools, and Zak’s sneak peak at the as-of-yet-unreleased version 4 revealed some exciting advances in real-time environmental simulation that are going to continue to carve inroads for the UDK into industries outside the gaming community.

4 – Reggie Watts

I was unfamiliar with Reggie Watts prior to our close encounter with him at the San Jose Hotel as we were winding down from the day’s panels. Watts is known as a comedian, and his performances hinge on his improv skills weaving nimble (and often lewd) musical compositions on the spot using just a delay unit, a drum machine, and an audio sampler. Although he’s billed as a comedian, the comedy is just the cherry on top of formidable musical skills. Reggie’s got a soulful voice and a great ear for rhythm – the fire dancers in the audience fresh from the Black Rock meet-up were forced into a hoop-spinning frenzy. I found myself caught up in the richness of the music more than once and I couldn’t help but wondering if his billing as a comedic performer is doing an injustice to the depth of his musical talent. Regardless, Reggie gave us a lot to talk about – we’ll never see bananas the same way again.

Did you know Reggie did a stint on the Bill Nye Science Guy show? For real.

5 – Two Bros. BBQ

One of our studio SXSW rituals is attending the BBQ Crash Course, and we certainly weren’t going to let the dreary weather get between us and good eats. This year’s star hands-down was Two Bros. BBQ hailing from San Antonio. Their brisket and beans were head and shoulders above the competition, which included some serious local contenders with heavy reputations (names withheld out of respect for some serious Austin institutions). The meat was almost flavorful enough to eat bare, but the real treat was the sauce, which had a surprisingly sophisticated mix of spicy and sweetness that…well, let’s not get too fancy with it. It is barbecue after all, and it’s hard to put on erudite airs when we were all wearing our complementary handkerchiefs as bibs. One thing for sure though, my next visit to San Antonio will include lunch at Two Bros. Too bad they weren’t also responsible for the banana pudding…

The following list of five highlights covers my favorite sessions from the trip, and as our team folds these into our own dialogue and practice, I’ll post more detailed thoughts in separate articles.

1. Spreadable Media: Value, Meaning, and Network Culture
A fantastic panel with a vigorous follow-up conversation, the Spreadable Media session featured Henry Jenkins (@henryjenkins) from the University of Southern California, Sam Ford (@Sam_Ford) of Peppercomm, and Joshua Green (@joshgreen) from Undercurrent discussing the fallacy of passive, organic virality as a model for dissemination and distribution, and the need to replace it with a more nuanced notion of how human choice and agency promotes the spreading of media. By embracing the human role, brands can more effectively understand sharing and communication to engage their audiences. The resulting dialogue addressed the relationship of brands to their broader cultural context, how brands (and agencies like our own) might approach that context, and how embracing complexity can lead to deeper relationships.

2. Android’s Principles for Designing the Future
Rachel Garb (@rachelgarb) and Helena Roeber (@helenaroeber) of Google delivered one of the highlights of Google’s hit-and-miss uber-presence at the SXSW. Ranging from macro themes to more granular focus-points, the session addressed delight, simplicity, consistency, and more, providing a great view into the process and methodology behind recent Android UX. Our team was inspired to reexamine and formalize our own working creative and production methodologies.

3. The Best Interface is No Interface
One of the most compelling sessions of the festival, Golden Krishna (@goldenkrishna) of Samsung Design America delivered a charismatic presentation challenging the audience to rethink their assumptions and our headlong dive into screen-based solutions. Starting with the claim that “the dream of a paperless world should become a dream of a screenless world”, Krishna laid out a series of examples — both poignant failures of screen-first approaches and pointed successes of more considered, insight-driven paths — to incite the creative community to leverage computers instead of cater to them. Our team highly recommends visiting Krishna’s No Interface tumblr, where the entire SXSW talk will soon be available, and where we hope the conversation will continue.

4. Immerse Yourself in the MIT Media Lab
The MIT Media Lab’s immersive technologies talk ebbed and flowed, but one gem stood out; the 8D display. You read that right, eight-D. The abridged version of what was presented goes something like this: everyone knows what 2D looks like; the 8D uses light-ray pixels to allow the display to control the direction light rays leave the screen, effectively allowing viewers at different viewing angles to see different things. The result: 3D without the glasses. This is considered 4D light projection. On top of that, the pixels act as receivers, understanding the direction light rays enter the screen, creating 4D light capture. If you’re wondering what that means, imagine chatting with someone on-screen when the light in your room or environment changes; now imagine that change in light effecting the lighting of the person within the screen, enhancing the impression you share a physical space and connection with them. For more details and some demo video of the early work, check out Matt Hirsch’s project notes.

