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Happy New Year

2012-01-01T10:00:00Z

On be halve of the whole “band” and myself: Have a wonderful new year 2012!

Designpreis Deutschland 2012 Nomination

2011-08-10T09:26:00Z

Wollzelle has been nominated for the Designpreis Deutschland 2012. Quoted as being “The Champions League of design” the competition claims to honor top international achievements that are already setting tomorrow’s standards today. The German Design Award is bestowed in recognition of outstanding achievements in the fields of product design and communication design.

Wollzelle is hiring a web developer

2011-04-14T03:39:00Z

Location: Vienna, Austria

You are passionate about designing websites, interfaces and web applications, and you have the relevant skills to bring your ideas to life?

We are looking for an on-site web developer to join our team. At Wollzelle you will be working across multiple clients and projects in an enthusiastic and fast paced work environment.

You will have the chance to work on our products and web applications as well as a diversity of creative projects for high-profile clients in the fashion, arts and entertainment industries collaborating with a creative team of designers and developers.

SKILLS & APTITUDES

3+ years experience with cross-browser web and web app development
Deep knowledge in HTML, CSS and JavaScript (HTML5, CSS3 and all the good stuff)
Experienced with major JavaScript libraries (eg. jQuery, Mootools, ...) and familiar with AJAX, JSON
A strong value for web standards and user experience
Experience using version control systems (SVN, GIT)
Experience with social networking applications, APIs and mashups
Strong communication skills (both in person and in writing)
Exceptional problem-solving skills
You enjoy working in a team-based environment
Ability to work within a collaborative team environment wearing multiple hats
A background in Rails development is helpful but not an essential
Languages: English/(German)
The job is offered either as full-time or part time position (minimum three consecutive 8 hour work days per week).

If you think you are the one, please send your resume and work samples to jobs[at]wollzelle[dot]com. No agencies please!

Introducing Global Player online

2011-02-03T07:33:00Z

From its simple premise, « gaming belongs to the fabric of contemporary life », Global Player explores the thrilling world of casinos: art, food, fashion and travel lie at the core of a unique high-end experience.

We are delighted to announce that Casinos Austria International, the magazine’s parent company, entrusted us with the design and development of its online edition, which launched on January 25, at the ICE exhibit in London, along with its second print issue.

The online edition is a natural pendant to the printed reference magazine. It focuses on current trends and topics, and keeps readers abreast of what’s new and what’s hot as the year, and their own travels, unfold.

It was, therefore, very much designed with the mobile experience in mind, and has been specially enhanced for iPhone use.

Once added added to the user’s home screen, the site behaves every bit like a native « App », with the added benefit of requiring no installation and no downloads.

By blending seamlessly with the iPhone’s interface it offers a direct portal to the world of international entertainment — with interesting articles to boot. On the plane, on the train, at the hotel: anywhere a data connection is available.

The site is so up-to-the-minute that its administrative back-end, also developed in-house at wollzelle, has been specially designed for the iPad, enabling journalists and gaming personalities to publish articles, photos and titbits as events are unfolding in any of the group’s properties around the world! The decentralised newsroom is no longer a thing of the future.

To provide an optimal experience in any country around the world, the site is transparently served through a complex Content Delivery Network (CDN) that automatically picks the closest geographical source for the data. fluxiom takes care of streaming and broadcasting images as they arrive, so that they fit right into the magazine’s virtual pages at the right size and compression level.

Why not try out the site for yourself on your iPhone or computer? We would love to hear your comments. And if you like what you read, remember you can also interact on Facebook or download the latest issue.

Season's Greetings

2010-12-24T17:29:00Z

We wish you all a very happy, and very successful new year. For your trust, for your support, for being yourself, really, we thank you. May 2011 bring you all the felicity and success you expect from it.

Special thanks go out to those who were able to attend our open office, and join us in this afternoon of celebration.

Please note that our offices will be closed between December 23 and January 10, as we take a few days off with friends and family. We will keep a light on, however to ensure our servers and machines are all up and running smoothly.

Enjoy your holidays!

This is the I-Gucci GRAMMY widget

2010-12-01T17:47:00Z

Set to launch at the next GRAMMY® nominations event, December 1, the I-Gucci GRAMMY® widget is the official timekeeper to music’s biggest night. And it looks great to boot!

The widget designed by wollzelle allows music enthusiasts to keep an eye on the countdown to the big event, the 53rd GRAMMY® Music Awards, set to take place at 8 PM on February 13, 2011. Fast-dwindling seconds are turned into meaningful calendar data including days, hours and minutes, rolling by in real time.

And because the countdown to such a significant event comes with its fare share of milestones, reveals and cliffhangers, the widget also provides direct one-click access to the GRAMMY® and Gucci Twitter feeds, for short and timely updates right from the desktop.

