HP and the world of Toyrama

Valerie, creative director @ Arc Worldwide Singapore proudly sent me the link to their latest work: Toyrama. They’ve done an impressive job, creating a great, theatrical, setting around Peter Fowler’s Monsterism Island toys. But don’t get me wrong, the site isn’t just about Fowler’s characters. It’s also a good marketing tool to promote HP workstations for animators.

Since realize I’m not the best person to evaluate the site from an art direction point of view (althought as consumer I find it excellent) I’d like to share with you my view on the project as a marketer. The goal of HP with this campaign is to tell animators they’ve a new powerful machine for them. It’s a piece of technology, but they have decided to stay away from the traditional way of presenting such products that usually focusing on highlighting the computer’s performance with a lot of big words for techies. Animators are artist, this is why I like the fact that HP decided to impress them using their language: a beautiful site, which, for its quality, it’s able to generate word of mouth among digital artists in the blink of an eye.

Of course, we are in the Web 2.0 era, so on the site there’s also a call for user generated content. But again, this is done in a smart way. If you’re a professional artist you can submit your own stopmotion animation/film and run for the big prize: not an HP computer (that your money could buy) but rather a trip to USA and a tour in DreamWorks Studios.

On the other side, if you’re just a curious visitor and/or a creative wannabe (like most of us, probably you can also have fun on the site, playing with a series of tools that allow you to create your own homemade animation.
Of course, to fully experience and enjoy the site, you need a good computer. And this reminds me that I have to order some additional memory for my Mac before starting my new career in digital art