How do you transfer the liveliness and rich entertainment of television onto a flat website? We settled out to structure, design and develop the ideal TV channel website for the Swiss major 3+.

CHALLENGE

3+ is a leading Swiss television channel that broadcasts a number of popular series, blockbuster movies, documentaries, sport events and a few of 3+’s own productions, the most famous being “Bauer, ledig, sucht…,” a reality show that helps Swiss farmers get connected with potential wives.

The channel required a full re-design of their website to improve the presentation of their shows and consequently attract more visitors online. This also implied changing the underlying structure, logic and back-end to be able to handle massive amounts of content in a user-friendly way.

Spoiled Milk was chosen to complete this project.

 
SOLUTION

The design phase was solved outside Switzerland in our Danish premises and one may argue that the new design has a touch of the Nordic light and simplistic tradition. Design of the ‘Programm’ shows was completed by 3+ themselves securing them the ideal schedule representation.

The choice for the back-end of the website ended up being Drupal, which proved capable of handling numerous templates and pages in an easy-to-handle manner.

Today, 3+ is equipped with an exciting, vibrant and visually stimulating experience that parallels the essential entertainment value of television. Check out their cows, farmers and supermodels here: 3plus.ch

A sense of drama. A degree of emotion. A strong visual appeal. Wrapped onto a first class CMS solution. The expectations were high, when Schauspielhaus Zürich picked Spoiled Milk to create their new website. Today, the Swiss theater states that we’ve showed them “the path to the future of the Internet”.

CHALLENGE

Schauspielhaus Zurich is with more than 150,000 spectators annually one of the most important cultural institutions in Switzerland. The theater has 260 permanent employees and an ensemble of 30 actors. Each season they have 25 new productions plus guest performances that result in a total 600 performances. Artistically, the theater aims for balance and diversity, young and seasoned directors, great classics and new materials. In short, Schauspielhaus Zurich is open to a large theater scenery.

In the spring of 2010, the theater was ready for a complete revamp of their website and started a pitch round. On their specifications list, a number of things stood out: Design should uphold an emotional side, better integration of images, a touch of drama; the functionality should support the users; the back-end should maintain a strong sense of flexibility for content editing and the ability to implement a webshop; social media should play a role.

Spoiled Milk won the pitch round and happily took on the project.

 
SOLUTION

To kick off the project, Spoiled Milk settled the grand information architecture in close collaboration with the client. Subsequently, we brought in the talented designer Stephen England to work on the design screens – naturally a sensitive process when the client happens to be an artistic institution. Also consulting in this phase was the Cornel Windlin Studio.

Having nailed the design, we coded the front-end of the website in CSS/HTML/JS and applied Flash for the background images. Meanwhile, we structured and coded the demanding back-end web interface from scratch applying our in-house developed CMS framework Casein. The reasons why we chose Casein for this project were the complexity of the site and the client’s expectations to the CMS usability. We also implemented our own webshop module to fit the exact requirements laid out by the client.

We are truely thrilled with the result of the new Schauspielhaus Zürich website. And according to the client’s Artistic Management Director Tom Till, so is Schauspielhaus Zürich: “The great digital agency Spoiled Milk has through their concept, design and technical implementation shown us the path to the future of the Internet.”

Enter the world of drama at schauspielhaus.ch

Within the next year, Denmark will see another round of parliamentary election and the political parties are already warming up for what promises to be an extraordinarily tough round. The Social-Liberal Party just went live with their new online/offline campaign encouraging Danes to take responsibility.

CHALLENGE

These days, it seems the election campaign is never-ending. Constant communication flooding whatever channels the political parties have available. And you always end up impressed, when politicians manage to step everything up one gear, as the campaign settles into the final phase leading up to the actual vote.

In Denmark, the Prime Minister is forced to call a general election within the next year. In theory, it could happen any day now, and the political parties are rearming themselves. This includes the Danish Social-Liberal Party (Radikale Venstre) – a fraction formed in 1905 with roots in Cultural Radicalism.

