Here are some of the things we’re selling:

MacBookPro 15″ 2.7 Mhz

15.4-inch LED-backlit glossy widescreen display (1440 x 900 pixel)
8GB (2 x 4GB) of 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM
500GB Serial ATA @ 5400 rpm
8x double-layer SuperDrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
$1800

MacMini Intel 2.0 Mhz

1GB of RAM
$400

iPad

16GB WIFI & 3G
Green Folding Cover & Apple Care
$500

a Leather couch
6 wood desks
1 boardroom table

Wooden filing cabinet
A huge variety of chairs & Stools

Our design approach is systematic, exploratory and collaborative. We bring our client along with
us as we hone in on appropriate strategies and solutions and innovate with our client’s goals in mind.

Our design methodology is all about people, and our approach to any project centers around
people and their relationships and interactions with a product or service. LiFT approaches user
experience by working to discover the most unique aspect of our client’s brand or service.
We then collaborate with our clients to develop a seed or core concept for the most relevant,
compelling and useful experience for the intended audience.

OUR CLIENT CARE VALUES:

Transparency
Candor
Respect
Collaboration

OUR DESIGN VALUES:

Simplicity
Elegance
Sophistication
Timeless

The workshop was structured in 4 main components, here are the presentations for each:

An introduction to Social Media

By Haig Armen
Download Introduction Slidedeck 467Kb

The Strategic Plan

by Todd Sieling
Download Strategy Slidedeck 5.1Mb

The Channels of Social Media

by Haig Armen
Download Channels Slidedeck 492Kb

Measuring your efforts

by Todd Sieling
Download Measuring Social Media Slidedeck 5.1Mb

Some of the notable features that Clive demos are the newest drawing functions, and the ability to save “Prop sets” – packaged objects. Additionally we touch on the new features for Pixton Pro and Pixton for Business.

Technically Speaking
The second half of the conversation concentrates on the technical implementation of the Pixton site. Clive talks a bit about the Flash to database communication via AMFPHP and Flash to Javascript using External.interface.

I’d like to thank Clive for coming in and wish him luck on his move from Vancouver.

We’re looking forward to seeing what 2010 brings in store for LiFT studios. To say that 2009 was a busy year for us would be a serious understatement. The LiFT team was diligently working on a variety of interesting projects that we’d like to share with you. Here’s a quick summary:

LiFT Studios Broadcasts

In May 2009 we launched a weekly video podcast called LiFT Studios Broadcasts (LSB). The videos give us a way to reach out into the Digital Design industry to talk to people we believe bring good energy to the type of work that we do. The feedback for LSB has been tremendous and the audience seems to consistently growing. Check it out and let us know if you have a suggestion for someone we could interview.

Association of Book Publisher’s of British Columbia (ABPBC)

This year we designed and developed a new ABPBC website and had a great time working with Margaret and Gerilee.

Vancouver Aquarium

In August the LiFT team was asked to design and build a Touchscreen kiosk for the Aquarium. The exhibit lets visitors explore and compare the sounds of Beluga Whales to the sounds of other natural and man-made environmental sounds.

D+M’s Publishers

LiFT studios had the pleasure of designing a new website for one of Canada’s most prestigious publishers, D+M. We were also given the opportunity to develop a new podcast. The Speakeasy podcast is a monthly show with interviews with D+M authors. We took this production very seriously and even wrote and recorded original music for Speakeasy

Bookriff

If you haven’t heard of Bookriff, then you need to go see it now! Bookriff is a new web service that allows visitors a chance to compile their own books out of a range of licensed publisher’s texts, then you’ll actually get a custom ‘one-off’ book sent to you. LiFT has spent a good part of 2009 working on the user interface for Bookriff and we look forward to seeing it in action.

Emily Carr University of Art + Design’s new website

LiFT worked in collaboration with Emily Carr University’s web committee and students to design and develop the new ECU website. Users are provided with a profile page where they will be able to post a bio, showcase their work, and pull in content from Facebook and Twitter.

Coming soon in 2010

Here are some projects that we’re looking forward to launching in 2010:

• UBC’s Sustainability website
• Canada’s Aboriginal Sports Hall of Fame website
• Namaste Publishing
• New Society Publishers

Processing Christmas

Were you wondering about the graphics we’ve used for this year’s christmas mailout? It’s a quick collaboration between the LiFT team, the graphics were created with a relatively new interactive programming environment called Processing. To really see the graphic in action visit the Happy Holidays web page.

Special Thanks

We’d like to send a special thanks to both Andrea Mignolo and Travis Nicholson for their amazing hard work interning at LiFT studios in 2009. We’re going to miss you both so much.

