As the 2006 competition draws to a close, I
look back on the outstanding entry field in
awe. Simply put, I am blown away at the level
of work that is out there and how designers
and developers continue to reinvent new ways
to use technology to achieve their marketing
and communication goals. As a tribute, we conducted
interviews to share more information about the
winning individual or firm responsible for creating
the best of category entries in the 2006 competition.
N-TARA
WINNERS INTERVIEW
Give us the background of your company?
n-tara specializes in strategy, production,
implementation and measurement of rich media
communication and guided selling solutions for
corporate communication, training, sales and
marketing. We create compelling visual communication
products and services that enable a more effective
exchange of information between our clients
and their audiences. We have one simple goal
that has become our mission statement: to help
clients succeed by designing visually compelling
communication solutions that create buzz, captivate
audiences and win business.
Our team has numerous years of experience and
specialized expertise in several key areas,
so we are very well rounded in our approach
--- strategic planning, brand communications
and development, integrated web technologies,
interactive technologies, video/film, broadcast
advertising, custom application development
and guided selling solutions are all core capabilities.
We have been blessed with smart, driven, energetic
customers who lead their industries. They lean
on us to come to the table with not only outstanding
creative, but with a clear plan to implement
the work and most importantly, measure results.
Our team is very results oriented – we
want to deliver unique solutions for our customers,
but we also thrive on the success stories that
come from our work: increased sales, decreased
costs, improved processes – we love that
kind of stuff.
What is your approach to developing interactive
media solutions?
We take a very business results oriented approach
to every solution. We ask a tremendous amount
of questions and spend a lot of time talking
to our customers before we create concepts.
We consider every aspect of how the deliverable
will look, feel, behave, how it will be delivered,
who will be interacting with it, what kind of
technology will be used, and most importantly,
how will it improve our customer’s business.
From a creative standard, we don’t try
to whiz-bang it just because we can. We strive
to start simple and add complexity as our customers’
tastes and business objectives allow.
What was the creative inspiration for your
winning project?
Our client challenged us to be creative –
that’s why they came to us. So it was
imperative that we designed something that was
dramatically different – that functioned
well, was intuitive, but had a user interface
that was going to get attention. Our design
team had experimented with pentagon and hexagon
shapes which, when pieced together, look almost
like a tangram. In this case, the pentagon was
a great shape to use in showing the process
because Xerox Global Services had 5 critical
steps in their offering that they wanted to
illustrate. A secondary design analogy is that
the pentagon is also a shape denoting security,
which was a primary benefit of our client’s
offering.
What technologies were involved with making
the project?
Flash, PHP, MYSQL, sweat, and Mountain Dew
Code Red.
What were the biggest challenges to making
the project and how did you overcome them?
As with any new client, learning about Xerox
Global Services and their business was critical
to understanding how we could best serve their
needs. We were challenged with quickly understanding
their graphic vision for the project, which
was a balance between their brand conventions
and something completely new and different.
We overcame the challenge by listening to them,
having conversations about the best approach,
and then we went outside the lines and they
loved it.
We also worked with Xerox to solve a big challenge
with hosting the application and building a
backend system to track use, which turned out
to be one of the most innovative parts of the
project.
Did the project achieve its goals?
Most definitely. The primary goal was to tell
the story, save costs and win business, and
that’s happening. We’ve received
an extraordinary amount of feedback from our
customer, and we’re working on localizing
the application for several additional languages.
What trends do you see
in interactive media production today?
Communication and collaboration, guided selling,
RIA (rich internet applications), and personalized
content. It’s all about connecting companies,
clients, and consumers in real-time information
exchange. One trend we’ve capitalized
on is empowering our customers to author their
own content, deliver custom-tailored messaging
and information that is rich in graphics and
complexity, and track how it is accessed and
used.
What are some of your
favorite websites?
That’s a good question – we have
a good mix of creative styles that influence
the look of applications we produce. Our Flash
developers and designers obviously love the
graphically intense sites like 2advanced.com.
Others lean towards the simple, clean design
of apple.com and similar sites with a web 2.0
look and feel.
What projects are you
working on now?
Our shop is busy with quite a few B2B and B2C
applications, including a couple of enterprise-level
projects. In addition, we’ve launched
npowered, our innovative presentation software
application, and we will continue to improve
the product. And we are working on several unique
interactive applications in the pharmaceutical
space.
