On Monday and Tuesday of this past week, I had the pleasure of teaching Introduction to Web Design and Development at Emory. I’ve been teaching the class for over a year, and I’m always impressed by the caliber of students. This class was no exception—as it turned out, I had a local celebrity of sorts in attendance.

Ted Freeman, a student, designed and created an incredible art installation for the Modern Atlanta Week festival in his “spare time”, and called it the Melting Fan. After the installation was built it was placed prominently in the Five Points Marta Station. The placement of the sculpture was celebrated with an unveiling ceremony at MARTA.

Ted was thrilled to have his work displayed at the station, and thought that this would be the extent of it. Imagine his surprise when one of the project coordinators called him to inform him that a photo of his sculpture was featured in the NYTimes, and on their website. Incredibly, the popularity of the photo continued to explode as it surfaced in the websites of the Times, the Wall Street Journal, and YahooNews. It was one of the 14 “pictures of the day” on the CBS Nightline site, appeared on the Daily Mail site, the NPR Radiolab site, and was Tumblr’d over 22,000 times.

Ted emailed me before class on Tuesday and posed the question: how could he leverage the overwhelming press he received for his work? In the social media portion of my class, I opened discussion into how he could best utilize tools such as Wordpress, Flickr, Facebook and Twitter to continue the viral journey of his installation.

Ted didn’t have a website, so he needed to act quickly. Our solution - create a 4-page site via Wordpress, including basic pages such as About, Portfolio, Press, and Modern Atlanta. Wordpress is a free open source blogging platform and it gives users without HTML experience the ability to create and launch a site quickly. Utilizing a blog will allow for comments so the discussion around his art can continue and grow. We also recommended incorporating creative, interactive elements such as a video project in which we go to the station and video the sculpture and record how people react to it. Additionally, he would need to link all of the press pieces to the new website, and contact the various sources to supply them the web address and contact information. To continue riding the social media wave, he’ll need to create a Facebook page to capture fans, a YouTube channel to stream his video, and a Flickr account to house his imagery - all of these outlets will help him gain even more exposure. We didn’t feel like Twitter was necessary at this point because he has to create a following, definitely a consideration for the future. And of course, a PR initiative will be crucial in order to tap into offline buzz as well. Since our classes end on Tuesday, Ted has made some great progress with the creation of his website/blog Creatometry.com.

As you can imagine, it was quite exciting to have a living, breathing, and tangible project to discuss and brainstorm about with the students during class. The students applauded him for his success—with a little help and an aggressive social media and PR strategy, he’ll continue to be applauded and recognized for his brilliant work.

Be sure to stay tuned to our blog as we chronicle the developments of the media project for Ted’s Melting Fan sculpture.

Because social media is such a gas, we’d like to pass this special segment onto you for your viewing pleasure. We’d like to thank Saturday Night Live for giving us a great laugh. Enjoy!

Fun Stuff - some new and some old that I wanted to share:)
I love finding unique little toys, and these are just a few of my favorites…

1. Artist Series IPhone Skins - Choose from 4 designs at http://www.urbanoutfitters.com/
2. YoGen - This attaches to any IPhone or Blackberry and literally “pumps” a few minutes of battery life into most mobile devices. A real lifesaver in case of an emergency.
http://www.yogenstore.com/products.html
3. Fuji Instax Camera - The coolest instant camera ever! Great quality instant pics
http://www.fujifilm.com/products/film_camera/instant/
4. Portable Charging Mat - Charges up to 3 of your electronics simultaneously…read more at http://www.mydigitallife.info/2009/01/08/charge-electronics-gadget-wirelessly-via-powermat/
5. Google Phone - We all know what Google can do, so you can imagine what their phone can do. It also runs on the new Android technology platform…read more at http://www.google.com/phone/static/en_US-nexusone_tech_specs.html

6. Stylophone Portable Synthesizer - Make music while you wait!

7. Yamaha TENORI - ON: Instrument of the Future!

Amazing!

Stewdio.org is the website of Stewart Smith, a designer from NYC that has done some great work. I was particularly amused by his Browser Pong app….basically the classic computer game Pong done with browser windows. Super fun!

Ever since I read Edward Tufte’s book Envisioning Information, I have been a semi-informed fan of information design. As a computer nerd programmer, I <3 data, and as a (hack) designer, I <3 design. As such, I believe there is no better way to view data than through the filter of design. Though after getting stoked about infographics prior to my first HCI course in college, I rarely came across good examples.

Lately there seems to have been a turn in the tide. I have seen more examples of current infographics than ever before in blogs and traditional media. Maybe it’s because there are more people in the business or maybe the media is just starting to celebrate it more. Either way, it’s exciting. I recently got a copy of The Visual Miscellaneum by David Mccandless. The book features more than 200 pages of beautiful diagrams representing countless topics of collected data. Even though it has a few errors & it would be nice if it was hardbound, it’s addicting to look at. I would recommend it to anyone.

Need an infographics fix right now?
try: datavisualization.ch

Get excited about design.
Get pumped about data.
Get your learn on!

Partner, Adam Rosenkoetter, welcomed his first child, Eleanor Powell Rosenkoetter in June of this year. She is a spitting image of Adam; we’d like for them to start wearing matching outfits.

Kirsten Nantz was promoted to design director in 2008. After completing the MFA program at SCAD, she joined Sol full-time. We are so excited to have her on board in this capacity.

Our sneaker freaker, Flash guru and web designer, Tuee Chanthavong, moved to Portland, OR to pursue his dream of becoming a hipster shoe designer. He is still working with Sol Design from Portland but we miss his smiling face at the office.

Amy Williams, den mother and scarf knitter extraordinaire, joined the programming team early this year. She has 23 years of programming experience. Amy’s scarves and treats are keeping us warm and satisfied this season.

Kurt Pachinger, our latest addition from SCAD, is a designer and HTML production expert. Kurt brings an awesome sense of illustration and perfect HTML to our team.

Claire Barth, copywriter, finally caved and moved back to Atlanta so that she would stop missing out on “board meetings” at Rathbun’s.

Mary, Renae, Erich and Alex are all doing really well. Nothing too exciting to report, aside from the fact that Erich has a beard.

This guy is the man! I consider myself pretty handy with the Ajax but this guy…

the coolest AJAX UI that I have ever seen

You have to read about how he did it, then check it out for yourself! so good.

What can I say, this is pretty dope.

We at the office have stopped the yelling (or much of it) and have resorting to tapping keys to communicate with others down the hall and even across the desk if need be. Using an IM client such as GTalk or AIM cuts down the e-mail for simple messaging or to ask a simple 1-2 line question. It’s a great way to communicate without leaving your seat or picking up the phone. For those of us on a mac, we already have a built in client, iChat, which can easily be harnessed to use GTalk. GTalk is a jabber based application which allows it to be used within other apps such as iChat and mobile devices. To learn how to do this, keep reading. (more…)