Photo compliments of Nathan’s iPhone:

Thanks Wired!

Headed toward the Cultural District? Looks like the Convention Center and Grant Street Transportation Center are your best bets! Here’s a peek at the ParkPGH website we built:

Nathan arrived early on Friday, tshirts in hand. As you can see, he was surrounded by men in business suits. Our noble leader remained unfazed, however, because Heather had prepped him well. If anyone accused him of being underdressed, Nathan would stick to the plan: either flash his fancy watch or shrug and point to the press. And then mumble something about nose hair…

The sun shining through the American flag was a symbol of hope that maybe President Obama would score some new threads that day and spread the message of innovation to Americans everywhere. Or he’d just wear them around the White House and get lots of compliments from Malia and Sasha on his newfound fashion sense. We’re cool with that.

Overall, the President’s speech was enjoyable. He made some supportive remarks (mostly under 140 characters that we suspect were conveniently written to be Tweeted): “The stuff we made, made America” and “We are inventors, we are makers, we are doers.” But after the closing statement, it was time to deliver.

Nathan caught President Obama’s eye in the crowd. The President was probably wondering why the tall dude in the button-up shirt was thrusting a handful of fabric in his direction. Nathan explained that the tshirts were made by local artists, and Obama mouthed “Deeplocal.”

You can see the Deeplocal lettering from the press side. Trib Total Media has an awesome photo* of Obama, Nathan, and the Deeplocal tshirt.

*that we can’t post here due to copyright protections. It’s okay- we support photographers.

The Secret Service quickly zero-ed in on the action, and snatched away the tshirts for clearance. They took down Nathan’s information, and assured him that the President would actually be keeping the shirts.

Way to go Nathan! Mission accomplished.

Our involvement in the Toyota Prius concept bike has been a secret until today, when it was announced on Prollyisnotprobably.com. We recently became the envy of Pittsburgh’s bike community when John Prolly spent the day at Deeplocal offices to discuss the project.

While I can’t say anything new here that isn’t already on John’s blog post, I can tell you that the project involves hacking a bike helmet (which we’ve been doing a lot of lately) and partnering with Parlee Cycles (soon we’ll travel to their office in Boston). As a team that largely commutes to work by bike, we were excited to take this futuristic, Minority Report-esque challenge on. Leading the team is Matthew Pegula, Deeplocal’s Lead Engineer, a committed bike commuter, and (as you’ll see from the photo below, taken at CMU) a reincarnated famous roboticist.

Although we were up against some tough competition at this year’s Webby Awards, our Chalkbot project still managed to take two Webbys, for “Best Integrated Media Plan” and “Online Campaigns.”

So who gives out Webby Awards and why do they matter? The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences select the nominees for both awards in each category, as well as the winners of the Webby Awards. Members of the organization include “musicians Beck and David Bowie, Internet inventor Vint Cerf, political columnist Arianna Huffington, Real Networks CEO Rob Glaser, “The Simpsons” creator Matt Groening, R/GA Founder and Chairman Robert Greenberg, Virgin Atlantic Chairman and Founder Richard Branson, and The Weinstein Company Co-Founder Harvey Weinstein. Members also include writers and editors from publications such as The New York Times, Wired, Details, Fast Company, Elle, The Los Angeles Times, Vibe, and WallPaper.”

For Deeplocal, a small studio in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, this is a pretty amazing group of people to be recognized by. Of course, we had amazing partners in Wieden+Kennedy Portland and Standard Robot Company- truly a collaborative effort that resulted in an industry-changing campaign and the chance to introduce ourselves to the advertising world.

I’m pleased that the range of work has become increasingly diverse, and this year was no exception. Screen printed posters hung alongside with digital projections, along with shelves of all sorts of design artifacts. I’m also very pleased to announce that both of Deeplocal’s featured pieces—Nike LIVESTRONG Chalkbot, and the 2009 Pittsburgh bike map—received awards of distinction at the show. For me, it’s a nice message of acknowledging both high-tech interactive work and more traditional printed work.