After a year of design and development, the new Verizon Apps store has launched to about 4 million devices, and will roll out to a total of around 22 million devices by the end of July, 2012.

The store is a ground-up redesign of the storefront application pre-loaded to the majority of Verizon Android devices. ADG was hired in January of 2011 to conduct a tactical redesign of Verizon’s prior store, and then a wholesale redesign of the store – for both smartphones and tablets – to be launched in 2012.

Key Features
Monochromatic framework to present highly flexible merchandising options
Simple UI controls with clear catalog navigation cues
Dramatically improved merchandising options for developers
“Responsive” mobile GUI to handle screen sizes resolution from wrist-top devices up to – potentially – tv screen size devices.
Full-screen dynamic wallpaper backgrounds, changing the face of the store daily
Support … Read More »

This is a visualization piece for a hypothetical tablet-based tv remote/participation environment. The concept blends standard (IP-based) television remote control, EPG, social interaction, gaming, geo-location, and contextual advertising into a platform for parallel engagement with live as-broadcast content.

Tools Used:

Photoshop CS5
After Effects CS5
Final Cut Pro
Cinema 4D
Soundbooth CS5
Compressor
Canon 7D

Modeled and animated in Cinema 4D. Some post work in After Effects.

Tools Used:

After Effects CS5
Cinema 4D

So the iPad was released to the wild last Saturday, and for most developers it was their first chance to have actual hardware to test on.  Sure there’s the emulator, but that’s just not the same.

I’ve been working on a project for weeks now involving a high-def (H.264) video of an iPad application (for a pitch) and the problem has been how to build something believable from something you’ve never even seen (in real life).

As an example, part of the video involves using the iBooks application.  The only source materials available before Saturday to work with were low-res screen shots from Apple, and their Guided Tours videos (which is why I was obsessed by knees the other day).

It’s only been a little over 10 years, but web retrospectives still have the potential to make one feel old when they re-introduce projects you worked on with phrases like:

“Think back to the early days of the World Wide Web, just after the invention of the Netscape browser …”.

But it’s true. In an article on adage.com Kevin Maney recalls the Miller Beer Pager (created by Red Sky back in the mid-90′s – ancient history) and suggests that those early web “apps” were – like today’s early mobile apps – just the appetizers.

Trying to tap into peer-to-peer marketing before anyone knew what the hell they were doing, Red Sky created the Beer Pager for longtime client Miller Brewing in 2000. The concept was to build a downloadable desktop widget that you could use to “page” your friends to organize impromtu “Miller Times”. The thing kind of got out of control. My favorite story was when we discovered that another client of ours was using the Beer Pager throughout the company to schedule meetings & conference rooms.Clay Jensen, Red Sky Art Director, gets credit for the concept and directing the extraordinary (Alias Wavefront) modeling and animation in this piece.