Fisher Communications Centennial Interactive Flash Timeline
Upon their 100th anniversary, Fisher Communications—owners of Portland ABC affiliate KATU—has created a microsite with an interactive Flash timeline highlighting the company’s accomplishments.
It’s an interesting design, similar to the Oregon Baseball History piece that we created several years ago. Two notes: one, there is way too much copy in the Events column. Either cutting down on the content or including a scrollbar would’ve been good for the user interface (UI).
And second, the anniversary logo could be improved by omitting the years. Given the black background, the dates become imbued with funereal significance, as if to mourn the passing of a beloved public figure. Subtracting 100 from 2010 is pretty easy math for most people to do. The word “century”—instantly impressive—is sandwiched and buried. Make it bigger and give it room to breathe.
“Celebrating a Century” might be a better tagline: “service” and “innovation” are buzzwords that many, many businesses try to co-opt as their own distinguishing characteristics. These terms have lost any value they once held. Push them down into body copy or drop them altogether.
Rite Aid: With Us, It’s Personal… and Fattening
Yes, that’s actually their horrible tagline (sans the “fattening”), dreamt up by a creative director who watches too many procedurals on CBS. Nobody considered that this tagline comes across as threatening rather than reassuring? It conjures up Charles Bronson or Clint Eastwood more than it does a matronly pharmacist who knows your name before inspecting your driver’s license.
In any event, it seems that Rite Aid’s personal commitment is to making or keeping you overweight. Why else would they offer Wellness+ Rewards card deals like these:
We spotted this over Labor Day Weekend at the Rite Aid at North Lombard and Denver. We didn’t check to see if there were similar discounts on marshmallow peeps or cases of Coors.
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