Euro RSCG has a Winner with new Peugot Site

P3 is hoisting a virtual pint for everyone at Euro RSCG involved in the new Peugot site.  It deserved the FWA.  The explosion/implosion sequences were impeccably well done and the floating cube was a clever navigation mechanism.  Nice job.  Extra props to your editor.  Have a good year.

Start you Monday with Subtle and Poignant Beauty

Let P3 help you shake off the over-hyped, ro-tell fueled, milliVanilli-Who sell-out of last evening with this quiet and beautiful allowance of animation from Ghislain Avrillon.  Galileo, offers you a ride on a young inventor’s fantasy of flight.  Here is a toast on a job well done and thanks for starting our week off in the sweet-spot of creativity.

Love Conquers all-Except Great Animation

P3 would like to congratulate everyone on making it through the week.  Your reward is this beautiful and touching animated film, Nuit Blanche.  Directed by Arev Manoukian of Spy Films, the piece combines a great idea with stunning photography and animation that will sit even the best creative director solidly down.   Here is a virtual pint to everyone involved in the project.  Take a moment to take this in and we will see you next week.  Have a good weekend with the people that heal you.

VML Takes a Gulp of Gatorade

P3 would like to buy a virtual pint for our friends at VML for securing the digital duties for PepsiCo’s Gatorade brand.  Congrats to everyone at VML, whose tireless work made this possible.  Very special congrats to Gard Gibson for personally drinking 9 gallons of Cherry Rain flavor Gatorade to show how dedicated VML was to the work.  Now that is what we call devotion.

iPhone Photography: Hipstamatic

Kurt Klein, one of the art directors at P3, showed me the Hipstamatic iPhone app, and now it’s my favorite photography app. Hipstamatic recreates a 1980’s-era plastic toy camera with all its unpredictability.

I almost never use the standard camera app anymore. Hipstamatic makes everything look so much more, well, more. It simulates a vintage camera, from the interface itself to the photographs it produces. You are given the option of changing the film, changing the lens, and using (or not using) a “flash.”

The app comes with two lenses, two types of film, and a standard flash, with the option to purchase more through in-app purchases. The app itself costs $1.99, and each additional “HipstaPak” costs $.99.

I’m intrigued by all of the retro, or vintage, iPhone photography apps, and I’ve tried several of them, but this is the one that I use the most often. You have some control over the finished photograph by the choice of lens and film, but it’s still pretty random, and that’s what I love about it. It brings back some of the excitement that I felt before the advent of digital photography, i.e., not knowing for sure what your photographs were going to look like until you developed them, or picked up the prints at the drugstore.

The app saves the images with the lens, film and flash information so you know what combination was used to produce a particular photo. In an upcoming release, the developers will include an option to save favorite combinations for re-use.

Prints can be uploaded to Facebook or emailed directly through the app, and an upcoming release will allow Flickr upload as well.

Here’s a comparison of two photos of a tree by the roadside in my neighborhood. The one on the left was taken with the iPhone native camera app. The one on the right was taken with the Hipstamatic app.

It just adds a lot of interest and character, I think. I love the randomness of it, the not knowing exactly what you’re going to get. You can’t load an already-taken photo into the app, so what you get is what you get. The app is a little slow–when you first start it up, you get a “wiping off the lens” message while it loads, and once you’ve taken a photo it takes it awhile to “develop,” so if you’re in a hurry, this isn’t the app to use. You won’t want to use it if you’re taking a photo that you don’t want to miss. It forces you to slow down and think about what you’re doing, which is definitely not a bad thing, just something to be aware of.

The most recent release included an option to choose either the “precision framing” viewfinder or the classic viewfinder for more random compositions.

~Willa

iTunes link ($1.99)

[Cross-posted on Beautiful iPhone Apps, where there are many more examples of my Hipstamatic photos.]

The Augmented App of Life

P3 loves good Apps.  Sometimes we wonder, when is enough, ENOUGH?  Here is a Virtual Pint to Keiichi Matsuda for drawing a line in the sand for all of us.  Genius idea, stellar execution and nice choice of tunage to cushion the blow of this window to the future.  Keep the flow of ideas wide open and make some fun buildings.

True City App Site is Nice

Here is a Virtual Pint from P3 to AKQA.com for the genius work on the Nike True City app site.  We wish it was available on this side of the pond so we could actually try the app out.  The site makes us want to, so we guess you did your job!  Congrats on the FWA, have a great year and keep the work coming.

Introducing The Finches, the Next New Thing!`

What happens when you combine a small band of Zebra finches with a ivory Les Paul amped to 11?  YOU GET ROCK!  Here is a Virtual Pint from the staff at P3 to Celeste Boursier-Mougenot for having the brilliant idea of just putting two electric axes and an amp in the wild for some birdies to rock on.  Extra props for using the case as a bird bath.  Thanks for smoothing the jolt between weekend and Monday with this performance art of true genius.  Keep the brilliance coming.  Could you do Monkeys on Mandos next?

iPhone Photography: Best Camera

You don’t have to be content with the camera app that comes standard on the iPhone, there are dozens (maybe hundreds) of apps out there that offer more functionality (and more fun). I’ve tried out a lot of them, and have consolidated my favorites into one page of apps on my phone. Over the new few postings I’ll show examples and describe some of them.

Best Camera:

“The best camera is the one that’s with you” is the tagline for the Best Camera app. And, of course, the one you always have with you is the camera in your iPhone. With Best Camera you can either take a new photo, or load one from the photo library to work with. You can then apply filters to the photograph.

Available filters are:

• Jewel
• Paris
• Slate
• Candy
• Light
• Dark
• Fade
• Contrast
• Warm
• Cool
• Desaturate
• Vignette
• Square
• Frame

Under the Settings tab you can choose from several different photo resolutions. Choosing a higher resolution will take longer to save, but it’s possible to save photos at their original size, which is definitely a plus. You can also set up sharing options for sending to Flickr, Twitter, Facebook, email, and/or sending to the Best Camera website where you are given the option of creating a personalized page for your photos.

Photos sent to the Best Camera site are automatically tagged with the filters that were used to create the photo, submission date and time, and the iPhone version that was used. Currently there is no way to remove a photo that you send to them, or otherwise edit the information on the page, but I’ve corresponded with the developers, who say they intend to add functionality to the site in the future. They were also very helpful and responsive, and removed a photo for me when I accidentally uploaded it twice.

If you decide that you want to change the filters, you can choose to remove them one by one.

The app also has an interface that allows you to view a constantly-changing gallery of the most recent and most popular photos.

My original photo:

The finished photo, using the Jewel, Warm, Vignette, Square and Frame filters:

Best Camera is developed by Ubermind, who also created the Rick Steves’ Paris tour apps.

iTunes link: Best Camera ($2.99)

[Cross-posted at Beautiful iPhone Apps.]

~Willa

Hell Yeah! DJNR Interactive

The P3 team loves sites that break the mold.  That is just what DJNR Interactive did with their new site.  Energetic and fun, it projects the spirit of the team you get to work with.  Here is a virtual pint from everyone at P3.  May your year continue to rock and congrats on the FWA.