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Introducing the new GucciTimeless.com Thomas Pamminger

2012April 17

Two years ago, almost to the day, we had the pleasure of unveiling GucciTimeless.com, Gucci Timepieces’ flagship online presence, featuring a uniquely immersive design, optimised for touch and fluid exploration.

What started as an introduction to the brand has evolved over time to become a full-fledged destination. Today, after an exciting premiere last month at Basel World 2012, we are thrilled to formally introduce the next iteration of GucciTimeless.com, a version that builds upon the best-loved features of the existing site, and takes them to the next level.

Gucci Timepieces and Jewelry is an exciting brand that produces works of art of its own, and forms meaningful ties with artists and those who support them, including the GRAMMY® and the CSCLF (China Soong Ching Ling Foundation). Therefore, we wanted the new site to reflect the brand’s commitment to producing and encouraging Art by going beyond the catalogue.

In a recent communique, Gucci Timepieces & Jewelry CEO Michele Sofisti, chose to highlight the new « Heritage » section, in which readers can re-discover a history of Gucci’s house style, from the legacy of Guccio Gucci to Frida Giannini’s latest creations.

Visitors to GucciTimeless.com will still be able to browse the latest collections, in fluid and immersive galleries that work on any modern computer, tablet or smartphone. We think you will love the improved navigation and interactivity, and will immediately feel at home.

The core of the site is now a newspaper-style stream of exclusive content and editorial material, reporting on everything the brand stands for: its creations, of course, but also the work of the many outstanding artists it nourishes and supports on a global and local scale.

Interaction is built right to the core of this new platform, allowing visitors to seamlessly explore new music and discover original videos right from their browser. Classic favourites, such as Fats Waller, are on the menu as well, thanks to the company’s music preservation program in cooperation with the GRAMMY®.

GucciTimeless.com expands Gucci’s online presence, but offers a new, specialised voice, that focuses on timepieces and jewelry from the perspectives of collectors, art lovers and aesthetes the world over. It is a natural extension to the brand’s main website, but stands on its own as a lively destination.

This being a Wollzelle website, we have kept our emphasis on building a flexible, forward-thinking back-end to keep it relevant as the web moves on to newer, richer and more mobile platforms.

In fact, more digital initiatives are already on the way, building upon this launch. But as they say, « all in good time »!

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How we got Trodat's stamp of approval Thomas Pamminger

2012February 25

The frustration of store locators

Back in 2008, some of our clients looked into adding store locators to their sites. We quickly got frustrated with the existing solutions, though, that seemed extremely inefficient and kept asking users for information their browser already knew, resulting in long drop-down menus and complex forms.

It was all so terribly old-fashioned, that we set out to develop a unique technology, pulling every modern string, from mapping APIs to geolocation, to smooth and simplify the process. Our technology would have to be fast, flexible and self-sufficient, so that it could be leveraged by any website.

The modern web makes it all possible given sufficient time, engineering effort, and focus on design — the very skills we hone for our own web applications. After a few weeks, we had a working prototype, which we have been refining ever since.

A global success

Today, our technology manages thousands of locations for prestigious clients in all industries, like Gucci, Gucci Timepieces & Jewelry or Trodat.

Our approach is to keep the process intuitive and to predict the user’s wishes at every step, by using technology to filter out irrelevant options. Because our store locator is a centrally hosted solution, every customer benefits from our ongoing improvements. This enables us to offer features that would be difficult for a lone company to develop, test and deploy on its own. Chief amongst them are touch optimisations for mobile users, transparent conversion between American and metric units, and full support for up to eight languages.

Introducing Trodat

Enter Trodat, whom you must know if you have an office or use stamps. The Trodat group is headquartered in Wels, Austria, and employs over 1100 workers worldwide, manufacturing business essentials from the humble self-inking rubber stamp to laser engraving machines.

The Trodat website is the latest in line to include a Wollzelle-driven store locator. From the moment the page loads, it has located you and presents a list of your nearby online stores. Indeed, even if it does business online, a nearby store will speak your language and understand your culture.