Armed with the dominating slogan ‘Tag Ansvar’ (take responsibility), the Danish Social-Liberal Party is emphasising their perspectives on economy, integration, education and EU. The campaign runs on outdoors posters and has an online campaign website. Spoiled Milk was requested to do the latter.
 

SOLUTION

The main purposes of the campaign website were firstly for the Social-Liberal Party to communicate their political messages to voters, press and other politicans, and thereby seek to stir up a debate. Secondly, the Social-Liberal Party was looking to raise funds for the election campaign ahead and generally attract new party members and Facebook followers.

Initial wireframes were laid out by the Social-Liberal Party based on design from Parris Wakefield – a UK design agency – and handed over to Spoiled Milk for web-oriented design. The briefing was clear: Keep it clean and simple with comprehensible navigation. For the back-end, we’ve applied the latest version of Wordpress.

Currently, all traffic for radikale.dk is redirected to the campaign site at tagansvar.radikale.dk. Go and have a look!

Spoiled Milk recently created a Facebook campaign in collaboration with Scholz & Friends Basel for a pet chain store named Fressnapf Schweiz.

This application is a platform for pet owners in Switzerland to submit a picture of their pet, which then enters into a competition where, through voting, the cutest animal is determined. The winner receives free animal food for one year.

Design and concept was done by Scholz & Friends Basel and production was by Spoiled Milk.

So far, the campaign has been hugely successful with 7,542 “likes” and counting.

Got a pet and live in Switzerland? Want free food for him or her for an entire year? It’s not too late to submit a photo and enter the competition: Fressnapf Schweiz Facebook Application.

Don’t have a pet? Check it out anyway. There are tons of adorable critters to swoon over.

The world’s best restaurant Noma lies in Copenhagen. To pay tribute to the achievement and generally steer attention to Copenhagen’s restaurant scene, Politiken’s Travel Guides chose to release a mini guide for the best gastronomical adventures to be had in the capital city of Denmark.

Noticably, the publisher chose not to sell the guide book in print. Rather, they requested Spoiled Milk to produce two variations of the book as iPhone applications: One in Danish and one in English.

Both can be downloaded for free until August 14th.

• Politiken’s – A taste of Copenhagen (English version)
• Turen Går Til Smagen af København (Danish version)

Background image by Food Snob.

An old-school classic is revived – with some added twists.

It’s PacMan set in Zürich. But in Nettoman, instead of running away from multi-colored ghosts with googly eyes, our friendly yellow hero runs away from bankers.

Nettoman is a fun and potentially addictive game created to promote Nettobank, the first Swiss e-private bank. The game was designed and produced by Spoiled Milk.

Dodge and eat the bankers here.Tip: Keep your eyes peeled for ETF’s that occasionally float onto the streets; once they’re eaten, the bankers are up for grabs.

A business model strongly influenced by the possibilities of the Internet. This anecdote underlines how companies that have thrived during the second half of the 20th century now look to emerge into the new markets offered online. Spoiled Milk was brought in to strenghten Ifolor’s position online.

CHALLENGE

These days, newly wed couples and recent parents are not finding it sufficient with the family photo albums stacked up in digital folders on the desktop computer. Instead, making the transfer from the digital format to printed images has become highly affordable, convenient and therefore hugely popular.

Spoiled Milk was approached by the photo labs company Ifolor, whose antiquated website needed a completely new idea, concept and design – before rebuilding the underlying system. In essence, the ”job requirements” among others included concept, wireframing and design.

 
SOLUTION

Main emphasis for this project was to move from a traditional corporate website to a consumer-oriented solution with the products at the center of attention. The guidelines became the following: Few number of clicks from frontpage to the product page, excellent presentation of all products, easy flow from product to checkout and purchase, and call-for-action throughout the web platform.

To succeed in this highly ambitious project, user experience became essential: How could we make Ifolor’s website the most visually striking, clearly comprehensible and easy-to-use of all the photo labs providers that exist online?

The process was vital to the nature of the outcome. First, the concern was how to structure the large amounts of available information and offerings. Header, main menu, submenus and footer – all should be balanced. Second, we went into wireframing each and every page template of the website. Third, in collaboration with the client, we arrived at the wording of menu elements, buttons, references, etc. Fourth, the main phase of actual design of templates from grading the menus to detailed pixel correction. And fifth, we programmed clickable HTML/CSS/JS templates of the primary screens for client testing and revisions.

