Most of us learn about Philadelphia’s rich history through the signing of the Declaration of Independence and luminaries such as Benjamin Franklin. In 2011 the I-SITE team showcased a darker side of the city with the creation of a logo for the Eraserhood neighborhood aka Callowhill that lies just north of City Hall.
Back in the 60s famed movie director David Lynch briefly lived in the area and cites it as an inspiration for the cult classic Eraserhead. The neighborhood is home to The Trestle Inn, the bar owned by I-SITE principal Ian Cross, so we had a thirst quenching start to our research. Inspirations included the unused Reading Railroad, the gritty urban landscape and the underworld of the workers and colorful characters who lived in and worked in the boarding houses and factories of the industrial age.
The logo itself is cryptic, descriptive and geographic by nature and was selected from a number of Lynchian inspired concepts the team came up with. If you venture to the Eraserhood you will see the logo at street level in disparate locations guiding you around and through one of Philadelphia’s best kept secrets.
Sprout contacted the I-SITE team to create a media rich mobile app to encourage both kids and parents to complete healthy challenges together. The app named Family Challenge is part of a larger ‘healthy living’ initiative called “Be Kind to Yourself“. The app utilizes themes from both Sprout and Iceland-based children’s television program LazyTown programming and presents a parent-child team with ten healthy challenges. Each challenge is comprised of an activity that focuses on healthy eating or exercise. After a parent-child team has completed the activity, they mark it as complete and move on to the next activity. At the completion of a set number of challenges, the parent-child team wins an ‘incentive’ in the form of a music video, theme song or a themed photo frame wallpaper.
The project from concept to development to wireframing to design was highly collaborative. Highlights include:
- Rewards you with videos and other multimedia on reaching milestones
- Creation of custom wallpapers with users own photos that can be shared through Facebook
- Tracks your progress in with a Energy Meter and ‘Trophy Case’
- Reminders to complete the next challenge
The Family Challenge App App received notable awards including Best Family Mobile App at the 2013 IAC Awards. Post release the I-SITE team continued to update the App and issue new releases.
For more information on this project and if your interested in creating something similar for your organization or company contact Ian Cross.
