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Oh, Hello...
...I didn't see you there. My name is Andrew Kennedy. I make stuff. Since I was young, I loved to take things apart to see how they worked, then put them together in new and interesting ways. Several expensive electronics met their doom in this manor.
I spent countless hours exploring everything our family’s first computer had to offer. I would spend all night MSPainting images or creating MIDI sequences. The computer was really my first major creative outlet.
While attending design school, I excelled in craft, the physical construction of a project. Package design was a particular favorite of mine. When it came to creating a digital project, I took the same, careful approach. To me, it’s all the same. Respect the design, and stay true to the concept.
Ask me, and I’ll tell you that nothing is impossible. Sometimes, you need a fresh approach to achieve the unachievable. Just keep a positive mental attitude, and the wildest idea can become reality.
Also, I like bikes. I thought the picture would have made that clear.
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Andrew Kennedy
Creative Developer
Download full resumeExperience //
Droga5
/ New York, NY / Apr 2010—Present / Tech Lead /
I came to Droga5 to provide some much needed technical expertise. In addition to front-end/back-end development and maintaining
a few AOR sites, I provided feasibility checks on projects before selling through to the client, and answering any questions.Crispin Porter + Bogusky
/ Boulder, CO / Sept 2007—Apr 2010 / Interactive Developer /
I began my career at Crispin as an Intern, and moved into a full time position in the studio. After my first year, I stepped into development
to help round out my skill set. Over the past two years, I’ve worked on interactive projects for some of the world’s biggest brands, including
Microsoft, Volkswagen, American Express, Burger King, Dominos, Old Navy, and Best Buy.Awards //
Whopper Sacrifice
/ 2009 Andy Awards - Gold & Silver / 2009 One Show - Silver / 2009 CA Interactive Annual /
2009 CA Award of Excellence / 2009 Grand Clio - Interactive / 2009 D&AD Yellow Pencil / 2009 Cannes - Titanium & Gold Lion /
2009 London International Awards, Grand & Gold - Digital /Technical Skills //
Expert
/ ActionScript 2—3 / JavaScript / jQuery / HTML5 / XHTML / XML / CSS[3] /
Proficient
/ PHP / MySQL / Wordpress / Drupal / SSH / Ruby [on Rails] / Subversion /
Software
/ Eclipse IDE / Flash / Flex [FlashBuilder] / Textmate / Charles / Coda / Terminal /Photoshop / Illustrator / Fireworks / AfterEffects / Google Sketchup / Mac OS X / Windows / Linux /
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Droga5.com
The redesign of Droga5.com needed to do justice to the big ideas the company is known for, adhere to emerging web standards, create a system for easily updatable content, and become a presentation tool. The project was years in the making, and a very ambitious undertaking for an internal project.
In the design and planning process, I helped to shape the idea from a technology perspective. Several prototypes helped to mold the ID and design of the site. While the idea was still in design phase, I started working on a customized CMS. It was built from the ground up with mobile in mind. Having worked in advertising for as long as I have, I understand that things can tend to be a little last minute, so the CMS is flexible enough to edit the site on the way to a client pitch.
The centerpiece of the site is the fullscreen HTML5 (Flash for older browsers) video player. It also integrates seamlessly with Bing Maps, and allows for resumé submission. Use of third party services such as experimental analytics, font replacement, and an Amazon powered CDN were also part of the build.
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Whopper Sacrifice
The idea was simple: People love the Whopper more than they love their Facebook friends.
Whopper Sacrifice was a Facebook app that rewarded you for un-friending people. Once you deleted 10 friends, you would receive a voucher for a free Whopper from Burger King. Unfortunately, Facebook felt the application didn't fit with the “spirit” of Facebook, so they disabled much of the application's features.
The project makes a great case study, as it was the first time a branded Facebook app became so popular. As a result, Facebook has been more willing to work with companies when it comes to building apps. I was responsible for building the Flash-based interface for the application, including working with vendors to connect to the Facebook services, and integrate the sacrificial animations.
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jQuery Video Player
The custom video player created for Droga5.com needed to do one important thing -- to look and function the same across all browsers while using forward-facing technologies associated with modern browsers.
