Adobe announced last week it has released Photoshop® CS6 beta for a free, limited time only, download. The new CS6 is packed with all new features, performance enhancements, and a new interface. Watch this video showing off the latest Adobe® Photoshop® CS6 beta features, narrated by Adobe’s Sr. Creative Director Russell Brown. Free download here.
Follow this link for the Top 10 New Features.
Winner: leBel communication
Client: BainUltra
Title: BainUltra Website
Category: 95. Business to Consumer
LeBel communication of Quebec City, Canada has created a sleek website that pulls you into a water-filled oasis. The client, BainUltra, sells therapeutic baths and ‘care units’. From the opening page, LeBel takes the products and transforms them into an ethereal experience. The flash movie, embedded in a highly stylized banner, sets the mood and tone of the website. Design features are simple, but elegant. Photography unique and inviting. The website doesn’t overwhelm and let’s visitors browse at a relaxing pace. www.bainultra.com
BainUltra web document
Winner: Coyne Public Relations
Designer: Mark Garcia
Client: Coyne Public Relations
Title: Real. Creative.
Category:9c. Ad Campaign
This is one ad campaign that not only catches your attention, but engages your imagination. Coyne Public Relations of Parsippany, New Jersey is a large agency with huge clients. This campaign tackled a very difficult assignment for any firm, promoting itself. Utilizing mesmerizing images and concise writing, the ads give readers a fanciful glimpse of Coyne’s creative capabilities.
By Gregg Ellman
@greggellman.
Winter sport enthusiast’s will love Recon Instruments new MOD Live, which look like ordinary goggles until you look through them; then you’ll see they are a whole lot more.
The Android technology-based goggles are built for skiing, snowboarding, and snowmobiling to display data including speed, location, distance and temperature – all right in front of the user’s face.
It has a GPS enabled display, which comes with a navigation app pre-loaded with what the company states as “the largest database of trail maps in the world.”
Another APP called Buddy Tracking lets you to see where other MOD Live users are on the mountain slopes.
Recon also recently launched the Camera Connectivity application for MOD Live with a partnership with Contour.
The camera app works with the Contour Plus and ContourGPS hands-free HD cameras, which use the cameras’ built-in Bluetooth to turn the MOD Live’s virtual 14- inch display into a display to show what the camera sees.
With the app you can adjust the camera settings along with start/stop functions and displaying the battery and memory capacities. http://reconinstruments.com/ $399.99
The Verbatim Bluetooth Wireless Mobile Keyboard is one of those simple devices that gets a “wow” or “where did you get that” when seen by others.
Simply put it’s just another portable keyboard; but this one is ultra-compact since it folds in half for true portability.
Once opened, it’s a foot long but is just 6.5 x 4-inches when closed.
The keys are soft touch and really responsive, to give you the feel of a real keyboard. It provides functional typing on the go unlike many other portable keyboards (that I have found to be flat out useless.)
I used it on a recent trip with my iPad and loved using it to write this column.
It has Apple friendly keys for features such as copy, paste, shift and undo. Most of those features are almost impossible to access on the touch screens keyboard.
It also includes function keys for up and down with arrow keys along with volume and music controls.
While I tested it out strictly on Apple devices, Verbatim states that the keyboard is supported with Android tablet devices with HID keyboard support.
It’s Bluetooth technology lets you pair it with up to six devices simultaneously and comes with a carrying case.
Also included for iPhone users is a stand, which folds into the keyboard itself when not in use. The stand will keep the phone in a front-center position for easy viewing while typing.
Two AA batteries to power it are included. www.Verbatim.com $79.99
Disney has combined with iHome, the leader in portable audio docking stereo systems, to introduce the DK M13 portable home speaker.
The player has great sound, which is pretty significant but only one of its many great features.
I could start with it being lightweight and end with it being waterproof, which adds to an incredible amount of features packed into a Disney-themed sound system.
The weatherproofing enables any iPod or other portable MP3 player to be zippered shut securely in the sound system, which also has a clear window to give you access to the touch screen controls.
While the weatherproofing is great, the Disney themes enable the player to come in choices of designs featuring Minnie Mouse, Phineas & Ferb, Kermit the Frog and Jack From Nightmare before Christmas. www.ekids.com $39.99
Contact Gregg Ellman at greggellman@mac.com.
Follow him on Twitter: @greggellman.
2011, Gregg Ellman.
Winner: Hinge
Client: Saint Germain Catering
Title: Saint Germain Catering Menu
Category: 50. Menu
Often a menu is nothing more than the price and description of a dish; perhaps some calligraphy is thrown in along with a picture or two. Hinge Marketing of Reston, Virginia has designed a menu that gives you hunger pains. The firm captures the food in tantalizing detail with eye-popping graphic garnishes. If it were possible to gain weight by reading, this is the menu to do it.
Winner: WMUL-FM
Title: Vinny Curry and the Art of Playing with a Heavy Heart
Category: 170. Podcast
Radio is alive and well in West Virginia–specifically at Marshall University in Huntington. WMUL-FM 88.1 is a throwback to a broadcast era where radio stations served a public good. The student-run WMUL turned 50 last year and is West Virginia’s oldest public station. Whether over the airwaves or streaming on-line, WMUL provides the university with entertainment, music, sports, and news. The students stretch their skills broadcasting games live and covering local events. This school year Jeremy Johnson, majoring in sports journalism with a minor in history, gave a heartfelt report on a defensive lineman who lost his mother in the same week as a critical game. Johnson spun a good story by threading together quotes from famous sports figures, interviews with teammates and coaches, live game audio, and a sit down with the devastated player. Johnson and WMUL demonstrate that sports can be more than stats and quips.
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UPDATE to our 02/07/12 story entitled “ABANDONED”
Original Story, here.
Hi Ed,
I wanted to let you know in the past month – many things have changed – for the better! The digital age of communication WORKS! – I can’t thank you enough for recognizing my short film. The Riverside County Assistant Tax Collector gave me a personal visit to my home and saw for himself the errors on the Tax roles and has taken the time to work out a deal for me top stay in my home! – This six year battle has come to pass and is being resolved. Secondly, one of the “druggies” (unfortunately a minor, with previous offenses) is now behind bars, and one of the rentals inhabited by the same have moved out. My neighbors across the street and 2 others at the end of the block have also had the same issues with the “trafficking”, and we have formed a consortium of 4 properties (homeowners) that keep a watchful eye on all activities and are sharing information and phone numbers.
Also, my doctor of 14 years Daniel Lee, M.D. at U.C.S.D. has noticed an upturn in my health and ask what was going on …? SO – I told him about the dramatic changes in my mental and physical health were largely due to the stressing issues currently being resolved, by way of a short film I made. I can’t thank you enough for the recognition on your blog/website. I certainly couldn’t ask for anything more than you have already done. You have made a dramatic difference in my situation and I’ll always remember you and your organization for it! When all other institutions failed to help me, you and the AMCP came to my rescue!
Warmest regards,
Gerald Weathers
ARTRIX Studios
Winner: Baldwin & Obenauf, Inc.
Client: Baldwin & Obenauf, Inc.
Title: 2011 BNO Holiday Site (www.bnoinc.com/holiday2011)
Category: 103. Other
For companies that specialize in promoting others, the task often can be misapplied when promoting themselves. The self-promotion can vacillate between effusive praise and understated blandness. Baldwin and Obenaufs has cleverly danced around the pitfalls with a web based promotion that incorporates stellar graphics, riveting video, and simple messaging wrapped with a holiday ribbon. The New Jersey based agency created a fun effective tool that highlights its achievements, people, and capabilities. www.bnoinc.com/holiday2011