We begin our conversation with a brief background on Monique’s journey through education, internship, working for Raincoast Books and then finally to establishing Boxcar Marketing.

After mentioning some of the common challenges that most publishers seem to be facing these days the conversation turns toward the topic of Citizen Journalism. Both Monique and I seem to agree that there is still a huge difference between traditional journalism and the new blogging movement, both are important and both can learn from each other. Unfortunately both sides seem to be taking a defensive stance and tend to throw stones more than listening.

Monique mentions two journalists that understand the online space: David Beers of The Tyee and Kirk LaPointe of the Vancouver Sun
and then goes on to talk about an interesting iPhone app called ScanLife that lets newspaper readers take a photo of a barcode and get access to auxiliary information to an article.

Our talk moves onto the subject of books, how will we use them in the future, will the printed book live on and what are the possibilities to come.

Bonus topics:
Author Blogs: Monique gives authors tips on writing blogs Download MP4 here
Bookriff: a few thoughts about the Bookriff projectDownload MP4 here

I really enjoyed my talk with Monique and would like to thank her for taking the time to come chat. We look forward to working with you again on future projects.

Losing My Religion
To me the chat gets interesting when Kris talks about the life-changing events at Trinity Western and his view of religion after that point. We all have moments in our lives that we can look back on and see how our decisions have been informed.

Thoughts on Outsourcing
Another surprising topic that comes up is Kris’ opinion about outsourcing. I’ve had many people suggest that we try outsourcing the development work overseas but like Kris, I don’t yet believe that it’s a viable option. I’ve only heard nightmares about iteration after iteration of complex web projects that end up costing more and taking three times as long to complete.

Kris suggests that building quality software requires quick iterative cycles, clear communication and agile design and development. We’re definitely with Kris on this one.

If you want to learn more about Kris Krug, I suggest Google, he’s everywhere. In fact, that’s maybe what we should talk to Kris about next.

Thanks to Kris for a great talk, we’re looking forward to having you in again to chat about the future instead of the past.

On LSB024 this week we sit down and have a few drinks with three Vancouver designers about their thoughts on defining Interaction Design and a explaining a typical day in the life of an Interaction Designer. I’d like to thank Dave Shea, Todd Sieling and Kathleen Moynahan for being candid and speaking with me, Haig Armen and sharing their point of view.

This process of documenting talks about Interaction Design has another purpose other than our LiFT Studios Broadcast. We are submitting many of the best ones to the IxDA 10 conference in.

If you feel you have a strong opinion about what Interaction Design is, drop me an email haig(at)liftstudios.ca. Maybe we can have a skype call to put you on the next broadcast in this series. I’m serious!

Although Dasz currently works on a wide variety of interaction design projects, it’s no secret about where his real passion lies. Dasz has a serious long term obsession for synthesizers and creating electronic music on the fly. This ‘live PA’ style of improvised music requires a high level of proficiency on a synthesizer and sequencer and relies on more than just preset sounds and loops.

Dasz and I talk about what lessons can be carried over from synth design to application and web design and visa versa.

We finish our conversation with a few ideas about where synthesis may be heading in the future and some thoughts about networking software.

What do you think the future of synthesis is? We’d love to hear your thoughts.

Walter Murch

To say that Walter Murch is well-known in the film industry is a bit of an understatement. He has been recognized for many achievements over his 40 year career including Oscars for both Apocalypse Now and The English Patient. Anthony recommended I read Murch’s In the Blink of an Eye (2001), which I ended up reading after really enjoying Michael Ondaatje’s The Conversations (2002). Both books inspired me a great deal.

Check out his page on wikipedia and find out more about the films he’s help make at his IMDB page.

Errol Morris

If you’ve watched any of our other Lift Studios Broadcasts, you’ll know that we are big fans of Errol Morris. But we thought we’d dig into some of the reasons why he is such an innovator in the field of documentary film making. We spend a bit of time explaining how the Interrotron works and why it’s so effective.

Have a look at Errol Morris’ website, there’s some interesting things there and don’t forgot to look at the trailers to some of the videos we spoke about. href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPu0chBQeUk”>First Person – Hell of a Flight
Fast, Cheap and Out of Control.

Here are some of the other podcasts that Anthony mentions:

• Film Riot: a great primer for people getting into film making.
• Totally Rad Show:

Thanks Anthony for the great talk. We’re looking forward to having you be a guest editor for an episode of LSB

Our Connection
I met Amanda about four years ago as an instructor at Langara’s Electronic Media Design program (EMD). At the time I was teaching courses in The History of Design and Interface Design, she was a quick study and absorbed as much knowledge as I could present to her.

