Less Rain is looking for a versatile Flash developer for full-time employment in our Berlin office with a solid background in object oriented web development and in-depth experience in AS3. We are seeking a motivated and confident problem solver with an eye for interaction design and a passion for web technologies.

You will be working in an international team of experienced developers in Berlin. Your role involves working closely with our front-end designers and the developer team to implement projects ranging from mini-sites to large scale consumer & corporate websites. You will be working on projects such as:

• http://www.redbullsoapboxracer.com/
• http://www.alfaromeogiulietta.co.uk/
• http://www.passage-experience.com/
• http://www.redbullflightlab.com/

Requirements

• 3+ years experience in Flash development and solid Actionscript 3 skills
• A feel for good interaction design and usability
• Experience in working with frameworks such as PureMVC or Flex
• Experience with Flash integration technologies (XML, Remoting, Webservices)
• Experience in related technologies and APIs is an advantage (i.e. Papervision 3D, Facebook API…)
• English speakers are welcome!

Please send your CV and portfolio to Thomas Meyer.
We can only accept applications via e-mail.

For further information about Less Rain visit:
http://www.lessrain.com
http://blog.lessrain.com
 

After almost a year in development, we finally went live with www.costanavarino.com, and immediately got ‘Site of the day’ in www.thefwa.com.

We have been working on the branding of this prime holiday destination since 2 years now, arguably the biggest branding exercise Less Rain had ever gone through. To this end we have enlisted the help of our friends at Praline

The website aims to collect information from all areas of knowledge related to Costa Navarino - history, flora, fauna, traditions, food - and prepare the visitor for the wealth of experience Costa Navarino has to offer.

The site has been built in a totally dynamic way, with full screen content and a variety of AS3 animations connecting all pages and interface elements in a seamless fashion. It features a computational soundtrack, using a small number of samples to construct 25 different sound scapes, saving a great deal of download time.

The Red Bull Soapbox Racer has been showered with awards this week. After winning gold twice at the Davey Awards, we’ve also won gold at the London International Awards in the Online Games category - ahead of Dentsu, Tribal DDB and Sapient. Soapbox Racer is currently also nominated at the British Interactive Media Awards.

Well the title says it all, our Red Bull Soapbox Racer won Gold in the Food and Beverages Category and Best in Show in the Events Category at this year’s W3 Awards.

Following our “shock and awe” presentation at the Flex User Group Berlin in August, we’re invited to present the Red Bull Soap Box Racer at the Adobe Flex User Group in Hamburg on the 20th of October.

Check the flexughh announcement for details. Thanks to Fabian and the flexughh for hosting us!

We’ll be presenting our new favorite project (you guessed it - the Red Bull Soapbox Racer) at Flex Labs organized by the Adobe Flex User Group Berlin tonight.

If you’re in Berlin you should sign up to the User Group here

From my own experience - it’s not just about the Flex framework but all things related to the Flash Platform and RIA in general.

Red Bull Soapbox - kids of all ages in self-made cars, racing down a steep hill. An extremely popular event, held throughout the year across the globe. The cars are powered by gravity only, no engines allowed but all dreams and colors.

And now it’s online! All of it, the cars, the race, the place to meet and challenge your friends. We call it Red Bull Soapbox Racer and racing you will.

Race first, think later

One single click on “Race now” and you find yourself on top of a steep road, pointing downhill. While the countdown is running, please be reminded that the game is based on a realistic physics simulation and you should not not not smash into one of those nice obstacles. Do collect cans for an extra speed boost and don’t forget the spanners. With ultra speed comes maybe damage.

If you didn’t win instantly the first time, maybe it was the wrong track. We have tracks for everybody, Wildwest, Night Ride, Turkish Riviera, Waterland, Alpenglück - many more will be added. Or was there a problem with the car?

Another car, another race

Red Bull Soapbox Racer lets you build your own car in 3D. Just draw the outline with your mouse. It’s really that simple and everything you draw will have an effect later in the game. The rounder the wheels the better, reconsider materials, use more stickers, paint, use colors, use more colors than your opponents, use every tool you have at least once. And winning races will get you even more of those. (THERE IS A NAILGUN!)

Give it some love, cars will be rated by who-knows-what so make sure there is no doubt. You may also browse through all existing cars for some inspiration.

The Challenge

After tinkering and test driving for a while there comes a point in time where you are quite sure to have the best car ever built on this planet. Challenge your friends! Invite them by E-Mail or simply click on the name of your long-time-rival in the so-called friends list.

A challenge works like this: Start the challenge and you have three attempts to race your best time. After that your opponent will be notified and offered three rounds to beat your time.

And after that, there is the highscore list for everyone to see.

Steeper, faster, harder

It’s even better to challenge somebody on your own surprise track. Give it a try, it’s simpler than building cars. Draw with your mouse where the street should go, done. Then, if you like, adjust the downward slope with some gusto and remember the guideline: The steeper the faster. Place obstacles and power-ups as you see fit, some recommend at least one can of Red Bull.

