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First Prize

Paris, France — September 29, 2011

Ora-Ito.com wins first prize and audience choice award at La Toile Culturelle.

Last year, we created the website for Ora-ïto to mark the launch of his new brand of the same name. The brief was simple — to create a portfolio website with impact that brings to life Ora-ïto’s rich and diverse portfolio.

The homepage for Ora-Ito.com.

From hundreds of websites in France, La Toile Culturelle selected five to compete for the prize and Ora-Ito.com was among them. Each agency was given five minutes to present their work to a panel of judges. We are pleased to announce that we won first prize along with audience choice award.

The website was designed by Arnaud Mercier, creative directed by George Eid, interface developed by Sébastien Tran, application developed by Mubs Iqbal and project managed by Elise Agostini.

The win was bittersweet because just a few days earlier, Arnaud Mercier passed away unexpectedly. Arnaud founded AREA 17 along with George Eid and Ora-Ito.com was their final client collaboration together. Together, Arnaud and George worked to create a new design vernacular that is unique to the Internet and Ora-Ito.com is emblematic of their shared vision.

Work → Ora-ïto Website

See also
Ora-ito.com
Language of Love

San Francisco, CA — August 12, 2011

Luis Lavena becomes a Core Committer for the programming language known as Ruby

So there is this programming language called “Ruby” which was created by Yukihiro Matsumoto (Matz) in the early 90s. Since 2000, the English community around the language has exploded and developed a devoted following all over the world. Despite the world-wide love for Ruby, only a handful of non-Japanese developers have been granted permission to commit immediate modifications to the Ruby source code. Those users are referred to as “Core Committers” or simply “Core”. This group of people tasked with shaping and maintaining Ruby and it’s tools is small and concentrated, and we are happy to report that AREA 17’s own Technical Director, Luis Lavena has been officially added to the “Core” ranks.

Lavena has been an innovator in the realm of Ruby for some time now and has made large strides in its application, most recently as a builder of One-Click Ruby Installer for Windows. A specialist, in the truest sense of the word, Luis has been tapped to share his expertise in numerous conferences and interviews. Last month, he took some time to participate in EngineYard.com’s weekly podcast Cloud Out Loud to discuss his recent work and the ever-evolving digital landscape. Have a listen. Despite some big, technical words, Luis does well to keep the discussion On Rails.

Agency

See also
Cloud Out Loud
The Neighborhood Experience
New York City — May 17, 2011

See how a ‘neighborly’ approach to hyper-local can engage local residents, transform local economies and strengthen local communities.
Join us at Internet Week New York (HQ) on June 6th at 2pm for a panel where AREA 17 co-founder George Eid will speak on behalf of one of our newest products, Krrb.com.

In the last year, there’s been a mad dash towards hyper-localization. And it’s not just about finding your local pizza man. A few new startups are using hyper-local tech to recreate the neighborhood experience online in order to enable better interactions offline.

But what defines a neighborhood anyway? Given that neighborhoods are in constant change—spatially, socially, politically and economically—how can such an elusive concept get translated online? And to what end?

Join us for a discussion with pioneers of local tech to learn how they are uniquely overcoming the (very human) challenges of building these ‘neighborly’ online environments, hear how they are envisioning the future of connected neighborhoods and see why business and local government should be getting involved today.

Panelists:
- George Eid – Founder & CEO, Krrb.com
- Ann Baldinucci – Co-Founder & CEO, Nabewise.com
- Jordan Cooper – Co-Founder & CEO, Hyperpublic.com
- Richard Blakeley – Managing Editor, Thrillist.com
- Kathryn Fink – Community Development, Meetup.com
Agency

See also
Internetweek.com
This Week in Adweek

New York City — April 26, 2011

AREA 17 recently relaunched Adweek.com in conjunction with the newly re-designed magazine (by our friends at Pentagram). As part of the launch the Adweek staff honored us by featuring our agency in their cover story.

Andrew Ackermann, Rumsey Taylor, Sara Berks and Chris Spearpoint of AREA 17 NYC.

“The media business is in the midst of nothing less than one of the most dramatic instances of industrial transformation in our time,” says Michael Wolff, the newly appointed Editorial Director of Adweek. "This means there is both great opportunity and a great story to tell. Anybody who loves the media will find the new Adweek a riveting read.

The media business is in the midst of nothing less than one of the most dramatic instances of industrial transformation in our time

When Adweek approached AREA 17 late last year to redesign their website, their vision was ambitious: the confluence of industries meant that it no longer made sense to have three different brands (Adweek, Mediaweek and Brandweek) and that their brands and corresponding websites needed to be folded into one: the new Adweek.com. Luke Hayman of Pentagram was brought in to lead the the charge on the visual identity and magazine front.

The website needed to reflect the visual energy of the print magazine, while adding urgency and instant satisfaction. The resulting experience embraces the editorial vision with a variety of voices to tell the evolving story of the industrial revolution through a multitude of forms: charts, graphs, photos, columns, blogs and so forth.

As part of the relaunch, the editorial team honored us by featuring our agency as part of their cover story along with a brief video interview with Andrew Ackermann.

See also
adweek.com
Be neighborly

We’d like to introduce you to our latest product Krrb.com — an online venue made exclusively for local and in-person commerce. It’s a fun, friendly and safe place to buy, sell, rent, trade, borrow, give and be neighborly.