Poke Pop Up At The Design Museum

A little while back we were asked by the Design Museum to create a map charting the history of digital design in London. Very honoured and with two weeks to get something in the can, we set to work.

The digital design industry is the very epitome of rapid change, so we decided to make an interactive, time-based map. This allowed us to demonstrate that speed, as well as show off the advantages of a digital approach. The creation of a map also meant we could chronicle the geographical movement across the capital, triggered by a high rate of agency mergers, acquisitions and deaths, in a visually commanding way. 

We aptly named it 'The births, marriages and deaths of London's digital creative agencies of note 1994-2009'. 

Built in Flash with an XML back end, the biggest challenge was creating a dynamic system that could a) accommodate everyone working on it simultaneously and b) take one final information dump at the end.The knob was made possible with the addition of some Arduino jiggery-pokery. 

Lots of swearing and snack bribes for our developer later, and we had a rapid-fire, boom-bust-boom extravaganza showcasing the breakneck pace of change in the last 15 years. 

We ummed and aahed over whether or not to include the explosions. But upon reflection, while acknowledging the gravity of the events we were plotting, this is undoubtedly an industry with a sense of humour and we wanted to inject some fun into the project. 

Course, the Little Black Book took a massive hammering as we contacted countless folk to gather information. It was a gargantuan industry-wide effort and we can't thank you all enough. 

*salutes*

Now, do enjoy the video of our map below, in all its interactive glory. 

Design Museum - Super Contemporary from Poke on Vimeo.

Rubber- DuckZilla. He doesn't like water!

Japan gave us Manga, GameBoy, the Udon and young chicks who run round Shibuya dressed like USB sticks. So we nicked some of their cultural awesomeness, mixed it with a heavy dose of next level augmented reality shizzle and RubberDuckZilla.com was born.

Our brethren at Mother made this killer ad for Oasis (the drink for folk who don't like water) - and we were briefed to make RubberDuckZilla come alive online. So we took them at their word and make RubberDuckZilla come to life (in your hand and on your face).

AR is a bit flavour-of-the-monthy right now - but we wanted to try and push it somewhere interesting. So we've used it at the heart of a bunch of waterphobic Nipponophilic retro-games. Only 2 of the 4 sections of the site are live right now. The next sections are unlocked when major media partnerships kick-in next month.

Here's Chris playing Massive Aqua Rampage:



Oh and in case you didn't spot the URL it's RubberDuckZilla.com

Lolfatcats

You could get depressed about all the fatcats who got minted before the fall. Or you could weep salty tears about the MPs who've been robbing our taxes to pay for dolls' houses, duck transporters and pig flossing. Or you could poke fun at them...

http://www.lolfatcats.com

Webby Success Leaves Us Tickled Pink

This week we proudly brought home two new Webby Awards for the fifth year on the trot. Orange’s Balloonacy campaign caught the Judges’ eye in the Telecommunications category, and our work with Lonely Planet blitzed the Travel category winning the People’s Voice public vote. Er, bish and bosh.

We’re very happy about the five years bit. Only the BBC with gazillions of cash has managed the same feat, so we at little Poke are quite chuffed.

Course, we couldn’t have done it without our clients. Endless respect and wallopy high fives to the people who gave us the opportunity and scope to achieve what we have. It’s been an honour.

And we haven’t forgotten that we hassled, cajoled and bribed many of you into voting for us. Thanks a million if you heeded the call. It really does mean a great deal.

*shuffles feet and stares intently at floor*

We’ll be off now, before we do a Gwyneth and embarrass ourselves. 

Free Press Field Day

We can't ignore it anymore. Not when the 'it' in question litters the capital’s transport network like inky confetti. You see, we've had a remarkable purple patch in the free press.

It all started when The Metro added to BakerTweet's mushrooming column inches with talk of magical talking bread in The Ridiculant column.

Not long after that, Iain's surreal Crack Unit snap of a fella on the train all garbed up like marauding menace Cap'n Jack Sparrow, was picked up by thelondonpaper.

And then last week, our iBanter app for the Cobra Campaign has made an appearance in thelondonpaper. Not once, not twice but three times.

So since we’re rinsing the free publicity right now, we gotta dash. We’re late to escort Paris Hilton to an envelope opening ;-)

We're Up For Four Webby Awards

For the fifth year running we're proper chuffed to be up for four Webby People's Voice awards. We'd like you to help us land a trophy or two with your votes.

 The Balloonacy campaign for Orange has been nominated in three categories and our work with Lonely Planet has been nominated once. You have to register and login at the Webby website before you can cast your vote, and there's a myriad of categories, so we hope the following directions (and shameless back-handers) sweeten the ask.

Once you're signed up and in, hit the Website icon on the bottom left hand side first. Scroll down to 'Services' and you'll find Orange's Balloonacy in Telecommunications and Lonely Planet in Travel. Then head to the Interactive Advertising light bulb icon on the top right hand side of the page. Here Balloonacy is nominated twice, first in Game or Application and then Online Guerilla & Innovation. Make sense? 

At the time of writing, Lonely Planet is in the lead, with Balloonacy needing a bump up from third and fourth places in the other categories. 

So give us a boost, we're most grateful. Cheque's in the post ;-)

The Rise of Bakertweet

Since we first posted about Bakertweet it's been on a bit of a roll.

It's been in real newspapers, blogs, trend websites, in Wired, on the radio, and someone even filmed a little segment for the tellyvision but that's not been shown yet (as far as we know).

However we were joking last week about how it hadn't yet 'made it' because it hadn't been featured in the Hindustan Times. (A few years ago the Global Rich List made it to the front page of the aforementioned paper and we've used that as the benchmark of PR achievement ever since).

So imagine our joy when we found that Bakertweet had made it onto the HT website. We're not sure if it's in the print edition, but our fingers  are crossed!

Just goes to show what happens when you execute a simple idea in the right way at the right time.