typestorming

St. Gilgen macht Schule Christina Fried

2009September 29

The St. Gilgen International School offers a novel perspective on education by immersing students in a unique setting, the typically Austrian village of St. Gilgen, and helping them shape their minds and personalities through repeated interaction with this pristine environment, as well as the thriving community it fosters.

Much like St. Gilgen, the School, and St. Gilgen, the village, are immersive experiences, we at wollzelle wanted the institution’s website to draw the visitor in a unique, interactive, self-paced adventure. Building upon powerful cutting-edge technologies like Flash 10 (including the new 3D API) and HTML 5, the site allows the visitor to experience for himself the sights and sounds of this jewel of the Wolfgangsee. At St. Gilgen, the school is the village, and the village is the school.

The project takes roots in the output of photographers, painters and writers whose works were instrumental in crafting the school’s original vision. We set up a fluid creative process, around a dialogue between the school’s founder, a renowned architect by day, and wollzelle’s creative think-tank. Throughout our brainstorming sessions, we defined the ideal visitor experience, and balanced our client’s dream with our own views on design and interactivity.

The result of this unique process has little to do with your average business web site. Instead, we like to think of it as an art project, an experience, a true reflection of what we felt during our own stays at St. Gilgen, of the school’s latent and patent views on education. Much like the school allows students to develop and expand their minds over time, the site evolves and progressively deepens, the longer the visitor explores it.

Creating a truly immersive experience requires skilful blending of images and sound, which we achieved in two complementary ways. Throughout the web site, context-appropriate sound effects, taken live at St. Gilgen, allow the visitor to associate a sound, a feeling, with the environment they find themselves in. For example, the visit of the school is accompanied by sound-bites taken from classrooms or the school’s central plaza. Of course, we have taken image and sound all the way to video as well, by filming a special school tour, headed by the webmaster himself. This sequence walks prospective parents and students throughout the school, as well as throughout the school’s philosophy and values.

Unlike many educational institutions, St. Gilgen opened its doors wide, allowing us to delve deep into its history, interview current students and highlight the many little architectural details that give the place its soul. Indeed, History is also a key part of the school’s personality. Did you know, for example, that the administration building once was the summer residence of Marie Ebner-Eschenbach?

Visitors in a hurry can access a convenient PDF page, from which all documentation, forms and, generally speaking, printed matter related to the school, can be downloaded in a single click. This synoptic view gives immediate access to application procedures, learning processes, teacher bios and more, thereby replacing the need to refer to a bulky paper brochure.

Music is part of the site’s quintessential experience. The theme song, typical of the salzkammergut, was composed by local musician Hubert von Goisern.

The St. Gilgen International School web site was a challenge to imagine and create. We hope you find it as enjoyable to visit as we did the school itself, and, as always, are looking forwards to hearing your thoughts.

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Mona Lisa: ageing creatively Christina Fried

2009September 22

Soziales Netzwerk is a regular publication from the Wiener Hauskrankenpflege, one of wollzelle’s oldest and most esteemed clients.

Earlier this year, a good deal of our energies were focused on putting together issue 14 of the magazine, tackling the sensitive and always-inspiring question of graceful ageing. This last issue featured one of Sacha Goldberger’s photographic masterpieces on the cover, and, we are honoured to say, drew rave reviews from both professionals and the public at large.

When preparing issue 15, which went off the presses in June of this year, we decided to try a complementary approach, one that would build upon the strengths of the previous cover and reassert its key message. This time, however, we wanted to try our hand at a different, free-form medium, to announce the next part of the magazine’s series on ageing.

Indeed, after Ageing gracefully, this issue is all about Ageing creatively. To symbolise creative ageing, we focused on the one person, the one icon, that has remained fresh and inspiring throughout the centuries: the Mona Lisa. Even though its flesh-and-blood model is long gone, both the portrait and the woman have kept their aura of genius and mystery very much intact.

Romina, our graphic designer, found a painting of her “Nonna” and we decided to centre this cover around this family portrait directly inspired by the original Mona Lisa: a discrete reference to the world-known icon, and, in itself, an assertion of its humanity. We took the romantic figure out of its frame and into a world of graffiti-inspired symbols of life, crafting a cover that blurs the line between a classic portrait and illustration. Indeed, the illustrative quality of the cover complements the portrait’s finished and polished feel, suggesting the infinity of worlds one can create for oneself — at any age.

From there, we only had to design 32 inside pages around this original concept, and voilà Issue 15 was ready for the printers!

As always, we hope you enjoy reading this inspiring issue as much as we did putting it together for you. Extra cheers and gratitude go to Evelyn Weismüller, CEO of the Wiener Hauskrankenpflege, and her team for giving us carte blanche, and allowing us to contribute to this wonderful NPO.

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Art & Copy Thomas Pamminger

2009September 08

“The frightening and most difficult thing about being what somebody calls a creative person is that you have absolutely no idea where any of your thoughts come from really and especially you don’t have any idea about where they’re going to come from tomorrow.” — Hal Riney

Art & Copy is a film about advertising and inspiration. Directed by Doug Pray.

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