After Amanda graduated from EMD I asked her to work with me at Haigmedia, my independent freelance design company, and later I brought her over to Industrial Brand where I was asked to become a partner. In 2008, I formed LiFT Studios and Amanda accepted her current position at UBC’s Sustainability Office.

Amanda and I have had many great conversations over the years and I am very happy to give our LSB audience a small glimpse of our last discussion.

Here are some of the questions I asked Amanda during our discussion:

What brought you to the subject of sustainability in design?
Do designers have an ethical responsibility to work sustainably?
How does sustainable design fit in with larger global movements towards sustainability?
Do you have any practical advise for designers looking to become more sustainable?
Do the principles of sustainable design differ from print to digital?
Do you have any great sources for more information on sustainable design?

Here are the links that Amanda mentions:

Green Graphic Design – by Brian Dougherty
http://www.amazon.ca/Green-Graphic-Design-Brian-Dougherty/dp/1581155115

The Designer’s Atlas of Sustainability:
Charting the Conceptual Landscape through Economy, Ecology, and Culture – by Ann Thorpe
http://www.amazon.com/Designers-Atlas-Sustainability-Conceptual-Landscape/dp/1597261009

The Designer’s Accord wiki

http://www.designersaccord.org/

AIGA: the Professional Association for Design
www.aiga.org

The Society of Graphic Designers of Canada
www.gdc.net

Re-nourish
www.re-nourish.com

Amanda’s Delicious account
www.delicious.com/afetterly

Download Amanda’s Sustainable Design Presentation

Enjoy the conversation, we did.

Getting Things Done is an action management method created by David Allen, and described in a book of the same name. GTD rests on the principle that a person needs to move tasks out of the mind by recording them externally. That way, the mind is freed from the job of remembering everything that needs to be done, and can concentrate on actually performing those tasks.

If you would like to know more, you can find Andrea’s bio here.

You can contribute to the exhibit by uploading your favorite photo of you and your bike at http://velocityvancouver.ca/. The exhibit runs until September 7, 2009.

Even though Lift is not a publisher in the traditional sense of the word, we work with some great ones, and at the heart of both publishing and design there is great care put towards order and organizing large chunks of information into usable forms, coupled with a sense of artistic exploration. Particularly when the issue of digital distribution is of utmost concern for everyone in the publishing industry, we’ll most likely be continuing this theme in up coming broadcasts.

Here’s a link to an interesting article by Bruce Sterling that we had in mind while prepping for this LSB, Eighteen Challenges In Contemporary Literature. As well, you might want to check out the Institute for the Future of the Book, the BookNet Canada Blog and O’Reilly Radar.

The cards were designed in a collaborative process at LiFT. We wanted a simple yet unique approach that wasn’t attempting to be too clever or precious. The 3 degree tilt of the whole design is a key element to making the card more dynamic.

Our basic creative brief was to make the best business card in the world.

Steve’s blog can be found at www.stevepratt.com. Thank you Steve, for a great talk.

In “The Fog of War”, “Fast, Cheap and Out of Control” and many other Morris’ movies, the interview subjects stare straight into the camera while responding to a voice interviewing them from off screen.

Here is the interview as lifted from the magazine’s website. I have attempted to maintain the design and layout. I did add the picture of the Interrotron from another source.

Q: Is it true that you interview people using a machine?

A: Yes, the (patent pending) Interrotron. It’s a machine that uses existing technology in a new and novel way. When I made my first film, Gates of Heaven, I interviewed people by putting my head right up against the lens of the camera. I would be talking to them, and it seemed as though they were looking directly into the lens of the camera, but not really. Almost, but not quite. Of course, they were looking a little bit off to the side.

Q: Why? What’s the point?

A: To create the first person. When someone watches my films, it is as though the characters are talking directly to them…There is no third party. On television we’re used to seeing people interviewed 60 Minutes style. There is Mike Wallace or Larry King, and the camera is off to the side. Hence, we, the audience, are also off to the side. We’re the fly-on-the-wall, so to speak, watching two people talking. But we’ve lost something.

Q: What?

A: Direct eye contact.

Q: Eye contact?

A: Uh huh. We all know when someone makes eye contact with us. It is a moment of drama. Perhaps it’s a serial killer telling us that he’s about to kill us; or a loved one acknowledging a moment of affection. Regardless, it’s a moment with dramatic value. We know when people make eye contact with us, look away and then make eye contact again. It’s an essential part of communication. And yet, it is lost in standard interviews on film. That is, until the Interrotron.

Q: I don’t get it.

A: I got tired of sitting so close to the camera. (In my early films, my cameraman would grab the back of my head and pull me back because you could see the side of my head in the lens. When he yanked me back, it often hurt.) And I started to wonder, what if I could become one with the camera. What if the camera and myself could become one and the same?