If you would prefer to visit your friendly Trodat dealer, a switch shows you a list of physical locations, still laid out by distance, and neatly arranged on an interactive map. That map is totally customised to blend into the site, from type to colours, and graphically optimised to present data that is relevant to you — the centre, scale, display type, etc. have been preconfigured automatically.

Of course, you may be looking up dealers while traveling abroad, or on an older machine that does not support geolocation. When all else fails, we still offer intuitive controls to manually filter locations by type, country or specialty.

In a nutshell, that’s how we got Trodat’s stamp of approval. Next time you feel the urge to buy a stamp, you can surf safe in the knowledge we have your back — all around the web.

Photo shoot with Peter Rigaud Thomas Pamminger

2012February 20

Peter Rigaud, the noted photographer, has been a client of ours for ten years. Over time, we have created, refined and updated his brand and his website, accompanying changes in the Web. We have seen him grow more popular and demand for his work increase over time, but his brand and image have stayed true to their fundamental concepts. This gradual evolution of both medium and content is a rare creative opportunity in our fast-paced industry.

Today, we are pleased to announce a new website for Peter, one that takes his clean, simple brand even further by continuing to focus on white space, harmonious typography and straightforward navigation. Peter wanted the site to disappear from view, and to put his photos front and centre, which we achieved by focusing on a tight colour palette, and completely flattening the menus.

This new site is the latest step in a slow maturing process that started ten years ago when we designed Peter’s brand and developed his first portfolio. It marks the total removal of any proprietary plugins or legacy CMS, allowing the artist and his team to drive website updates personally, safe in the knowledge their content can be accessed on computers, laptops and smartphones.

Fluxiom ensures the photos always look their best, sharp and properly resized. This allows Peter to present his work in new and better ways, that rival professional print layouts. It also means the site is backed by a redundant CDN, ensuring images display quickly and reliably, wherever users are located.

The new website also introduces a news section, featuring recent shots, and allows visitors to look up images by face and place, which magazine editors on a deadline will no doubt appreciate. Artistic projects, such as « Please photograph … for me » also feature prominently, reminding us all that Peter’s brand and body of work go beyond the commercial.

Capturing Wollzelle

Having admired Peter’s work for so long, we invited him to visit our office in Vienna’s 6th district, and to capture the unique atmosphere of our traditional « Altbau ». Results of the experience can be seen below, and it suffices to say a great time was had by all…

We hope you enjoy discovering Peter’s website as much as we love working with him!

Happy New Year Christina Fried

2012January 01

On be halve of the whole “band” and myself: Have a wonderful new year 2012!

Designpreis Deutschland 2012 Nomination Thomas Pamminger

2011August 10

Wollzelle has been nominated for the Designpreis Deutschland 2012. Quoted as being “The Champions League of design” the competition claims to honor top international achievements that are already setting tomorrow’s standards today. The German Design Award is bestowed in recognition of outstanding achievements in the fields of product design and communication design.

Update 02/2012: Publication just arrived :)

Wollzelle is hiring a web developer Thomas Pamminger

2011April 14

Location: Vienna, Austria

You are passionate about designing websites, interfaces and web applications, and you have the relevant skills to bring your ideas to life?

We are looking for an on-site web developer to join our team. At Wollzelle you will be working across multiple clients and projects in an enthusiastic and fast paced work environment.

You will have the chance to work on our products and web applications as well as a diversity of creative projects for high-profile clients in the fashion, arts and entertainment industries collaborating with a creative team of designers and developers.

SKILLS & APTITUDES

• 3+ years experience with cross-browser web and web app development
• Deep knowledge in HTML, CSS and JavaScript (HTML5, CSS3 and all the good stuff)
• Experienced with major JavaScript libraries (eg. jQuery, Mootools, ...) and familiar with AJAX, JSON
• A strong value for web standards and user experience
• Experience using version control systems (SVN, GIT)
• Experience with social networking applications, APIs and mashups
• Strong communication skills (both in person and in writing)
• Exceptional problem-solving skills
• You enjoy working in a team-based environment
• Ability to work within a collaborative team environment wearing multiple hats
• A background in Rails development is helpful but not an essential
• Languages: English/(German)
• The job is offered either as full-time or part time position (minimum three consecutive 8 hour work days per week).
  
