Native Creative: Crimetown takes on RI, SNL’s Dunkin Donuts Ad, and Much More

Here at Figmints we feast on the new, the outlandish, the inventive, and the eyeball-widening joys of the Internet. Every other week, we meet as a team to share the most interesting things we find online. Anything goes. It could be a well-designed website, a video or an article that gives us goosebumps, a new brand making waves, or something else entirely. So sit back, relax, and enjoy our pu pu platter of cool stuff from the world wide web.

Podcast: Crimetown (Via Gimlet Media)

Crimetown, a podcast about the crime-infested historical landscapes of cities across the United States, centers in on Providence, RI for its very first season. The show comes courtesy of Gimlet media and the creators of HBO’s The Jinx. Crimetown reminds us of the corruption that lurked (and lurks) within the shadows of major U.S. cities, shedding light on the teeming hotbeds of illicit activity thriving right underneath the nose of everyday life. If you’re remotely interested in history, criminology, or storytelling, check out Crimetown.

Advertisement: Allegro Yanks on Our Heart Strings With Their “English For Beginners” Ad

Allegro, a Polish-based auction website (think Amazon), launched a new advertisement which connects with and activates each and every feeling on our collective emotional spectrum in just under three minutes. As our day-to-day routines become more claustrophobic, crowded with an ever increasing stream of stimuli, it’s easy to lose our sense of what really matters. This charming ad portrays the deep human levels of simple transactions and prompts us to rethink the mundane moments as magical ones.

Article: How to Write So Vividly That Readers Fall in Love with Your Ideas (Via Copyblogger)

This article, written by Henneke Duistermaat, is calling all of us to write with sensory language that buzzes, bristles, and blooms in the minds of our readers. More specifically, she posits that the power of metaphor is underutilized on most blogs (especially corporate ones) and implores us to use them in their myriad forms to make our writing more memorable and meaningful. I’ve already read through this article twice and feel four times the richer (mentally rich, that is).

Video: How Unconventional Thinking Transformed a War-Torn Colombia

Advertising and altruism collided in Columbia as a revered advertising executive, Jose Miguel Sokoloff, was tasked to end a 52-year-old war that had claimed the lives of over 200,000. The goal of his campaign was to coerce the rebel forces to disband and demobilize so they could come home and enjoy Christmas with the people who truly matter to them. The results of the campaign are nothing short of astounding, serving as proof that hope and positive change are always a little closer than we think.

Product Spotlight: Palette Modular Controls for Faster Editing

Pallete is perfect for photo, video, or audio editing, allowing users to effortlessly rearrange their very own analog editing workflow. The various modules adhere together using magnets. In their own words, “tactile controls provide precise, intuitive control over your adjustments, allowing you to focus on your work. Customize Palette’s physical layout to fit your desktop and easily assign your most used functions to each module.”

Web Design: Seattle’s Space Needle

We’re suckers for fantastic scroll-based websites. The site for Seattle’s Space Needle is informative, engaging, and entertaining. Travel from the ground floor all the way into the stratosphere to give yourself a taste of what it’s actually like in person. Take your time to poke around and explore all of the wonderful nuance and detail this site has to offer.

Video: Designed By Apple in California

Transcript: “If everyone is busy making everything, how can anyone perfect anything? We start to confuse convenience with joy, abundance with choice. Designing something requires focus. The first thing we ask is what do we want people to feel? Delight. Surprise. Love. Connection. Then we begin to craft around our intention. It takes time… There are a thousand no’s for every yes. We simplify. We perfect. We start over. Until everything we touch enhances each life it touches. Only then do we sign our work. Design by Apple in California.”

Brand Spotlight: The Best and Worst Identities of 2016 (Via Brandnew)

As always, the folks over at Brand New are churning out fascinating brand identity analyses, and this time around, they’re rounding up the most notable projects of 2016. This list (part 1 of 6) features brands such as Subway, Mozilla, Kodak, Taco Bell, Mastercard, Uber, Instagram, and, my personal favorite of the bunch, the Premiere League, all of whom have undergone branding pivots within the year.

Article: How Westworld Dominated the Conversation on Social Media this Fall

Westworld, averaging 11.7 million viewers per episode, was comprised of deeply woven mysteries and clandestine plots, leaving a rapidly growing fan base ravenous for more the second an episode would finish. Even though the show is a masterpiece in it’s own right, one of the not so obvious reasons it garnered such success was the countless discussions and analyses happening on the show’s fringes. Friends would tweet each other about their outlandish theories, reddit was overflowing with conjecture, and the show’s dedicated website brought lost fans back up to speed before the next episode aired.

Video: Dunkin Donuts- SNL

Dunkin Donuts and SNL paired up for this hilarious skit portrays a day in the life of a D&D in Boston, MA.

That’s all we’ve got for you this week, tune in next, next week for another edition of Native to discover more cool things on the internet!