Of course, all this functionality would not come from Gucci were it not rolled into one stylish package: the widget is styled after the two genuine I-Gucci watch models, in black or white, and comes with a full-featured virtual version of the physical timepiece’s face, featuring the time in LA and the user’s current location.

Detailed touches relying on both careful handcrafted design and cutting-edge web rendering technologies, such as carefully-applied distortions and shading, give the widget an unprecedented realism that is sure to make it stand out on screens worldwide.

Promotion of the widget on Gucci.com

The widget is available for Mac and PC and can be downloaded via Guccitimeless.com or directly from Apple.com or Yahoo!

Update June 2011

For the 54th Annual Awards the widget got a web based companion integrated directly on GRAMMY.com. Next to the countdown it features the two models of the exceptional collection of the new I-Gucci GRAMMY edition showing LA and local time and date.

St. Gilgen macht Schule — again

2010-11-30T09:00:00Z

In September 2009, we had the honour of working with the world-renowned St. Gilgen International School to craft a radically new and fresh approach to academic branding, that would reflect the school’s unique stance on quality education.

Encouraged by the success of its online platform, the school recently approached us with another challenge: translating their highly dynamic and fluid website into a printed brochure, making sure we took advantage of all this high-touch medium has to offer — permanence, high-resolution images, gorgeous type…

The resulting brochure retains the visual language we introduced with the site, starting with the strong, unabashedly traditional crest, and the constant layering of frames and perspectives.

By putting images in close spacial relationship, we enhance both their kinship and their dissonance, thereby inviting the reader to imagine the stories and events that make them go together.

Nothing, not even a multimedia website, replaces the vivid colours of the mind and we made sure the imagery both represented and suggested the reality of the school: there are no clip-arts or bromides to be found there!

While the medium may not be all the message, it certainly accounts for a lot of it. Therefore, the school’s core values of excellence and self actualisation are evidenced in the materials used for the brochure. Thick, tactile paper and highly saturated inks help the photos, drawings and type spring to life in ways that a vertical screen could never afford. This brochure is like the values it promotes: modern but deeply rooted in tradition and, most of all, here to stay!

We are delighted to see the new St. Gilgen aesthetic, which wollzelle originally devised as a primarily online language, progressively evolve into the school’s trade dress, the sure sign of a solid and flourishing brand that has found its one true voice.

Gucci Timeless

2010-11-23T08:52:00Z

Six months ago, almost to the day, in fact, we had the honour of introducing a fresh new site for Gucci Timepieces. Available in eight languages and built atop a lean and adaptable standards-centric platform, this site took the Gucci experience to a whole new level of beauty and fluidity.

Ring section

GucciTimeless.com is now growing even further, thanks to the launch of a brand new jewellery section, already featuring an impressive 246 items! New filters, such as materials, have been devised to make diving into this section as intuitive as ever. Furthermore, because the collection is so extensive, it allows users to browse by item, range or line, making it easy to find just the right piece for any occasion.

Bracelet section

Seamless integration with Gucci’s online store allows users to easily source genuine items and full e-catalogues in both Flash and PDF act as reference pieces for those who prefer a linear and complete shopping experience.

Of course, no update would be complete without a general tune-up, and every section of the site has benefited from a light sprinkling of diamond dust. For example, the store locator and events section now feature jewellery information, and the site’s homepage has been entirely ridden of Flash, thereby allowing for the lightweight display of bigger and crisper photographs.

As always, the site is built upon an advanced wollzelle-developed CMS, that allows for international management, CDN integration and the easy collection of reports and statistics on site and visitor behaviour. Our aim is to make it as easy and intuitive to update as it is to visit, enabling the great web and marketing teams at Gucci to keep up with the creative whirlwind that is the company!

Liked the project? Now get the book!

2010-11-15T08:49:00Z

Our parents would be proud: we’ve made the books! Well, one of our super-special clients has, at least, and we could not be more thrilled by this fun and unexpected surprise! You guessed it, the Wiener Hauskrankenpflege strikes again…

The book, which came out only last week, has been released by the Archiworld Co.. It focuses on signage systems from all around the world, and presents them in a way that is both accurate and fun to dive into, which makes it the perfect gift for your favourite designer or type nerd this season.

As you may remember from our last post, we accompanied the WHS in their recent move, and helped them design an original signage system, focusing on making their vast and impressive office fun and intuitive to navigate, for both staff and visitors.

This project entailed a mix of typography, design and interior architecture with a dash of psychology, building upon our various specialties and interests here at wollzelle. We are therefore all the more delighted it clicked and are looking forwards to discovering the dozen more that are presented in the book!

Our thanks to the WHS for their support, as always, and to the fine folks at Archiworld for thinking of us.