  If you think you are the one, please send your resume and work samples to jobs[at]wollzelle[dot]com. No agencies please!

Introducing Global Player online Thomas Pamminger

2011February 03

From its simple premise, « gaming belongs to the fabric of contemporary life », Global Player explores the thrilling world of casinos: art, food, fashion and travel lie at the core of a unique high-end experience.

We are delighted to announce that Casinos Austria International, the magazine’s parent company, entrusted us with the design and development of its online edition, which launched on January 25, at the ICE exhibit in London, along with its second print issue.

The online edition is a natural pendant to the printed reference magazine. It focuses on current trends and topics, and keeps readers abreast of what’s new and what’s hot as the year, and their own travels, unfold.

It was, therefore, very much designed with the mobile experience in mind, and has been specially enhanced for iPhone use.

Once added added to the user’s home screen, the site behaves every bit like a native « App », with the added benefit of requiring no installation and no downloads.

By blending seamlessly with the iPhone’s interface it offers a direct portal to the world of international entertainment — with interesting articles to boot. On the plane, on the train, at the hotel: anywhere a data connection is available.

The site is so up-to-the-minute that its administrative back-end, also developed in-house at wollzelle, has been specially designed for the iPad, enabling journalists and gaming personalities to publish articles, photos and titbits as events are unfolding in any of the group’s properties around the world! The decentralised newsroom is no longer a thing of the future.

To provide an optimal experience in any country around the world, the site is transparently served through a complex Content Delivery Network (CDN) that automatically picks the closest geographical source for the data. fluxiom takes care of streaming and broadcasting images as they arrive, so that they fit right into the magazine’s virtual pages at the right size and compression level.

Why not try out the site for yourself on your iPhone or computer? We would love to hear your comments. And if you like what you read, remember you can also interact on Facebook or download the latest issue.

Season's Greetings Thomas Pamminger

2010December 24

We wish you all a very happy, and very successful new year. For your trust, for your support, for being yourself, really, we thank you. May 2011 bring you all the felicity and success you expect from it.

Special thanks go out to those who were able to attend our open office, and join us in this afternoon of celebration.

Please note that our offices will be closed between December 23 and January 10, as we take a few days off with friends and family. We will keep a light on, however to ensure our servers and machines are all up and running smoothly.

Enjoy your holidays!

This is the I-Gucci GRAMMY widget Thomas Pamminger

2010December 01

Set to launch at the next GRAMMY® nominations event, December 1, the I-Gucci GRAMMY® widget is the official timekeeper to music’s biggest night. And it looks great to boot!

The widget designed by wollzelle allows music enthusiasts to keep an eye on the countdown to the big event, the 53rd GRAMMY® Music Awards, set to take place at 8 PM on February 13, 2011. Fast-dwindling seconds are turned into meaningful calendar data including days, hours and minutes, rolling by in real time.

And because the countdown to such a significant event comes with its fare share of milestones, reveals and cliffhangers, the widget also provides direct one-click access to the GRAMMY® and Gucci Twitter feeds, for short and timely updates right from the desktop.

Of course, all this functionality would not come from Gucci were it not rolled into one stylish package: the widget is styled after the two genuine I-Gucci watch models, in black or white, and comes with a full-featured virtual version of the physical timepiece’s face, featuring the time in LA and the user’s current location.

Detailed touches relying on both careful handcrafted design and cutting-edge web rendering technologies, such as carefully-applied distortions and shading, give the widget an unprecedented realism that is sure to make it stand out on screens worldwide.

Promotion of the widget on Gucci.com

The widget is available for Mac and PC and can be downloaded via Guccitimeless.com or directly from Apple.com or Yahoo!