5. Geek Nirvana: Achieving Data-driven Team Happiness
Chris Schultz (@cschultz) of Voodoo Ventures, Jenn Lim (@jennlim) of Delivering Happiness at Work, and Brian Welle of Google anchored this stimulating panel on using data to both invite participation from and deliver results to a team or staff. Many of the insights covered, such as increasing the frequency of check-ins and avoiding surveys if you’re not going to take action on the results, applied to businesses of all scales. An undercurrent of the conversation was to think radically when examining how team culture can improve — rather than replacing the standard annual review with a biannual one, what if feedback between staff and leadership was an omnipresent, easily accessible tool facilitating more of a constant dialogue? What if that tool was woven into the fabric of the culture in a way that rendered it less formal and daunting?

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be covering various topics that not only created buzz during this year’s festival, but have generated discussion across the industry.

In addition to hitting panels by day and parties by night, we ate a lot of local cuisine guided by the fact both John and Brian have called Austin home in the past. Highlights included daily breakfast tacos at Taco Shack; dinner at Ruby’s BBQ and Perla’s, and nightly treks to Amy’s Ice Creams.

We also had the pleasure of meeting part of the team from 10,000ft, a terrific project and resource planning tool we use to run our studio. We got to know more about the 10,000ft team, talked a bit about the festival, and were gifted with one of their beautiful bottle openers. Thank you!

Our last night in Austin, we had the pleasure of catching an unannounced show by Reggie Watts at Hotel San Jose thanks to Brian obtaining some local intel.

As a third-year attendee of SXSW, the big thing that stood out for me was the significant decrease in the number of marketing efforts (read: swag distribution). Anyone who knows me, especially the BU crew, knows I rock a lot of startup wear while I’m in the office including Foursquare, GroupMe, Foodspotting, Twilio, and of course our own. It’s less about a free wardrobe—I promise—and more about supporting the companies I stand behind and love.

There was a big drop in the number of startup teams roaming the streets of Austin. And sadly, there was no Foursquare court. It seems to me the continuing transformation of Austin’s downtown is leaving less and less vacant space to be consumed by temporary installations, typically where the startups hangout. I’m sure, however, most people were glad there was a lighter marketing presence this year.

Be sure to keep up with us on Twitter, Facebook, or Google+ as we share our series of posts.

Ranking Among Competitors

Foursquare rolled out their take on place ratings in November, eschewing the typical 5-star rating seen on sites like Yelp and opting to rank places through an amalgam of influences. These factors include explicit actions such as likes and dislikes of business locations (known as a venue), sentiment detected in user tips, and pure traffic statistics including popularity and loyalty (repeat business). The result of Foursquare’s decision is a nearly frictionless rating system with a low likelihood of being influenced by emotional reviews and ratings. More later on what you can do to influence the rank of your venue(s).

Venue Optimization

If you’re responsible for a business with a physical location, it’s imperative to claim your venue on Foursquare and run through the process of venue optimization. This includes defining your business’ website, Twitter handle, and phone number to provide points of contact and helpful information for your customers. To increase discoverability on the platform, populate your venue’s description and define its category and tags. Finally, make things easy for your customers when they do find you on Foursquare and define the business hours for your venue.

Connect with Your Audience

Brand pages are a valuable way to connect with your audience with little to no effort, yet do so on one of the more intimate levels technology has intersected our lives—location. Brands, even those without physical locations, are able to leave tips across the globe for their fans to find and appreciate. Tips are surfaced to users when it’s deemed most valuable such as checking in at venues where a tip was left (something to do now) or when checking in near a tip (something to do later).

The Corcoran Group is one of the more successful brands on Foursquare, flexing their knowledge of the neighborhoods home to their properties through explicit things to do or simply interesting facts. Corcoran isn’t pushing people to check-in at their offices, but is instead promoting their knowledge and staying on your mind. Other successful brands on Foursquare have come to include History Channel, ESPN, Time Out New York, and Major League Soccer. Our team has sprinkled tips across the city in an effort to share our interests and passions (mostly food). We’ve even provided a guide to Austin with SXSW attendees in mind.

Encourage Interaction

So what can you do to encourage audience interaction on Foursquare? If you have physical locations, encourage visitors to like your venue(s) and leave tips. Tips can suggest a favorite dish, give props to a favorite staff member, or recommend the best seat in the house. Do you have special events at certain times? Setup Foursquare events to raise awareness and allow visitors to share their experience and excitement. Remind fans on other social networks—Twitter, Facebook, etc.—to like your brand on Foursquare to stay connected. Track and analyze the trends of your visitors using Foursquare’s Business app (or web interface).

