Less Rain has been busy doing an In-House project with Artist & Illustrator Renee Melo from Milan, to brighten up our very white studio walls.

Using the Less Rain colour palette of blue’s and yellow as a main colour theme, Renee and our Art Director Arnaldo have come up with a vibrant set of weather-related designs. Here’s a sneak peek so far!

Inspired by the RSA Animate video, we decided to have a R&D day where our team could experiment with different technologies. We loved playing with the Xbox Kinect so, as a personal project, just in time for our Christmas Party our developers created an interactive installation called ‘Snow’.

Snow is an immersive and fun experience where snowclouds follow you around on screen and softly drop snowflakes onto your body.

The project was developed in openFrameworks (c++) using addons such as ofxOpenCV for image processing, ofxBox2d for the clouds behaviour, ofxKinect and the libfreenect driver for body tracking. Many thanks to Microsoft for bringing this technology to market, and thanks to the openframeworks and openkinect communities for their support.

Qualcomm's Dream Device, looking somewhat familiar.

This year Less Rain is the only German agency to win a coveted Webby Award, aka "The Internet Oscar". Nominated from almost 10.000 entries, our Red Bull Soapbox Racer won the People's Voice Award in the Game or Application category. Thanks again to everyone who voted!

Andreas Lutz wins the only other Webby going to Germany, in the Student category for his portfolio "Because clicking is so 90s!". Congratulations!

Following the nominations at the Webbys, FITC and The One Show, the Red Bull Soapbox Racer is now also nominated at the Clios 2010 in the category Beverages / Non-Alcoholic. We are pitted against the Coca Cola Happiness Machine by Definition 6, a nice example of a viral video done right:

Following the recent nominations we are now competing for a Webby as well, in the coveted category Interactive Advertising / Game or Application. And again, we need you! Please vote for the Red Bull Soapbox Racer at the People's Voice Award for a chance to win a Good Deed of the Day-Medal.

Update: Soapbox Racer wins the People's Voice Award. Thank you, people!

Our friend Hawken just released his first iPhone app, Facemakr, and apparently I'm in it. So if you ever wanted to create a portrait based on my likeness, now you can!

Julius Wiedemann and Rob Ford from the FWA teamed up for TASCHEN Verlag to present you with "sixty success stories from clients' briefings to final projects" - and two of them are ours. Both our Red Bull Flugtag Flight Lab and Vandalsquad feature as examples for a successful investment online.

You can flip through the entire book here, or read more at the TASCHEN website. The Internet Case Study Book is out in April 2010.

The Red Bull Soapbox Racer just got voted Website of the Month at The FWA, and is also Website of the Day at Adobe.

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

“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.

Our now sadly defunct-because-we’re-sold-out online shop, The Less Rain Super Center, is featured in iCatching, a new book by Singaporean publisher Page One.