Update June 2011

For the 54th Annual Awards the widget got a web based companion integrated directly on GRAMMY.com. Next to the countdown it features the two models of the exceptional collection of the new I-Gucci GRAMMY edition showing LA and local time and date.

St. Gilgen macht Schule — again Thomas Pamminger

2010November 30

In September 2009, we had the honour of working with the world-renowned St. Gilgen International School to craft a radically new and fresh approach to academic branding, that would reflect the school’s unique stance on quality education.

Encouraged by the success of its online platform, the school recently approached us with another challenge: translating their highly dynamic and fluid website into a printed brochure, making sure we took advantage of all this high-touch medium has to offer — permanence, high-resolution images, gorgeous type…

The resulting brochure retains the visual language we introduced with the site, starting with the strong, unabashedly traditional crest, and the constant layering of frames and perspectives.

By putting images in close spacial relationship, we enhance both their kinship and their dissonance, thereby inviting the reader to imagine the stories and events that make them go together.

Nothing, not even a multimedia website, replaces the vivid colours of the mind and we made sure the imagery both represented and suggested the reality of the school: there are no clip-arts or bromides to be found there!

While the medium may not be all the message, it certainly accounts for a lot of it. Therefore, the school’s core values of excellence and self actualisation are evidenced in the materials used for the brochure. Thick, tactile paper and highly saturated inks help the photos, drawings and type spring to life in ways that a vertical screen could never afford. This brochure is like the values it promotes: modern but deeply rooted in tradition and, most of all, here to stay!

We are delighted to see the new St. Gilgen aesthetic, which wollzelle originally devised as a primarily online language, progressively evolve into the school’s trade dress, the sure sign of a solid and flourishing brand that has found its one true voice.

Gucci Timeless Thomas Pamminger

2010November 23

Six months ago, almost to the day, in fact, we had the honour of introducing a fresh new site for Gucci Timepieces. Available in eight languages and built atop a lean and adaptable standards-centric platform, this site took the Gucci experience to a whole new level of beauty and fluidity.

Ring section

GucciTimeless.com is now growing even further, thanks to the launch of a brand new jewellery section, already featuring an impressive 246 items! New filters, such as materials, have been devised to make diving into this section as intuitive as ever. Furthermore, because the collection is so extensive, it allows users to browse by item, range or line, making it easy to find just the right piece for any occasion.

Bracelet section

Seamless integration with Gucci’s online store allows users to easily source genuine items and full e-catalogues in both Flash and PDF act as reference pieces for those who prefer a linear and complete shopping experience.

Of course, no update would be complete without a general tune-up, and every section of the site has benefited from a light sprinkling of diamond dust. For example, the store locator and events section now feature jewellery information, and the site’s homepage has been entirely ridden of Flash, thereby allowing for the lightweight display of bigger and crisper photographs.

As always, the site is built upon an advanced wollzelle-developed CMS, that allows for international management, CDN integration and the easy collection of reports and statistics on site and visitor behaviour. Our aim is to make it as easy and intuitive to update as it is to visit, enabling the great web and marketing teams at Gucci to keep up with the creative whirlwind that is the company!

Liked the project? Now get the book! Thomas Pamminger

2010November 15

Our parents would be proud: we’ve made the books! Well, one of our super-special clients has, at least, and we could not be more thrilled by this fun and unexpected surprise! You guessed it, the Wiener Hauskrankenpflege strikes again…

The book, which came out only last week, has been released by the Archiworld Co.. It focuses on signage systems from all around the world, and presents them in a way that is both accurate and fun to dive into, which makes it the perfect gift for your favourite designer or type nerd this season.

As you may remember from our last post, we accompanied the WHS in their recent move, and helped them design an original signage system, focusing on making their vast and impressive office fun and intuitive to navigate, for both staff and visitors.

This project entailed a mix of typography, design and interior architecture with a dash of psychology, building upon our various specialties and interests here at wollzelle. We are therefore all the more delighted it clicked and are looking forwards to discovering the dozen more that are presented in the book!

