2008 winners
Congratulations to all the finalists and winners and thanks to everyone for entering so many exceptional pieces of work into the competition. A massive thank you must also go to all our sponsors, supporters and partners for their help in running the 2008 award scheme.
The 2008 winners of the 9 categories were...
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the YDA judges award
Orange 'Balloonacy'
Company: Poke
Description: We knew there was going to be a load of lovely animal-shaped balloons, because they were featuring in the TV ads. Integration is a key part of our philosophy, so it seemed smart to feature balloons online too. The brief was to drive awareness of the new Animal tariffs to young, social-network-savvy, pay-as-you-go customers. In retrospect, we can't see how we could have done anything other than set up a balloon race across the Internet, one that would take place over blogs, social network pages and user-submitted sites. It was imperative that the race actually took place across the Internet. The thing that got us really excited was how we might create this complex and mutually beneficial relationship between sites, players and Orange. Creating something that was fun and interesting for racers, yet simple and rewarding for site-owners. So we gave it a go. The balloon race wasn't an easy thing to design, build or manage, but it was worthwhile. In effect a bespoke ‘ad-serving’ environment for managing relational data between each individual balloon and the sites. 40,000 balloons, 2,000 sites on the racetrack, and 3.2 million exposures to the race itself - and all in seven days.
Lead designer: Nicky Gibson the YDA community award
Offscreen Expedition 08
Company: Offscreen Education Programme
Description: The Offscreen brand has a very low fi look & feel, with elements of eccentricity and fun. It was inspired and developed from a bunch of sketchbooks created in the Middle East as well as by the founder of Offscreen. For this year’s expedition the challenge was to identify what represented Britain, and the rich experience the students would be involved in, in an engaging and quirky way. We developed the lo fi look in feel, creating ‘paintings & collages’ of each place the students would travel to and with a wink towards monty pythonesque animations we brought each page to life. The game went one step further and created a 3D gaming environment that allowed the user to navigate across a map of Britain being greeting by local characters. From a London cabbie to a Scottish farmer these genuine British eccentrics would ask questions about British heritage as part of a general knowledge quiz. This acted as a teaser for the main expedition site and as an insight into British life. The result is a rich visual tapestry of Britain with great content from the students which communicates their experiences on this important journey.
Lead designer: Ciara Meaneythe YDA dynamic award
Get London Reading
Company: KentLyons
Description: Booktrust briefed KentLyons to create a campaign to get Londoners exploring the wealth of fiction written about the capital, to engage a wide audience and to create a buzz about books. The website element is fundamental and carries the campaign information - including events, talks and tours. The main site draw is a Google Map plotting books from a central database containing over 500 books. Users can browse books written about specific areas or even add book reviews. We think the site looks great and the feedback is conclusive - it’s simple, evocative and represents a creative meeting of design and technology, a novel site and, we believe, worthy of a Y Design Award. KentLyons also created an installation concept meshing the written word with the environment by placing stencilled text passages into their specific written about locations, as though the words had fallen from the pages. These installations proved a massive success and site traffic increased 1700% receiving weighty attention in design blogs and UK national press (including a feature in the Guardian and a two-page spread in the Independent). View installation examples here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/26527080@N07/sets/72157605048754154/ Paint used was water based, non-permanent and non-toxic. All installations were created with permission.
Lead designer: KentLyonsthe YDA ethical award
BBC Climate Change: Bloom
Company: magneticNorth
Description: Bloom aims to cut through the climate change confusion and empower people to adopt more climate-friendly lifestyles. The brief was to provide a tailored approach for carbon-conscious people to quickly understand what’s right for them and help them to create a personalised action list. The BBC wanted the experience to be playful, fresh and totally unlike anything they had commissioned before. We appointed award-winning digital designer and artist Daniel Brown to create an organic digital ecosystem for the Bloom flowers – beautiful dynamic visualisations of individual carbon-cutting actions. Users are rewarded with a flower for each action they undertake – which could be anything from skipping a flight, eating fewer prawns to buying a greener car. This creative approach turned what could easily be dull information into an engaging, fun experience that still gives you all the facts and advice you could ever need. The Guardian liked it too: “The site works beautifully – despite the serious message it feels as if you are disappearing into a cuddly pre-school world of Fuzzy Felt and doodles.“ Since it launched in May, Bloom has received widespread press coverage, an FWA Site Of The Day award and almost 10,000 pledges for climate-cutting actions so far.