From the player, I’ve created a custom jQuery plugin. Relying on jQuery, jQuery UI, Modernizr, and SWFObject, the plugin allows for very simple implementation of multiple video players on a single webpage. (Note: This site is using the plugin right now.) When HTML5 video is not supported, or the browser can’t read a particular format, a Flash 10 video player is provided that uses ExternalInterface to communicate with the HTML/JS controls. The plugin is easy to use with minimum knowledge of jQuery, and requires at minimum an h264 format video to work across all browsers.
To show the video player off, here's a video of a dog drinking from a sprinkler.
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Million OKC
Million is a project that rewards students’ excellence in school with a limited-functionality prepaid cellphone, at no cost to the student’s family. MillionOKC.com is a simple informative website that provides details on the program.
The previous site (Million NYC) had been built in Flash, and was not easily updatable. For the OKC refresh, an HTML5 site was built, making use of the canvas tag. Millions of floating orbs build a trail around the page tying the content together.
The site was built on an extremely tight timeline, with virtually no budget. The result is a simple site that’s fun to look at, all while you’re helping kids.
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New Museum: George Condo Quotes
The campaign to promote the George Condo exhibit at the New Museum was an integrated campaign. Outdoor and subway posters contained a bit.ly link that directed you to the promotional webpage for the exhibit. There, users were instructed to post their own one word quotes to Twitter using the #GeorgeCondo hashtag.
We then ran a Twitter search against the hashtag and collected tweets that collected a single word along with the hashtag, as well as counting re-tweets. Any tweets that didn’t match the criteria were thrown out. The tweets were collected into a simple text file and rotate through the poster, below the New York Times quote. The most popular tweets were counted, and the original tweeter would receive free admission to the exhibit.
The site also makes use of CSS3 font embedding, as well as a Flash backup for older browsers.
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MindEveon.com
MindEveon.com is a portfolio site for Art Director Yvonne Cheng. The site uses a Drupal backend to allow Yvonne to update the site on her own. Yvonne provided the designs, and I translated them to the pixel, and walked her through how to add and update the pages.
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Old Navy Weekly
The Old Navy campaign stars the Supermodelquins, to convey the affordable fashion available at Gap's value chain. The website acts as a digital version of the weekly mailer, but adds an interactive game element in the form of hidden coupons. When a user performs a certain action (click on a squirrel as it runs by the screen, re-arrange shirts alphabetically by color, etc.), a coupon ranging from 5% to $75 off will be available for download, email, and printing.
The challenge presented by this site was to create a whole new site each week. The site was broken into a main swf, and several modular swfs that could be arranged according to new designs. Additionally, users were able to figure out how to cheat the system. By monitoring the boards, we were able to discover logical flaws and patch them up.
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I'm a PC: Times Square
Windows was a broken brand. A brilliant advertising campaign wasn't going to immediately right the ship. I'M A PC was the first step in the process of changing public opinion. Users were invited to participate in the advertising campaign. The campaign wasn't designed to move machines, just to remind the public that there were a ton of PC users out there, and they didn't all look like John Hodgman.
The centerpiece of the launch was a Times Square billboard that would put users’ 10 second videos in the billboard. Street teams were dispatched to Times Square to record pedestrian videos. Countless hours, including a 3-day straight run, were spent in AfterEffects, building and rendering files for the 100+ ft. video screens.
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BK Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy
Burger King paired up with Seth MacFarlane and YouTube to produce original content. The result was “Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy.” A branded YouTube page was designed and created. Video banners were also created to drive traffic to the site, as well as a Google Gadget that would bring in the most recently released videos. To encourage the audience to participate, we created a dubbing tool to allow users to record their own audio tracks to go over select segments from the series. Video dubs were voted on and ranked in lists for both best and worst dubs.
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Best Buy Home Theater
For the 2009 holidays, Best Buy wanted to show off the variety of HDTV's sold online and in the store. Best Buy Home Theater showcased five different T.V. sets, accompanied by 360° views, store availability via Best Buy's remix API, and Twitter integration for the Twelpforce campaign.
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BK Whopper Bar
Following the success of campaigns for Burger King centering around the Whopper, a new concept restaurant was introduced that focused entirely on the Whopper. BK's Whopper Bar carries all versions of the Whopper ever introduced, and a few other Burger King staples. BKWhopperBar.com is an information site for the limited chain, focusing mainly on information in the form of press releases.
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