Oh, and if you’re looking for new things in your own city or are traveling to a new one, check out Foursquare’s new Best Of lists powered by nearly three billion check-ins.

In fact, content from the web is no longer accessed by only web pages on a desktop. A Roku Box can stream movies from Netflix on your TV while you order dinner using the Seamless app on your phone. We have already seen a shift with desktop technology merging with the web. Google Drive is replacing the Microsoft Publishing suite allowing users to create documents in a browser viewable and editable on all other devices. Photos taken on the phone or camera are backed up in cloud servers or shared on Flickr or Facebook accessible outside of one’s hard drive. All of users’ interactions are being driven by cloud based content accessible by a collection of connected hardware. Interactions on these devices are changing users’ expectations of technology and a demand for good products that leverage these devices is growing as well. The merging of different tech fields, rise of popular operating systems and omnipresence of consumer technology has streamlined the design and development process resulting in a highly competitive market for producing interactive media.

As people continue to consume interactive media, it has created a greater awareness and attraction for the design and tech industry. Talent from the world over is working within this global space with the motivation to be creators, artists or hackers to create products that reach their audience directly in our newly connected universe. Freelance, side projects and social media are all avenues for a new breed of creators. The industry is no longer biased towards users with a college pedigree but instead favor candidates with strong portfolio and real experience with skills to show in practice. While the barrier for entry might seem to be higher than before, access to this industry has never been easier given all the current avenues for technology education.

A more traditional path into the world of tech is to attend a four-year university and obtain a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or Engineering where coursework includes learning computational theory, programming languages and sometimes also web development and graphics programming. Such a degree focuses primarily on a fundamental knowledge of computer science. However, what might be lacking for the students who plan to pursue a career in the design and tech industry after graduation is real world experience with actual, relevant interactive projects. While these traditional programs focus heavily on computer science theory and practice, they may not be adequately preparing these students to create engaging projects that are favored in design portfolios. Non-traditional technology programs such as such as NYU’s ITP program, Parson’s Design and Technology and MIT’s Media Lab programs do provide more specific academic training for this industry.

However, over the past few years there has been an increase in more “self-taught” approaches to obtaining a tech education. Online learning programs and tools such as Codeacademy, Skillcrush, MIT/Stanford’s online courses and Coursera have gotten increasingly popular. Many offline programs have started popping up as well. They range from programs that offer to teach you Ruby on Rails or iOS development, to programs like Hungry Academy, which promises to prepare participants for software engineering roles at Living Social. Another notable offline program, Hacker School, is a free three-month program with minimal structure. At Hacker School there are no classes, tests, or certificates, just a community of programmers at various skill levels working together and independently on open source projects with the goal of becoming better programmers.

As a computer with internet access provides unlimited resources, these opportunities are now presenting themselves to communities that weren’t previously able to access them and there has been increased outreach to underrepresented minorities in tech. For the last two and upcoming batches, Hacker School has been providing need based grants to women, who have been traditionally underrepresented in the STEM fields. Many programs now exist that provide outreach to a children, like Coder Dojo or CodeEd, which teaches middle school girls in underserved communities basic HTML/CSS.

Diversity of talent in our studio (development team pictured above) reflects the many paths that design and tech enthusiasts can take to become professionals. We believe that this diversity reflects our mission statement and informs our business practices. Our studio embraces a true collaborative approach and celebrates different backgrounds and cultures which ultimately is reflected in our portfolio and diversity of clients.

-Pritika Nilaratna, Shirmung Bielefeld

I’ve found many things to love about BU in the three weeks that I have been here:

1. The view is amazing. Being able to look outside the window and see the sun set on the manhattan skyline every day has been great.
2. I love that on any given day, the low buzz of NPR fills the room as educational background noise.
3. I am a huge fan of “Relaxin’ Time” every Friday at 5 which is made complete with Brooklyn Lager and double-stuffed Oreos.
4. Last, but not least, I love the brainstorming sessions. This is a smart multi-talented group and each time we talk about a project or idea I am able to see things from a different perspective and learn something new.