Lead designer: Suzie Webb and Karen Seniorthe YDA interactive award
Mercedes C Class
Company: Agency Republic
Description: Because Mercedes are so well known for being comfortable rides, some drivers had started to think of them as one dimensional. The launch of the new C-Class gave us a perfect opportunity to dispel this misconception. The website uses six simple, but engaging demonstrations to bring to life the six guiding principles of the new car’s design. And shows how they all come together to create a finished vehicle that is far more than the sum of its parts. Additive colour theory was used to create a fresh, striking design for the site, with each of the guiding principles represented by a different coloured circle of light. As visitors progress through the site the coloured circles gradually lock together, until they form a single, white circle of light which then reveals the finished car, perfectly reflecting the original proposition. In an extremely crowded market, this site definitely stands out from the crowd. Its bold design, beautiful simplicity and unique levels of interactivity lifting it head and shoulders above most of its automotive competitors.
Lead designer: Rachel Huntthe YDA mobile design award
Saxton
Company: magneticNorth
Description: Urban Splash believes urban redevelopment is about more than bricks and mortar. It’s about using enlightened design, creating new communities, enhancing people’s lifestyles. Saxton is their first development in Leeds. We were briefed to communicate its uniqueness - green space and allotments, as well as Urban Splash’s different brand profile. We chose garden gnomes as real, non-elitist designed objects that would release the experience of interactivity into the real world. Individually designed garden gnomes with embedded bluetooth technology were installed in venues around Leeds to send messages spreading the word about the development and guide people to the website. We worked to achieve a certain look for each gnome that was an artistic representation of the benefit that gnome was about. For example Glowie-G - the nu rave gnome is painted in psychedelic swirls that glow under UV light. He tells people Saxton is only a short hop from the city centre; his animated bluetooth message as follows: Dancing makes you smile wide Moonwalk to the disco and back. All city living should be like this. Saxton The gnomes are intended to be the more interesting, digital version of flyers. They are little art interventions that people discover for themselves.
Lead designer: Karen Seniorthe YDA mobile technology award
i-Citizen Community
Company: Micazook Ltd
Description: We wanted to design and develop a platform to allow the almost anyone with a mobile handset to communicate and chat in visual virtual 3D world. I-Citizen has been a huge success with 10’s of thousands of users chatting downloading and interacting in ways that were not possible in the past on an ordinary handset. We believe i-Citizen is a winner in many ways not the least for its innovative use of the latest technologies never seen previously and in its creative design and sheer complexity making it fun for the end user to use and paving the way for future innovations.
Lead designer: Marcin Kochanowskithe YDA open source award
Orange 'Balloonacy'
Company: Poke
Description: We knew there was going to be a load of lovely animal-shaped balloons, because they were featuring in the TV ads. Integration is a key part of our philosophy, so it seemed smart to feature balloons online too. The brief was to drive awareness of the new Animal tariffs to young, social-network-savvy, pay-as-you-go customers. In retrospect, we can't see how we could have done anything other than set up a balloon race across the Internet, one that would take place over blogs, social network pages and user-submitted sites. It was imperative that the race actually took place across the Internet. The thing that got us really excited was how we might create this complex and mutually beneficial relationship between sites, players and Orange. Creating something that was fun and interesting for racers, yet simple and rewarding for site-owners. So we gave it a go. The balloon race wasn't an easy thing to design, build or manage, but it was worthwhile. In effect a bespoke ‘ad-serving’ environment for managing relational data between each individual balloon and the sites. 40,000 balloons, 2,000 sites on the racetrack, and 3.2 million exposures to the race itself - and all in seven days.
Lead designer: Nicky Gibsonthe YDA technology innovation award
Orange 'Unlimited'
Company: Poke
Description: Orange have gone and made the world's longest web page - a website that is quite literally - Unlimited. The Unlimited web page is a never-ending rainbow. Along the rainbow, you’ll find loads of fun stuff, from weird interactive oddities, mini-games, downloads, giveaways and toys, to mobile goodies. Taking away content is easy. You can share selected items on your blog, MySpace or Facebook page, on del.ic.ous, or just send a link to your mates. No matter where you are on the rainbow, these links will take your mates straight to what you want to show them. Fun has gone Unlimited – turn up the sound, kick-off your shoes, relax and enjoy it.
Lead designer: Nicky Gibson & Julie Barnes
