The tandem Design is Dead/Emakina.FR has won the prize ‘Official Honoree’ in the Netart category for MONA, the Museum of Neverending Art. This is a collaborative virtual museum that has been entirely been developed in HTML 5. It has been presented in San Francisco for the launch of Internet Explorer 9 Beta. MONA, which is designed to be a virtual artistic play garden, has attracted 80 000 unique visitors in its first month. Surfers have contributed to the creation of 50,000 works of art, which has led to over 120 000 viewed pages. “Microsoft had asked several agencies in the world to let their creativity flow. They all got carte blanche”, explains Frédéric Bojman, the Internet Explorer marketing manager at Microsoft. “The project presented by Emakina.FR and Design is Dead has very quickly attracted our attention because it allows surfers to play with the canvas, and because it illustrates all the technical qualities of Internet Explorer 9, and in particular its speed. And it’s even more interesting because the virtual audience has really played the game.” This is not a first for Emakina: in 2010, Design is Dead had already won an Official Honoree prize at the Webby Awards for ‘deFilharmonie for Kids’.

A few days ago, Panasonic launched a new Facebook game called Evolta City. This clever and highly addictive game, concept & design by Design is Dead & development by Sevenedge, is a part of Panasonic’s campaign to promote its new line of revolutionary Evolta batteries. Wondering how it works? In order to help Mr. Evolta build Evolta City, the first CO2-free city on the Web, you as a player collect power by inviting friends and taking a series of actions to boost their sustainability such as building eco-houses, buying electric cars or building windmills. Simple as that! Well, maybe at face value it is. But make no mistake: this Facebook game is much more than just another Farmville clone. Why? First and foremost, it is an exciting and fun game to play that will keep you busy for hours on end. In addition, the game is very easy to figure out, looks amazingly attractive (how could it not, thanks to our wonderful designers?), and is never ever boring due to the many options and challenges you encounter. We are very proud to have delivered such an exemplary piece of online gaming!

The jury of the IAC Awards has just delivered its verdict in the States. Emakina Group has received three new distinctions, for MONA, Microsoft’s virtual museum, the repositioning of the Schweppes brand and the Facebook campaign for Powerade. MONA, the Museum of Neverending Art is a collaborative virtual museum, imagined by Design is Dead/Emakina.FR for the launch of Microsoft Internet Explorer 9. At the IAC it won the prize for Best Arts Interactive application. This museum is designed to live forever and is a grand work of international collaborative art. Emakina/Agency has won the prize of Outstanding Integrated ad campaign for its repositioning of the Schweppes brand. The agency has given the different ranges a new identity, has modernized the logo, has made a series of films and visuals for the entire range, has developed POS, event, activation, on-trade, off-trade and has put the new website for Schweppes Europe online, with a viral video campaign and an activation contest that used a lot of social media. Today, this new positioning is the guide for all communication agencies with which Schweppes works in Europe. And last but not least, the Facebook application that Emakina.FR has made for Powerade, has received an Outstanding Social Media campaign award. This game offers users the opportunity to challenge their friends on a virtual field. It is designed to get the attention of sports and football fanatics and point out the benefits of a sports drink such as Powerade. In less than 6 months, 98.000 players have registered for the application, called Football Challenge Powerade. On average, each player played 400 matches. And no less than 130.000 users have shared the campaign on their Facebook wall. The IAC Awards are yearly awards organized by the American Web Marketing Association. They award the best creative Internet campaigns in the world.

It’s not that Design is Dead actually started a TV station online—but this is close enough (for now): they created the new website of deMENSEN, one of Belgium’s finest TV production companies! A while ago, deMENSEN asked the online taskforce of Design is Dead to revamp their website. Their main demands? That the website be user-friendly; that it put their portfolio of TV programs—their core business—in the picture; and that its design be understated and sleek. Needless to say, they gave them exactly what they wanted—and a little more, just a sprinkle of that Design is Dead magic. To put the focus 100% on the programs (which include Blokken, De Tabel van Mendelejev en Low Impact Man) they opted for large visuals and a simple but elegant design, topped by slide navigation for easy and intuitive use…as if the programs themselves were presented on a TV monitor. We think it’s safe to say you will not feel the need to zap away!

