This is a collection of ten sites that just amaze the crap out of me. Take a look, waste some time…

1) VW Polo and Golf

2) VW Golf GTi

3) Sprint Now

4) Taser

5) The Economist

6) Red Bull Flight Lab

7) Nokia Unloader

Waterlife. This is my favorite.

9) Philips

10) MINI Cooper

As the creative director for BPM Multimedia I get to work with a diverse group of clients developing a variety of products. One of those clients is the National Flight Academy.

We are the agency of record for the NFA which is poised to be the world’s premier education experience where the wonder of flight launches young adults’ passion for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM). The 7th-12th grade students attending the NFA will spend 5 ½ days in an immersive, aviation-based learning environment reaching beyond the traditional academic experience. And it will be located right here in Pensacola Florida. Finally, we get one up on Mobile, Alabama. I designed and worked on the National Flight Academy website and I am proud to say that it won a Gold ADDY® Award and qualified for the national ADDY awards in Washington, D.C. Very exciting to say the least.

The NFA is the latest major endeavor of the Pensacola-based Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. To date, the funding for construction of the NFA has been secured through a successful capital campaign. The website is one component in securing the final funds necessary to outfit the facility and ensure it is a world-class experience for all who attend. Construction is expected to begin later this year with the facility scheduled to open in May of 2011.

Take a look and let me know what you think:

I also won a few other awards at the Addy’s this year. Here are the awards and the work:

Clark Partington Hart: Bronze

Pensacola Opera: Bronze

Pensacola Symphony: Silver

Jewelers Trade Shop: Gold

An old friend (by old, I mean well into his 30′s) has just released a junk food blog featuring his witty sense of humor and talent for “short & sweet” writing at cotescube.com. You should bookmark the site.

Here is the man himself:

and look what I found on youtube:

Some say that imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. Imitating ideas makes a very fuzzy line in design. Lately, I see plenty of designs with watercolor textures. I started doing this when I was in college. It is where I came from as an artist. Does this mean that every ad or marketing scheme that includes watercolor textures was my idea and it was stolen from me? Nope. The idea is to be influenced by (not steal from) something great.

Complete Dreams Website Design stole from Wildfire and got caught. In early 2006, Wildfire Productions (a website development company Drew Stauffer and I started in 2004) completed a website for a customer trying to increase business at a vacation rental in Nicaragua (Popoyo Rental). Work completed for Popoyo included search engine optimization, site redesign, hosting, and css, php, xhtml development. We received numerous compliments on the site and the customer was very pleased. Within the S.E.O. package we offer analytics (tracking traffic; where did they come from, how long they stayed, etc.).

We kept seeing an inbound visitor to Popoyo Rental from www.chelseaviewmac.com. We checked the link to see what the potential interest might be in our customer’s site. We found our customer’s website hacked up and filled with Chelsea View’s vacation rentals content. It is stated at the bottom of the site “copyright 2007 Complete Dreams”. Well, that’s complete crap. Popoyo Rental: “copyright 2006 by Wildfire Productions” and Popoyo Rental was obviously stolen and altered to fulfill their client’s needs. Here are a few screen shots to give you an idea of how blatant the rip off is.

Here is the Popoyo Rental Site:

Here is the Complete Dreams website ripoff. They took the liberty of keeping, using and selling images and graphics from Popoyo Rental:

Here is a look at the code that confirms that the site was stolen as a whole:

And Finally here is how the morons at Complete Dreams Web Design got caught:

They forgot to switch the footer links.
Nice job guys!

Here is a link that shows how proud they are of “their work”. Complete Dreams is facing legal action by our company. They recently yanked down the Chelsea View site after their customer got wind of this.

Here’s some exciting news to come out of the Wildfire Productions work bin! We are working on an e-blast/newsletter campaign for the Hyatt Corporation. This is a new marketing avenue for tourism-based businesses; major hotels and restaurants who use this to promote events and other happenings in “the now”. As we all know, standard marketing techniques are changing at a rapid pace. General print marketing tactics are becoming less cost effective, less successful, and they tend to not strike at the right time.

Using email databases generated by patrons of the Hyatt hotel, we are hitting Hyatt’s target market with a user friendly, enticing email with timely, relevant information. If the business is constantly shifting, shouldn’t the marketing of that business follow suit? Did I mention that there are no printing costs?