Joseph Binder Award 2010

2010-11-11T08:50:00Z

Organised yearly since 1996 by Design Austria, our local equivalent to AIGA, the Joseph Binder Awards commemorate this influential figure of the XX^th century by recognising fresh inroads in the field.

Its international jury is comprised of well-known creatives and leaders of the industry, and the award covers the crème de la crème of graphic design, meaning illustration, information design and typography to the exclusion of multimedia and other less clearly defined works.

Today, we are delighted to announce we were selected amongst the 63 shortlisted projects, out of 447 entries submitted by this year’s 206 participants from all over the world — the United States, India, Croatia and beyond in addition to neighbouring countries such as Germany and Switzerland.

This means wollzelle is featured in the 2010 edition of the Awards book, a gorgeous booklet that condenses the best in design over the past two years.

Our winning project was the WHS Lagebericht 2008, an unusual publication combining the traditional fixings of an annual report with original photography and engaging copy whose release marked the first of many award-winning projects for our esteemed client.

The ceremony was held in Vienna’s Museumsquartier, and a great time was had by all, networking and discovering the work of our peers.

Our thanks go out to Design Austria and the Awards jury for thinking of us and and deeming our work worthy of such recognition. As always, our most heartfelt gratitude to the great team at the WHS for affording us such freedom in preparing their projects.

Going gold at Momentum 10

2010-11-02T05:30:00Z

The Wiener Hauskrankenpflege and wollzelle share a rich history of breakthroughs and creativity. From paper to collaterals all the way through signage, it has been our pleasure and honour to push the boundaries of corporate communication.

How to store trophies in ball form

Over the years, we have had the honour of receiving accolades from our peers in the industry, and the pleasure to thus spread our client’s message further.

Continuing this long tradition, we are thrilled to announce we won a Gold award at Momentum 10 last week, for the aforementioned WHS Leitsystem, an innovative signage system we implemented at the WHS’s new headquarters, to guide visitors efficiently through a vast building, all the while keeping pressure and administrative jargon to a strict minimum.

And the winner is…

Needless to say, we are thrilled to receive our second Momentum award in two years, and in the very coveted “Aesthetics” category to boot. Competition was steep, and we do wish to grab the occasion to tip our hats to the other contestants.

Romina Iannuzzi, designer and Thomas Pamminger, CCO and CEO

Of course, no awards ceremony would be complete without a party, and a good time was had by all. We have published a short album on wollzelle’s brand new Facebook page, but, for the ultimate in suspense, here is the big reveal in glorious Technicolor:

Designers hold their breath…

To wrap up, we would like to thank our friends and partners at the WHS, without whom this project would not exist. We appreciate their continued support and their trust in letting us develop wild concepts for them. It means the world to us!

Gucci, meet the GRAMMY®s

2010-10-28T12:00:00Z

When a rich heritage in fashion meets its match in music, the results are bound to be special! Today, we are delighted to introduce the launch of a GRAMMY®-inspired special collection from our friends at Gucci Timepieces & Jewelry, in association with The Recording Academy.

Gucci’s signature marriage of cutting-edge design and uncompromising craftsmanship allows this fresh new line to embody everything the GRAMMY® stand for: sophistication and modernity, steeped in and informed by a rich cultural history. Furthermore, fashion and culture will walk hand-in-hand, as part of the proceeds from sales will profit the GRAMMY® Museum, to help restore and preserve threatened records from pivotal artists.

wollzelle, of course, was tasked with building the digital home of the new line, which is now live on guccitimepieces.com. Featuring the brand’s signature sliding timelines and standards-based platform, it builds upon the aesthetics of both partners, echoing the line’s bold new choices in materials and textures.

We hope you love what you see, and what you hear! As always, we welcome your comments but be quick, for something tells us there are further exciting things in the pipeline…

Winning at the Austrian Annual Reports Awards 2010

2010-10-04T06:00:00Z

The Wiener Hauskrankenpflege’s 2009 Annual Report is causing quite a stir nationally! It has recently been awarded the first place in the NGOs category of the Austrian Annual Reports Awards (AAA). Run by Trend magazine for 22 years, the AAAs recognise annual reports that excel in both style and substance. Their jury is composed of independent businesspeople, and its grading system has been recognised for its clarity and transparency.

2009 was a key year for the WHS. It was a year of change and transformation for this worthy, time-trusted Viennese institution. Therefore, we are doubly happy that their message is being broadcast to the magazine’s 300 000 regular readers across Austria, thereby increasing the recognition of their brand, message and values.

Featuring original photography, hand-drawn graphs and refined type, this report encapsulates all that the WHS stands for: relatable, straightforward, human.

With its new identity, new offices and now increased national recognition of their accomplishments, the WHS is successfully answering the challenges of the XXI^st century, and we could not be happier. We at wollzelle would like to thank the WHS for their trust over the years.

