Tthe embedded video player feature I designed for L Studio has finally been implemented on the beta site. It works really well. I’ve picked three episodes for you to try. Starlee and Arthur Review Lost, Puppy Love with Famke Janssen, and Web Therapy with Lisa Kudrow. Pretty funny stuff.

An super cool that you can view it on any blog now!

I was pretty excited for a few weeks at the beginning of the summer. I had an opportunity to do some comps for Melissa Etheridge’s upcoming holiday release, A New Thought For Christmas (released 9/30/08). The theme was global peace and tolerance. I came up with an iconic solution, which I can’t say I’ve seen before. A simple, graphic Christmas tree made out of peace signs. Melissa saw my comps and was thrilled to choose this one for the cover. I was psyched to think that I could add this to my collection of rocking holiday CDs!

About six weeks later, I got the unfortunate news from the Island Records representative that they decided to go with something else. C’est la vie.

While I admit their design is quite nice, I think my design would have looked way cooler featured in the iTunes music store. What do you think?

L Studio, the broadband entertainment community that I designed for Lexus, launched its beta last week. What is L Studio? Here’s what Reuters news agency had to say…

“The carmaker is launching an Internet-only branded channel Tuesday (September 23) stocked with a full slate of original programing headlined by [Lisa] Kudrow [from Friends] in a shortform comedy series in which she plays a nutty shrink.

In an effort to keep the buzz going for the project, Lexus plans to recruit more celebrity contributors in the coming months. For now, the rest of L Studio is an eclectic mix of high-toned nonfiction programing that concerns everything from art to architecture to science. Some notable figures who are profiled on the site include the Doors’ Ray Manzarek and designer Patricia Field.

Taken together, the connective thread between the programing mix and the Lexus brand, Blanchard said, is the theme of innovation. “We kind of look at ourselves as a broadband HBO,” she said. “Being on broadband in and of itself is innovative for a lot of these artists.”

I can’t wait until it’s finished, and everything is running smoothly. Lisa Kudrow’s “Web Therapy” series is pretty damn funny! And so is Starlee and Arthur Review. Go check it out.

—– here’s a positive review of the content.

—– here’s an article from the Hollywood Reporter.

“Speedshape, Inc, with offices in Birmingham, MI and Venice, CA and providing services including CGI 3D/2d modeling, animation, virtual environments, VFX, motion, film, multimedia design, pre/post production, retouching, web design, digital asset management, distribution, closed captioning, and tagging has hired Nels Dielman as Sr. Creative Director.”

Wow. That is a mouthful. Stay tuned for updates.

Lexus vehicles have a well-deserved reputation for quality, dependability, and reliability. We needed to excite prospects by redefining the brand, so we introduced the concept of technological innovation inherent in each and every new Lexus vehicle.

While there are several ways to entice consumers to purchase a new vehicle, we had to identify attributes that would influence the user to choose a Lexus based on the features relatable to their world.

The new innovation section of Lexus.com uses a minimal, block world, with futuristic red toy cars in a fun and interactive demo environment to simplify the concept of some complex, innovative features.

What do you think about the Lexus Innovation Site?

If you have a very small monitor, please click here.

http://lexus.com/innovation

This image of two HTML emails I designed for L Studio was published as a teaser in the April 2008 issue of Lexus Magazine. So now I tease you in much the same way! L Studio is coming…

Download audio file (09_Pelham.mp3)

And a little bit of my band Urban Family Dog as soundtrack: “Pelham” from 3-Finger Charlie.

I’ve been hacking away at the Slideflow demo by Christian Becker at Beckr.org and using images from my favorite fractal designer Blatte at ExotericRoach.org. Pretty cool stuff, eh?

A friend alerted me today that there is a promo for the upcoming Lexus Innovation Website on the Imaginary Forces homepage (where I snaked this video).