Studio News

Second Story offers individuals with a passion for interaction rewarding careers pioneering new forms of interactive media. We continually accept resumes for consideration; details can be found on our careers page.

Second Story is being featured as part of the "Creative Inspirations" series on design-centric Lynda.com. Nearly an hour of videos document our process, workspace, history, staff, and thoughts on interactive media. (You will need a subscription to view the videos.)

The National Archives' DocsTeach site launched its seventh classroom activity in anticipation of Constitution Day, September 17th.

Julie Beeler will be speaking at the Association of Medical Illustrator's conference this week; she'll be describing Second Story's fusion of interaction, electronic media, and the physical world.

The opening of the Age of Mammals wing at The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County is generating some buzz in the papers; articles are appearing at Associated Press, ABC, MNN, and LA Downtown News.

The new Age of Mammals Exhibit at The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County is open! Second Story created several interactives and a motion graphics piece for the museum and was cited in the Los Angeles Times advance press about the opening. Second Story's own photographs of the museum are posted on Flickr.

Second Story just posted a demo video at Vimeo of multitouch experiments conducted at the studio. We've also been actively posting extended video demos of past projects to our main Vimeo page.

Julie Beeler will be speaking at the 14th National Museum Publishing Seminar in Washington, D.C. on June 19th, where she'll be contributing to a panel called, “Designing for the Web,” along with Louise Sandhaus, Professor of Graphic Design, California Institute of the Arts and Kip Voytek from RAPP.

The opening of the Smithsonian's Arctic Studies Center has been generating buzz among the media — the new exhibit has been featured in The Washington Post, Anchorage Daily News, First Alaskans Magazine, The Alaska Dispatch, and the Homer Press.

The New York Botanical Garden's Plant Hunters project launched this week. Featuring lush, 360 degree illustrations of the Conservatory, the site promotes science literacy to students and visitors.

A project the studio has been involved with for over three years is launching in Alaska tomorrow. The Arctic Studies Center is a visionary institution in Anchorage that celebrates the history of indigenous cultures while providing the tools and technology to keep it vibrant and relevant. An overview of the project can be read in this Washington Post article and Second Story's involvement is detailed here.

Director of Creative Development, Bruce Wyman, will contribute to two panels at the AAM conference this year. On one panel, he'll be acting as a consultant to institutions on Web 2.0 initiatives; the other panel focuses on holistically integrating technology across institutional departments.

AIGA Design Archives has been nominated for a Web Visionary Award!

A production team from creative inspiration site Lynda.com recently visited Second Story's studio. They're in the process of cutting a creative profile on Second Story, to be completed and exhibited on their site later this year. Snapshots from their visit are posted on FlickR.

Michael J Godfrey, a User Experience Designer at Second Story, will be speaking at this year's American Association of Museums conference in Los Angeles, CA. He'll be paired with Barbara Sanders, an Education Specialist at Gettysburg National Military Park, and the two will be speaking about their experience creating a suite of interpretive installations at Gettysburg's Visitor Center.

Henri Cartier-Bresson was one of the founding fathers of photojournalism. MoMA celebrates his artwork with the first exhibition since his death. The online companion to the exhibition, Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Modern Century, launched this week!

Second Story is participating in the Fifth Annual Holocene Minigolf Art Invitational! This yearly event assembles some of the most creative minds in Portland to reinvent the concept of minigolf. The studio participated in 2006, and will deliver another bang-up experience for this year's invitational. The event is Monday, April 13th and Tuesday, April 14th, and runs from 5 p.m. until 2 a.m. Details here: http://www.holocene.org/calendar/.

Thomas Wester will be delivering a presentation in late April at FITC Toronto 2010: The Design & Technology Festival. The talk is entitled “Large, Physical, Flash,” and Thomas will be discussing some of the thornier questions that confront large-scale media installations, like, “How do you build a 32 foot interactive table running Flash?”

HOW Magazine recognized Second Story for Oregon TimeWeb, Annenberg Community Beach House, and Body Collective in their 2010 International Design Annual. In the article about Body Collective, Creative Director Brad Johnson was quoted as saying, “It was our first real opportunity to make an installation in an art museum that was what I would call a piece of artwork. It wasn't there to help you understand something else. It was the whole thing in itself.”

Communication Arts recognized The Book of Hours project as their “Webpick of the week” today. “Through a unique astronomy-inspired interface,” the article says, “users can explore many of the pages of the book and zoom-in on every detail of the illuminated manuscript.”

Second Story was cited in the New York Times today in an article about innovative ways museums are using new media. The full article can be found here.

The Software Association of Oregon's Technology Leadership Exchange supports technology leaders from both tech and non-tech companies in the region by facilitating monthly meetings with peers. Second Story will host the group on Thursday, March 18th. More details on the program can be found here.

The March/April 2010 issue of Communication Arts featured Second Story's Body Collective and Design Your Own Ballpark as winners in their 2010 interactive competition. Details about the recognition can be found on Communication Arts.

Second Story and AIGA have launched a redesign of the online Design Archives. A case study that profiles this project has just been posted at aiga.org.

This Web site assembles the complete WNET series and through a wealth of supplementary interactive media, encourages deeper exploration into the rich terrain of World Art.

Visitors to the Marion Davies Guest House are immersed in the past when exploring the interactive guest book Second Story created for the estate in Santa Monica, CA. The Winter 2010 edition of Communication Arts highlights the installation among the “latest and best in visual communication.”

On Friday, January 22nd, Second Story hosted the Northwest Audiovisualists for an evening of demos, hands-on fun and discussion. For those who missed the event, a video recap has been posted on YouTube.