Yunomi, the largest online community for and by women in the Benelux, has been awarded the European Mixx Award in the category ‘Lead Generation’! No small feat–and we are fittingly proud of this achievement.

A few months ago, the Belgian part of the Yunomi team moved shop from Brussels to Antwerp to join the happy crowd here at Design is Dead. A lucky decision, because after the Belgian Silver Mixx Award of last year, last week this online community for and by women did one better: it took home the European Mixx Award in the category Lead Generation! This joint project of Emakina.nl and Design is Dead for Unilever is a huge success, as these numbers prove: with 315.000 members, 1 million visitors per month, and more than 3.6 million comments posted over the past two years, Yunomi can safely be said to be one of the most important online communities around. Gooooooooooo team!

On Wednesday, 8 June 2011, Design is Dead proudly launched what will definitely be one of the most amazing websites of 2011—the website of OFFF 2011! Our most important tools? Careful planning and organizing, intelligent and creative design, intense programming, and extensive tweaking and tuning, with a delightful result!

When we were asked last year if we were interested in concepting, designing, and creating the website for the OFFF festival 2011, to be held in Barcelona, we didn’t have to think about it very long. ‘Hell yeah!’, was the phrase, if memory serves. So we put three young, creative talents on the project and waited for the magic to happen, with a little (well, a lot of) help from their eager Design is Dead colleagues. That it did is easy to see: one look at their fantastic funky web creation proves that great and original minds were at work. But we couldn’t have pulled it ‘offf’ without the support of our partners in creation, Emakina FR & Emakina BE. Watch out Barcelona—Design is Dead is coming!

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!

Design is Dead, purveyor to the royal household of many a major music festival, presents its latest rock-a-licious creation: the new website of Lokerse Feesten!

When we do something, we do it well. We have high standards to live up to, as you know. But if we say so ourselves: we have really outdone ourselves this time. De Lokerse Feesten, one of Belgium’s biggest open-air music festivals, wanted a brand-new website that oozed rock & roll cool–and that is exactly what they got. After an intense headbanging competition, ehm…, brainstorming session, we got to work, re-styling their entire site from A to Z and making it happen online, from concepts and design to wireframes, production, and slicing. Hell yeah!
Now all you as a visitor have to do is click, enjoy the user-friendly and exquisitely groovy lay-out, and create your own scrumptious musical menu. So far, the line-up includes Belgian artists such as Goose, Triggerfinger, Bart Peeters, Ozark Henry, and Das Pop–to name only a few top bands that will play Lokeren this summer. Rock on!

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 us looking for a new website that would look and feel ‘real’, honest, and up-close-and-personal to do just that, we were happy to oblige.

We 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’s very own creation, MONA or Museum Of Neverending Art, has won the Leader Award (equivalent of Silver) in the Experiential Marketing category!

This participative virtual museum, realized in cooperation with Emakina.fr for the development, is open for visitors worldwide to explore and to add artistic contributions (text, pictures, drawings). The canvas is constantly in motion and thus an endless user-generated artwork, illustrating IE9’s creativity enhancing functionalities. MONA opened its doors at the occasion of the launch of Internet Explorer 9 by Microsoft, and will continue to exist and will house an impressive collection of international collaborative art. Don’t miss it! Visits are 100%  free.

Roll out the red carpet for our latest motion picture! We’ve created a promotional and informational movie-clip for Nuance speech technology, demonstrating the endless possibilities of their Dragon Naturally Speaking applications. Shown to and applauded by millions across the globe, we like to think of this one as our ticket to the Academy Awards, ha!

Our earlier mentioned 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!