The result is a thought-through e-commerce platform with a tight structure, clean design and greater emphasis on pairing users with relevant products.

Visit the site here.

Spoiled Milk delivers online profile for a Zurich landmark.

The Hotel Restaurant Helvetia is among Zurich’s most culturally significant spots. Today, it is a family-run boutique hotel complete with a restaurant and bar, located in the heart of the city. Back in the 70’s and 80’s, the Helvetia was the gathering point for musicians, artists, students and journalists who began Zurich’s counter-cultural revolution.

When this Zurich landmark wanted a new website, they brought in ZürichTokio, an advertising and design firm based in Zurich, for concept and design, and Spoiled Milk for development and implementation. The website was built with Drupal and with a shop integration.

The result is fresh and sophisticated yet unostentatious, and serves as an accurate representation of the Helvetia both from its present standpoint as well as from its prolific past.

Check it out here: Hotel Restaurant Helvetia.

Ever experienced noticing an unusually striking colour and wishing you could store the colour somewhere in your brain for later usage? The Flügger Farveguide iPhone app solves the problem.

CHALLENGE

Some companies move to the mobile device platforms out of neccessity to serve their existing customers in new ways; some companies try it out as a marketing add-on to bring attention to their core businesses. The Flügger Farveguide (colour guide) is the latter: A marketing gimmick intended to stir up some positive PR about a traditional paint company.

With more than 500 shops spread throughout Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Poland, Iceland and China, Flügger is a heayweight paint corporation that prides itself at being the favourite choice for professional painters.

When Flügger got in touch with Spoiled Milk, the specs were clear: Combine the opportunities of the revolutionary iPhone device with the Flügger colour codes to branch an entertaining iPhone application.

 
SOLUTION

In collaboration with Hello Monday, who produced the design screens, we came up with the concept of being able to either take a picture with your phone or use an image from your photo library, from which the user could track, store and share specific colours. Additionally, the user could browse through Flügger’s rich colour swipes to uncover styles independently.

Of course, the colours discovered using the iPhone application have a direct reference to the colour codes of Flügger. When having favourited a number of colours, the user can even locate the nearest Flügger store using the application and then visit a store to order the exact colour.

And that’s it. An example of a mobile application that adds some extra spice to a well-positioned business and potentially draws attention from new target groups.

• Download the app for free here.
• Read the 4/5 review in Danish at iphoneguide.dk.

Le Cool sends out hundreds of thousands of e-mails. Weekly. No wonder we were thrilled when they asked us to modernise their entire web application in order to accomodate their growing popularity.

CHALLENGE

Le Cool is a weekly magazine featuring a selection of cultural events and leisure activities for the following cities: Barcelona, Budapest, Dublin, Istanbul, Lisboa, London, Madrid and Moscow.

Their ambition is to filter out the best exhibitions, movies, concerts & DJs plus a sought selection of extraordinary bars and restaurants. The magazine is distributed every Thursday around noon via e-mail.

When Spoiled Milk was approached, Le Cool already had an existing functioning application serving hundreds of thousands of users weekly.

The request was to replace this system with a more efficient version scoring high on user friendliness. More specifically, the frontend of the application should be improved and the website should receive a new interactive interface.

 
SOLUTION

The new underlying system is built from our in-house developed Casein CMS, which as a new feature secures that content is published and updated before a newsletter goes out.

Stability and reliability of the web application have been vastly improved and the system has become much more flexible and scalable for the future of Le Cool. Here, an important decision was to externalise the crucial and sensitive process of sending out hundreds of thousands of emails on a weekly basis to an external service.

The ability to dive into statistics about the newsletter usage has been highly improved. Similarly, the options of placing advertisement beats the previous version with the new connection to SMART AdServer, which does the job of organising, monitoring and customising advertising in the Le Cool application.

LeCool is about to roll out the new application to their different ciities, so for now you can only check out the Dublin version of Le Cool.