Q: You’re losing me.

A: Well, not literally. Are you familiar with Teleprompters?

Q: Not really.

A: Well, Teleprompters are used to project an image on a two-way mirror. Politicians and newscasters use them so that they can read text and look into the lens of the camera at the same time. What interests me is that nobody thought of using them for anything other than to display text: read a speech or read the news and look into the lens of the camera.

Q: OK.

A: I changed that. I put my face on the Teleprompter or, strictly speaking, my live video image. For the first time, I could be talking to someone, and they could be talking to me and at the same time looking directly into the lens of the camera. Now, there was no looking off slightly to the side. No more faux first person. This was the true first person.

Q: It sounds like Buck Rogers. Were people willing to tolerate this?

A: I worried at first. Would it frighten people? Would they run out of the studio screaming? Who could say? I used it for the first time in Fast, Cheap & Out of Control. And it worked like a charm. People loved the Interrotron.

Q: The Interrotron? Did you make up the name?

A: No, it was named by my wife, Julia Sheehan. She liked the name because it combined two important concepts — terror and interview.

Q: But doesn’t the device intimidate people?

A: Oddly enough, no. It doesn’t. People, if anything, feel more relaxed when talking to a live video image. My production designer, Ted Bafaloukos, said, “The beauty of this thing is that it allows people to do what they do best. Watch television…” We often think of technology as working against the possibility of intimacy. But there are so many counter-examples. The telephone is a good counter-example. There are things we can say to each other on the phone that we would never say if we were in the same room. You know, “Being there is the next best thing to using the phone…” The Interrotron is like that. It creates greater distance and greater intimacy. And it also creates the true first person. Now, when people make eye contact with me, it can be preserved on film.

Q: Have you used it much?

A: Whenever I need to. I used it in a film that introduced the Academy Awards® in 2002. Gorbachev, Laura Bush, Iggy Pop, Al Sharpton and Walter Cronkite have all been on the Interrotron.

Q: Did Robert McNamara like it?

A: Well, you have to remember that we are talking about someone who has been interviewed a thousand times. He walked into the studio and said, “What is that?” I smiled and said, “The Interrotron.” He said, “Well, whatever it is, I don’t like it.” But then he sat down, and we proceeded to record over twenty hours of interviews. I guess he came to like it, too.

_______________________________________________

Academy Awards movie
Morris used the interrotron to make the Academy Awards Movie. Imagine, a special screen that displays the live, disembodied image of Morris as he shouts out questions, makes funny faces and orders his subjects to repeat things.

And just who are some of the 98 people who appear in the Academy Awards Movie? Well, if you look closely you’ll see: Jerry Brown (then the Mayor of Oakland, CA), Martin L. Perl (1995 Nobel Laureate in Physics), Alice Waters (Chef, Chez Panisse, Berkeley CA), the late Susan Sontag (writer), William L. Brown, Jr. (then the Mayor of San Francisco), Carolina Herrera (New York fashion designer), Iggy Pop (musician), Donald Trump (entrepreneur), Sidney Coleman (Professor of Quantum Field Theory, Harvard University), Laura Bush (First Lady of the United States), Jello Biafra (former lead singer of The Dead Kennedys), Philip Glass (avant-garde musician and composer), Fran Lebowitz (writer), Lou Reed (musician), Rev. Al Sharpton (President, National Action Network), Mikhail Gorbachev (Former President of the Soviet Union), Walter Cronkite (retired journalist), Laurie Anderson (musician and performance artist), Kenneth J. Arrow (1972 Nobel Laureate in Economics), Urvahi Vaid (gay rights activist) and Eric Lander (Director, Center for Genome Research at MIT) among many others.

Lift Studios Broadcast is a weekly podcast published by Lift Studios. This podcast is meant to be an experimental hotbed of content production and distribution, featuring topics ranging from interactive design to user experience, music to social media, sustainability to open source. LSB hopes to be an entertaining, educational and informative source for designers, geeks and those interested in the inter-disciplinary fields of art, design and interactive technology.

In our first official LSB, Cameron Lee and Haig Armen take the opportunity to discuss LiFT’s first year in business, one of the larger projects, Obakki’s web shop and open source eCommerce framework Magento.

Obakki is an international design house that addresses a shifting attitude towards fashion. Their collection offers women clothing that is utterly feminine yet bold while the men’s collection is understated, rugged and masculine. Obakki clothing has been recognized in numerous publications and is distributed in over 50 stores across North America. LiFT Studios designed and built ‘s web shop. We leveraged open source technology Magento to build the multi-currency ecommerce system with what we think are some pretty good results.