Red Bull Soapbox Racer is the latest addition to our creative online communities. Make your race times heard, we sure will try to beat you. See you on the circuit!

Related Posts:

Red Bull Flugtag Flightlab
Developing Red Bull Flugtag Flightlab

Being the company’s only system administrator is not easy. Surely, you have the power to control each and every electron which is quite cool. This ultimate digital power on the one hand dooms you to be irreplaceable on the other hand. That’s when lyrics like “Wouldn’t it be nice if I were redundant / then I could roam all the world” come into my mind. However, the trend leads to keeping of admins in a species-appropriate environment: pairwise. Until species’ protection gets in here, it seems as if I can stuff backpacker world tours. The reason is quite obvious: Servers tend to sudden death and don’t have the wishful ability to reawaken by themselves. If they had, they were cats. The interested reader might chip in with the nearly complete GSM-coverage. Right: Nearly. Ever tried to tweet your thoughts while crossing the Sahara desert or did a complete server update on your way to the top on mount Kilimanjaro? You probably won’t enjoy that much. Hence, I need to add “take yet another extra WalMart bag to carry notebook and mobile satellite receiver as well as an emergency engine with a diesel tank with you” on my personal list. Who ever carried 50 gallons of fuel on his back knows what I will have to expect and how much fun this won’t be.

I would go so far as to say that even trans-atlantic flights, a welcomed entertaining offline break for the average Facebook consumer, turn out to be my personal perfect horror trip. Arriving at the airport, some uniformed men suddenly appear and ask me why I do carry a running mobile satellite receiver with me. Surprisingly, they are not satisfied with the most obvious answer: I am an administrator who takes his job seriously. Moreover, they tell me an outrageous story of world-wide terrorism and try to explain the world in a simple yet strange way.

Furthermore, they even force me to shut up and down – the former meaning my objections, the latter my equipment – and have nerve to call me paranoid. Anyway. I am an admin, not a rebel. So I conform and quickly rush through the security check. Some never ending 15 minutes later, I take a seat in the plane. But the worse part of the trip is just about to begin. Innocently I sit in that plane, trying to connect to my servers which means bring both laptop and mobile satellite receiver online to bring this frustrating offline period to an end. The stewardesses, usually known for their never-ending smile, suddenly freak out and for a second I feel like George Clooney realizing that he is in a vampire temple in disguise.

From one second to another their smiles turn into grotesque faces and from one second to another there’s a bunch of hyperventilating stewardesses yelling at me to turn off my phone and notebook because this ought to be forbidden. Please. For me, it’s yet another fake world conspiracy trying to cut the magic band between an admin and his servers. Okay. Got me. Terrorists win. However, I’m still an admin, not a rebel. So I conform again. I decide to wait until the maximum altitude has been reached and brought me as close as possible to my favorite satellite. This takes me another 45 endless minutes. Watching the latest Disney movie doesn’t help either.

But having reached the summit I quickly resume my sessions and connect me to my servers. Everything is working smoothly. Unfortunately, the vampires return – with some reinforcements in tow. It’s the gentlemen from the cockpit telling me the reason that our plane is going to hit the ground very soon would be my internet connection. Again, I am doomed to the agony of being offline because of the selfish behavior of a few. To tell the truth, it’s just their lack of not being able to fly a plane without all that blinking and computing electronic helpers that actually do all the work while the so-called pilots just try to be good-looking and touch down all the time. Anyway. If you don’t keep your admin in a species-appropriate environment, his personal holiday destination look-up procedure has a quite limited framework.

Edgar Martins (portuguese photographer, grown up in Macau, China) creates interesting views on uninteresting scenes. We saw his exhibition in Lisbon, Portugal. Soon his work can be seen in Berlin (November 2009, at Caprice Horn Gallery).

A must-see!

©photography by E.Martins

Related links:
Edgar Martins
Caprice Horn Gallery

“The main goal of the Integra project is to create a new piece of software for composing and performing music with live electronics. The environment will be tested in real life thanks to substantial new commissions and an effort to modernise existing repertoire that currently uses obsolete technology. Furthermore, the project is an exciting opportunity to bring together research centres and new music ensembles from across Europe.”  - Integralive.org

We’re very excited to be involved in UI/UX design and Graphic design for this new music software development project. There is a news post here about our involvement. Have a look at the whole site for more information on the groundbreaking work that Integra are doing.

Some very interesting illustrations made by Evangelos Papazoglou, inspired by handmade signs of a bygone time. Rooted in culture and spoken language but seen from a contemporary point of view, these illustrations do not try to conceal the fact they are handmade, but rather use it as a feature, creating a strange resonance.

http://calligraphic.wordpress.com

i just got link from a friend of mine who is subletting an interesting studio space in Berlin Mitte click image to see more pictures