As a Washington state native, I studied design at Western Washington University. Since then I have worn many hats in my career including editorial designer, web and mobile designer, product designer and user interface designer. My current role at Brooklyn United encompasses all of these skills, but mainly revolves around creating innovative interactive experiences that are both clean and bold. Although I do have a soft spot for print, I really love digital. I love that it has a life of its own even beyond the original intentions. You can learn from watching someone interact with a design and improve on the experience in real time. New technology challenges you to push your designs and come up with different ways to allow people to interact with content. Digital is immediate. It can be shared with almost anyone at anytime.

I have a fascination with digital projects that go beyond the screen and become experiences. I am inspired by projects that challenge how we view digital technology and it’s place in everyday life. Here are a few examples below:

Stanley, the first interactive piano player by Digital Kitchen

NIke Camp Victory by Hush

Forever 21 Times Square Digital Billboard by Space 150

Hyundai Accent 3D projection

I am looking forward to working on projects like these with Brooklyn United in the coming year.

The way we write our web based software has improved greatly. As a community, it’s as if we’ve moved on from the days of scribbling incoherent stories in crayon to writing rather elegant pieces of literature (not to knock on scribbling things out in crayon, that’s still pretty awesome). JavaScript, which a lot of the buzz seems to focus on these days, has always been an ugly, awkward, quirky language. Brendan Eich wrote the first prototype for the language in ten days, under the name LiveScript. The language was clunky, strange, performed poorly, and was very difficult to maintain. I firmly believe that writing code and writing literature are not much different. There are styles, some good, and some very, very bad. Because of the unusual nature of JavaScript as a language, it’s a bit more difficult to shape — like modeling architecture with Play-Doh…while wearing mittens.

Developers have all heard the term “spaghetti code” and have probably written a fair bit of it. With JavaScript, this seemed like the only route one could realistically take at the start. There was a constant battle of maintaining your code in many, many different files and then loading them all separately on page load, or having one unmaintainable document with tens of thousands of lines. Making this mess even more complicated, the language itself is asynchronous, in that things can happen out of order. You write a command that has a response that may come at any point at the future and you tell it what to do when that response comes back. This quickly becomes very convoluted and makes it very easy for code to reach a point where even the person who wrote the application can look at what they’ve done months, weeks, or even days later, and have no idea what’s going on.

Thankfully, things have changed. The next release of JavaScript, currently ECMAScript 6, is going to support importing other files as modules. This has been possible for some time now using libraries like RequireJS. We can now separate our code out into multiple files based on functionality. This, coupled with other libraries such as Backbone.js, which I’m a big fan of, as well as Angular, Ember, Knockout, Spine, and so on, can structure this functionality as we structure any other sort of application. All of the libraries listed above are what are known as MV* frameworks—or Model-View frameworks. It’s a separation of logic that has been around for a very long time, where code is separated into branches, one which handles logic and data manipulation, one that handles what the user actually sees, and then other branches that may allow the previous two to interact or provide other necessary legwork to get the application running. This style of coding has been around for a while and is currently what coders are working with in Objective-C / Cocoa, .NET, Ruby, Python, etc.

In my eyes, this is what matters. We can now write our applications coming in with a totally modular approach. Code is easier to maintain, refactor, version control, and distribute to new platforms. It also has a tremendous impact on how users interact with newer websites built on these models.

The web has always been fairly linear. Maybe that’s a strange thing to say, but from its inception you clicked a link, read its content, hit the back button, rinse and repeated. Now we can break a “page” into interactive regions that respond to user input and respond accordingly. This means websites that behave like applications. USA Today is an excellent example of an editorial website that was written using Backbone.js to provide a dynamic application that feels very responsive to the user. You’ll notice you can click into articles and move around the site without feeling like you’re really being taken away from anything; it’s all fairly seamless. And with technologies like Google’s V8, which runs JavaScript at speeds nearing those of native applications by compiling it to native code, web apps no longer feel sluggish—on modern machines, of course.

But this “movement” isn’t just about JavaScript. Backend languages and their frameworks have changed a great deal in the past few years, and how we’re using them today has changed just as much. Take PHP for example. We now have frameworks like Laravel and Symfony, and a multitude of others which work similarly that are made up of many small packages, meaning if one framework has a component you like more, you can simply just go ahead and use it. Developers are no longer married to the backend framework of choice. This phenomenon of mixing and matching throughout all of these technologies is known as decoupling. Pieces work independently, so you don’t have to worry about the entire system collapsing onto itself when one chunk is removed and replaced.