A singer-songwriter such as Milow only feels truly alive when he is on tour, playing his music. A life he wants to share not only with his many fans at home and abroad, but with the music biz pros and random visitors as well. So when he came to Design is Dead looking for a new website that would look and feel ‘real’, honest, and up-close-and-personal to do just that, they were happy to oblige. Design is Dead presented a very accessible and user-friendly website designed as a continuous road trip, captured in a vintage design based on a snap-shot approach with sketches, notes, scraps, and warm colors and contrasts–but with quite a few perks. On the one hand, social media feeds such as Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube were craftily worked into the website design so visitors can ‘digitally’ go on the road with Milow and keep track of him wherever he goes, whatever he does. On the other hand, it provides those who seek it with lots of background information that cannot be found anywhere else, e.g., tour dates, releases, contact information, and more. Or, to quote from his last single: “It’d be only you & me.” At least, that’s how it feels!

A singer-songwriter such as Milow only feels truly alive when he is on tour, playing his music. A life he wants to share not only with his many fans at home and abroad, but with the music biz pros and random visitors as well. So when he turned to Design is Dead to create a new website that would look and feel ‘real’, honest, and up-close-and-personal to do just that, they were happy to oblige. They presented a very accessible and user-friendly website designed as a continuous road trip, captured in a vintage design based on a snap-shot approach with sketches, notes, scraps, and warm colors and contrasts–but with quite a few perks. On the one hand, social media feeds such as Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube were craftily worked into the website design so visitors can ‘digitally’ go on the road with Milow and keep track of him wherever he goes, whatever he does. On the other hand, it provides those who seek it with lots of background information that cannot be found anywhere else, e.g., tour dates, releases, contact information, and more. Or, to quote from his last single: “It’d be only you & me.” At least, that’s how it feels!

Design is Dead proudly presents its new Creative Director: Bart Lommelen. Bart Lommelen started working for Design is Dead in 2005, even before he graduated with high honours from Sint-Lukas in Graphic and Advertising Design. In 2008 he became Art Director at Antwerp’s finest agency. Now, he will be our new ingenious guru behind the scenes and on the set, guiding the creative process of our projects from concept and rough cut though pre- and post-production to the red carpet and the premiere. “The example I’ve set myself for the task ahead is Quentin Tarantino. As a director, he is incredibly creative, quirky, and 100% dedicated to doing things his own way–without this stopping him from reaching a wide audience. That is what I want for Design is Dead: To ensure we stay a cutting-edge, rebellious online agency with its own creative look and feel and its own singular identity, all the while attracting clients from all sectors and walks of life.”

We’re very proud! The jury of the Summit Emerging Media Awards (SIA) has awarded Emakina for its rebranding of the Schweppes brand. We’ve been chosen as the 2010 Visionary Winner, the highest award of the competition. The MySite platform by Truvo and the MONA campaign for Microsoft have also received prizes. Emakina/Agency has received the Visionary Award (the equivalent of Best of Show) in the Consumer Integrated Campaign category. This award recognizes the outstanding repositioning work the agency has done for the brand identity of Schweppes. Truvo’s MySite platform has won the Innovator Award (the equivalent of Gold). MySite is a toolbox with which advertisers can develop the brand experience of their company on the site of the Yellow Pages themselves. The Museum of Never-ending Art (MONA) has won the Leader Award (equivalent of Silver) in the Experiential Marketing category. MONA is a participative virtual museum, made by the tandem Emakina.FR and Design is Dead. The museum opened its doors at the occasion of the launch of Internet Explorer 9 by Microsoft. The museum will continue to exist and will house an impressive collection of international collaborative art.

When Studio 100 and superchef Peter Goossens decided to serve their brand new TV channel Njam! with a digital sidedish, they evidently wanted their website rather ‘well done’ than ‘medium’ or ‘rare’. Design is Dead turned out to be the perfect ‘team de cuisine’ for this job! Check out this new creation from their star-studded kitchen: a fresh-looking, userfriendly webspot where you can browse recipes, top-chefs, videoclips, tips and tricks. Plenty of inspiration for healthy snacks, candelight dinners and Christmas feasts!

groupeReflect and Design is Dead‘s project ‘MONA’ or Museum Of Neverending Art was launched in the good company of its “making of” video, as requested by Microsoft. Instead of a dry technical tutorial on how MONA demonstrates Internet Explorer 9′s functionalities, we opted for a fun and narrative sequence demonstrating the concept behind MONA. An approach which Microsoft applauded. Buckle up for some Hillbilly-fun and the story of MONA’s birth!

This year, Emakina transformed it’s DMF stand into a real movie set : stage sets, makeup, traveling, lights, basically all the Hollywood glamor with professional directors, cameramen, editors, motion designers and sound engineers working all together to create live “The seas are rising – Squeetchy Bad”. Check the behind the scenes pictures on out Facebook Page.