Also, a tip of the hat to our partners in crime who helped the report see the light of day: Bösmüller, who turned our digital files into beautiful print, Wolfgang Kühnelt, who helped shaping the copy for the report, and Franco Winter who brought to life the many portraits that enliven and shape the report.

Learn more

Visit the WHS
Download the report
View the statistics (also available as PDF)

A report on the move

2010-08-17T17:57:00Z

It seems we reported on the WHS annual report for 2008 only yesterday. Since then, a lot has happened for this upstanding institution, and long time client of wollzelle, including the massive consolidation of four separate offices into a building of their own — designed afresh, no less.

Because changing buildings is also about changing perspectives, and finding enriching new ways to work together, we made the move, and the people behind it, the star of this year’s show.

One of the most striking elements of the “Lagebericht 2009,” as it is known to the locals, is the cover, which also acts as its packaging. Reading the document entails tearing away a strip of paper, as if to open a box, thereby physically introducing the reader to the report’s salient themes: movement, discoveries, collaboration. While the outside features an image of the previous WHS headquarter, the inside offers an exploration of the institution’s new surroundings, immediately rewarding interaction and engaging the eye.

Index of contents.

Content.

Diagramms.

Title opener.

Details.

While the predominantly green colour palette obeys the WHS’ branding guidelines and immediately dispels any uncomfortable — and inaccurate — associations with retirement homes, hospitals and illness, the daring typography breaks the report’s clear structure into legible and attractive chunks. The clean sans-serif-based layout is peppered throughout with hand-written titles, pencilled graphs and flat saturated colours to convey a sense of perspective and energy, without sacrificing mathematical precision where it is needed.

Our collaboration with Franco Winter, brought to life the many portraits that enliven and shape the report, in stark contrast with last year’s urban still lives. After celebrating some of the organisation’s most iconic and representative clients, we have opted to focus on its administrators and caregivers without whom none of this machinery could be set in motion. Staff are depicted in their everyday setting, performing the very relatable tasks of carrying papers, enjoying a cup of tea or peeking at the sunny views outside the window, carrying on the document’s overall message. It should be noted that, continuing our tradition, all these snapshots are genuine, proving once again that authenticity never goes out of style.

We hope you enjoy reading this report as much as we enjoyed crafting it. You can download the WHS Lagebericht 2009 in PDF format.

As always, we tip our hats to the WHS and its associates, for their efforts and accomplishments, and welcome your comments.

Our hearts are ticking

2010-07-20T14:33:00Z

Gucci Timepieces is famous for marrying the fashion-forward eye of its parent house with an uncompromising view on engineering quality: under the attractive faces of their wares, tick precision mechanisms that are built to stand the test of time. Since wollzelle unveiled the first multi-award-winning new generation Gucci.com, back in 2006, we have worked in close collaboration with the brand to echo this dual commitment in their web presence.

Today, we are proud to unveil more details on the brand new site for Gucci Timepieces we launched on May 5, that takes our original design to the next step in immersive experiences and standards-compliance. By building upon rich JavaScript frameworks and leveraging the latest developments in HTML5 and CSS3, we have devised a site that intuitively delivers sound, video and data to a wide range of devices, from the office PC to the Apple iPad — and in eight languages to boot! While iPad users will appreciate using gestures to scroll through our endless gallery of watches, desk-bound visitors will appreciate the lightness and speed afforded to the site by our plugin-free architecture, CSS-based special effects and efficient image compression.

The site’s aesthetic is voluntarily subdued, and provides what we think is the perfect frame to the brand’s original designs. Wood, leather and precious metals, such as you would find in store, discretely frame the models, and the forgiving, loop-based navigation gently guides the user through the company’s timeless collections — pun intended. While seemingly similar to other wollzelle-designed Gucci properties, so as not to unsettle the visitor, this site brings some new features of its own, and has been optimised for the higher-resolution, wider screens that have recently become commonplace.

Under the site’s appealing façade beats a cutting-edge engine, that polls and arranges data on the fly for computers, iPads and smartphones, from a common pool of assets. Transparent geolocalisation helps users find stores effortlessly on a wide range of devices, while our own image-processing technologies, fluxiom and ImageGeisha, ensure illustrations are always crisp, clear, and correctly sized, without any manual intervention from the webmasters. In fact, the site was so cutting-edge, we had to “smuggle” iPads for testing from the United States to Austria, on the day they launched!

Because no company wants to mess around with code and proprietary applications, the site comes complete with a web-based backend for Gucci staff to manage store locations and report on events, as they happen. In addition to a long list of references, happenings and languages, which only keeps growing, this back-end intelligently puts over 4000 stores on the map!

We hope you take a few minutes to check out the site…