This mix-and-match logic is becoming a necessity in a lot of today’s applications. There are so many devices we need to deliver our content to: desktops, tablets, smart phones, and quite frankly, who knows what’s next. We could see Smart TV apps becoming an important consideration in the next few years. Historically, we would re-write our applications for all of these devices from the ground up, but now developers are handling things more intelligently. On one hand, we have our foundation, or our code, that lives on a web server. This will handle requests from clients, look through a database, perform some logic, and send it back out. Instead of letting this chunk of our application handle all of the work, we just leave it with that responsibility. Next we can develop our client-side applications, whether they are in JavaScript for a desktop, Objective-C for all of the Apple devices, or Java for Android devices. It’s difficult to express the importance of this, especially when it comes to applications that deal with large databases of user-inputted data. You don’t have to worry about what you’re going to do with your millions of records of user order history when you want to completely rebuild the client side portion of your application.

So what should be taken away from this all? Technologies like WebGL are great because we’ll be able to have 3D on the web. I’m hoping it sparks some kind of post-post-AngelFire/Geocities era of hilariously gaudy websites. However, what really matters is how the web applications are being made. They’re becoming more modular, more responsive, and more dynamic.

Our team of designers — including Christopher Goodhue, Alan Finch, Jon Dicus, Valentine Sanders, and Justin Vachon — dove into the cultural fabric of each city, building dossiers detailing potential points of interest capable of providing a foundation for a scheme. These origins were tested in the trenches, as the team developed hundreds of iterations of dozens of approaches, with each avenue subjected to rigorous critique by the studio at large.

We responded to the rambunctious energy of the Wolff Olins logo by intentionally heading in a different direction. The result combined the 30 St Mary Axe (aka Gherkin) tower’s iconic architecture with the olympic torch to capture the aspirational nature of the games, the blending of cultures, and the sense of tradition that represent both the games themselves and the modern city of London.

After initial pursuit of solutions emphasizing this resort town’s location on the coast of the Black Sea in the shadow of the Caucasus Mountains, the team focused on abstractions rooted in the floral patterns found in Russian iconography and embroidery. The final distillation retains the sense of linework and balance and is ripe for extension to pattern applications across media.

The team’s explorations of Rio de Janeiro and Brasil’s culture opened a pandora’s box of vibrant options alive with color and sensual form. But our winning solution takes a different tack, presenting an elegant merging of the olympic rings and the letters of Rio. The subtle and clear form lends itself to application as an anchor to a broader campaign and a collaborator with those bright colors and organic shapes.

Viewed as a system from day one, this scheme uses shapes inspired by the human body — speed skating, figure skating, ski jumping — and a confident color palette to imply motion. The focus here is on athleticism in its myriad forms, and the concept accommodates a host of variations per-sport or per-venue. The result of pairing the varied distilled forms yields a series of elegant ‘snowflakes’.

I’m not sure when I fell into design, but I’ve always been attracted to the visual world. I’ve always had the urge to make things. I grew up in France and a few years ago, I moved to Florida. Of course, there was something exciting about moving to a new country, but it took some time to adjust to all the changes. After months of homesickness and mispronunciations, I discovered graphic design. It was my last semester of high school and sure enough, a few months later I was enrolled at Ringling College of Art and Design to pursue a degree in Graphic & Interactive Communication. Spending four years there was an enriching experience. I loved being in a creative environment and that’s probably when I realized I was on the right path.

Of course I realized that design wasn’t only about making beautiful things. I was also drawn to its social, practical, challenging and experimental aspect. It was also a great way to satisfy my curiosity. Print was my first love and wanted to design magazines, books, posters, cool things. I discovered typography and was fascinated. Everything became an immense playground. I liked solving problems. I liked words and letters, images, colors, details. I love process – there’s nothing more satisfying than seeing an idea become something concrete. I wanted a career that didn’t feel like a 9-5 job, where I could learn everyday, and I haven’t been disappointed yet.

I have already learned a lot at BU, and I know it’s going to be a great experience. I am also getting to know NYC by exploring lovely Brooklyn and everything it has to offer. Of course I miss France a lot, but NYC already feels a lot closer to home.

Here are some of my favorite European print designers/studios. Atelier Muesli is a Paris-based studio, where they do amazing print work. They combine homemade processes, such as engraving or silk-screening, focus on materials and textures, to create refreshing and original work. They’ve been a huge inspiration from the beginning.

Aurėle Sack is a young designer based in Switzerland. I admire his typography and editorial work for its simplicity and uniqueness.

Another studio I’ve been greatly inspired by is Atelier Martino&Jaña, based in Portugal. Their work is very eclectic, fun and engaging. They successfully merge traditional and digital mediums, handwritten typography, letterpress… the dream of any print designer.