And it happened … They hit the world where it would hurt the most ! Chaos ensued, the world became a different place, everything was about survival, flashmobs became ancient history, one single thing was in the mind of human kind : “Error 404″ … they had destroyed the Internet !

Wednesday, Microsoft launched its beta version of Internet Explorer 9, the new enriched version of its navigator, with groupeReflect and Design is Dead, who won the pitch involving some of the most creative agencies in the world and by this entered Microsoft’s « Beauty of the web » hall of fame. . The MONA project (Museum of NeverEnding Art) is a virtual collaborative museum to which every surfer will be able to bring his own artistic contribution. This canvas, which is white at the beginning, will evolve over time and will be filled with new pictures, new designs or new texts. They can be either uploaded or they can be made in the web navigator itself. This will be a great international collaborative work of art, that is destined to live forever after… In order to meet the MONA challenge – one of the technical difficulties is managing the contribution of thousands of surfers -, a team of 8 persons, working in Paris and Antwerp, worked for a period of four months. On top of the technical challenge, they had to face a tight deadline: the entire production of the campaign needed to be done in just a few months. This international campaign is the fruit of the first close collaboration between the Antwerp agency Design is Dead and its Parisian homologue groupeReflect. The two Emakina agencies share a passion for creative and technical excellence. Since September, Design is Dead has also become the official creative partner of the Parisian branch. A selection of Design is Dead designers will now regularly visit France to support the digital team of groupeReflect, under the supervision of Creative Director Hendrik Everaerts.

Design is Dead’s KIDsite for deFilharmonie keeps on hitting the jackpot! After scoring an “Official Honoree” distinction at the latest Webby Awards, the childfriendly website now won a “Best in Class” award and the maximum jury score at the recent Interactive Media Awards. With a score of 500 points out of 500, the jury made it quite clear that this educational and entertaining kids site about classical music stood out in the categories “arts & culture”, “kids” and “music”. Let’s keep those trophees coming!

Design is Dead and Emakina/Motion have joined forces to create a movie for Nuance, the largest speech recognition company worldwide. Nuance is launching a set of fantastic new applications, including an iPhone and iPad application (already live in US, UK, Germany & France), a speech recognition software for Mac (MacSpeech) and a new version for PC (Dragon NaturallySpeaking). Nuance also provides technology for navsystems like the ones from Ford, BMW, Mercedes and TomTom. Nuance wanted Design is Dead and Emakina/Motion to bring all these technologies together in one movie. See the results bellow…

We have some excellent news: Design is Dead has won a Webby Award, the Oscar of the Internet. They won the prize ‘Official Honoree’ in the category Cultural Institutions for the site they made for ‘deFilharmonie for Kids’. This honorary prize awards the best sites and campaigns out of a selection of 10,000 entries from 60 countries. The winning website is a realisation for deFilharmonie that promotes classical music to the youngest generation. In order to succeed, Design is Dead created an intuitive, interactive and very attractive online universe for young surfers. The website initiates kids in a fun way to the orchestra and its different parts.

New client Delek asked Design is Dead to perform a quite radical makeover on both Texaco.be and Texaco.nl. They scrubbed up, put on their surgical masks and started cutting and shaping. Creative surgeries resulted in a dynamic website which looks attractive and contemporary, and is extremely easy to move around in. On top of that, the user is instantly stimulated to take actions (find a station, visit a shop,…) thanks to strategically placed and aesthetically designed content. Check out the refuelled and futureproofed Belgian and Dutch Texaco websites!

Each year, the festival season countdown begins with the launch of the new Rock Werchter website. For the 2010 edition, Design is Dead pimped the 2009 structure with new graphics and extra features such as an extended picture gallery. Browse through a decade of festival fever, super bands and shiny happy party people and check out the latest news online. And if that doesn’t get you in the mood for RW 2010, we suggest you perform a little sundance…

Design is Dead goes for bigger and better! Last week, they packed their bags and moved into its new headquarters!. It took them 1926.83 kilos of manpower to move: 124 boxes, 5 and a half aliens, 4 near-dead plants, 52 terrabytes of server capacity, 19 grey mice and much more to our new headquarters. From now on, your trusted creative force is to be found in the Duboisstraat 50, 2060 Antwerp. You’re more than welcome to pop in for some coffee and a guided tour. For a sneak preview, click right here.

When Panasonic Batteries asked the Design is Dead team to develop a campaign involving energy and travelling, they soon came up with the perfect match. Iceland, with its seriously zen sceneries and revitalizing spa’s, was absolutely the way to go. The result is a mouthwatering campaign and a matching mini-site, offering french customers the chance to recharge their ‘inner battery’ up north.