Our thanks to the WHS for their support, as always, and to the fine folks at Archiworld for thinking of us.

Joseph Binder Award 2010 Thomas Pamminger

2010November 11

Organised yearly since 1996 by Design Austria, our local equivalent to AIGA, the Joseph Binder Awards commemorate this influential figure of the XX^th century by recognising fresh inroads in the field.

Its international jury is comprised of well-known creatives and leaders of the industry, and the award covers the crème de la crème of graphic design, meaning illustration, information design and typography to the exclusion of multimedia and other less clearly defined works.

Today, we are delighted to announce we were selected amongst the 63 shortlisted projects, out of 447 entries submitted by this year’s 206 participants from all over the world — the United States, India, Croatia and beyond in addition to neighbouring countries such as Germany and Switzerland.

This means wollzelle is featured in the 2010 edition of the Awards book, a gorgeous booklet that condenses the best in design over the past two years.

Our winning project was the WHS Lagebericht 2008, an unusual publication combining the traditional fixings of an annual report with original photography and engaging copy whose release marked the first of many award-winning projects for our esteemed client.

The ceremony was held in Vienna’s Museumsquartier, and a great time was had by all, networking and discovering the work of our peers.

Our thanks go out to Design Austria and the Awards jury for thinking of us and and deeming our work worthy of such recognition. As always, our most heartfelt gratitude to the great team at the WHS for affording us such freedom in preparing their projects.

Going gold at Momentum 10 Thomas Pamminger

2010November 02

The Wiener Hauskrankenpflege and wollzelle share a rich history of breakthroughs and creativity. From paper to collaterals all the way through signage, it has been our pleasure and honour to push the boundaries of corporate communication.

How to store trophies in ball form

Over the years, we have had the honour of receiving accolades from our peers in the industry, and the pleasure to thus spread our client’s message further.

Continuing this long tradition, we are thrilled to announce we won a Gold award at Momentum 10 last week, for the aforementioned WHS Leitsystem, an innovative signage system we implemented at the WHS’s new headquarters, to guide visitors efficiently through a vast building, all the while keeping pressure and administrative jargon to a strict minimum.

And the winner is…

Needless to say, we are thrilled to receive our second Momentum award in two years, and in the very coveted “Aesthetics” category to boot. Competition was steep, and we do wish to grab the occasion to tip our hats to the other contestants.

Romina Iannuzzi, designer and Thomas Pamminger, CCO and CEO

Of course, no awards ceremony would be complete without a party, and a good time was had by all. We have published a short album on wollzelle’s brand new Facebook page, but, for the ultimate in suspense, here is the big reveal in glorious Technicolor:

Designers hold their breath…

To wrap up, we would like to thank our friends and partners at the WHS, without whom this project would not exist. We appreciate their continued support and their trust in letting us develop wild concepts for them. It means the world to us!

Gucci, meet the GRAMMY®s Thomas Pamminger

2010October 28

When a rich heritage in fashion meets its match in music, the results are bound to be special! Today, we are delighted to introduce the launch of a GRAMMY®-inspired special collection from our friends at Gucci Timepieces & Jewelry, in association with The Recording Academy.

Gucci’s signature marriage of cutting-edge design and uncompromising craftsmanship allows this fresh new line to embody everything the GRAMMY® stand for: sophistication and modernity, steeped in and informed by a rich cultural history. Furthermore, fashion and culture will walk hand-in-hand, as part of the proceeds from sales will profit the GRAMMY® Museum, to help restore and preserve threatened records from pivotal artists.

wollzelle, of course, was tasked with building the digital home of the new line, which is now live on guccitimepieces.com. Featuring the brand’s signature sliding timelines and standards-based platform, it builds upon the aesthetics of both partners, echoing the line’s bold new choices in materials and textures.

We hope you love what you see, and what you hear! As always, we welcome your comments but be quick, for something tells us there are further exciting things in the pipeline…