Guten Tag!

I am Derek Kuschel and welcome to my online portfolio. I’ve selected a few projects that I have worked on over the past couple years to display. Also, check out my photography work if you like pretty pictures.

Carhartt - Relax it's Tough

At RingSide we partnered with Team Detroit to create the Interactive portion of Carhartt's first integrated national campaign. We designed and developed a site to expand on the experience of the broadcast spot. Part of the enhanced online experience is a sweepstakes component. Carhartt fanatics can submit their favorite Carhartt product story and are entered to win free gear.

I was the lead on the design, and also headed up the production team.

45" HD Multi-Touch Table

I designed and built this 45” Multi Touch Table. It uses a HD video projector that lights up a acrylic screen across the top. Using infrared light and a high speed video camera, that I modified, the computer can follow a users touch and feed it down to the presentation layer of an application. I am currently creating new and exciting interfaces. Using a number of technologies such as Adobe AIR, Microsofts XNA platform, and the Unity 3D video game engine to explore the exciting new world of Natural User Interfaces. This table was on display at the 2010 Maker Faire Detroit at the Henry Ford Museum, produced by Make Magazine / O’Rilley Books. I was honored to receive the Editors Choice award for my work from Make Magazine.

Compuware Mainframe Innovations

Team Detroit and Compuware worked with my team from RingSide Creative and I to develop the launch site for for Compuware’s new mainframe management tool, Workbench. Workbench is a software solution that allows database administrators to do their work in a GUI instead of the old school terminal. We designed and developed the site using a mix of technologies to accommodate users with and without the Adobe Flash player. The experience is a bit lackluster without flash, but we made use of HTML 5 capabilities to deliver videos to flash-blocking fans, and mobile users.

Check out the site if you like databases or fancy Papervision 3D shaders.

Lemonade : Detroit - Trailer

In July 2010, I worked with a team of people led by Erik Proulx, an agency copywriter turned film maker. After a visit to Detroit for a screening of his documentary “Lemonade”, he experienced a very different Detroit than he had seen on television and read about. Erik came back to Detroit to shoot a trailer for a new documentary titled “Lemonade : Detroit”. It was shot in the same vein as his previous documentary; Turning lemons into lemonade. Taking something that people see as useless, and turning it into something great.

During “Lemonade: Detroit”, I ran the B roll camera, a Canon 5D mk II. I also helped to navigate the crew around the city and made suggestions of great areas to shoot based on some of my own exploration of the city (as a photographer) and of living there for years. The trailer has been released! See it here.

Movement 2009

In 2009, I won the Movement Design Competition, beating out a couple hundred entries. I developed a new look and feel for the festival, and managed the client vendors to ensure consistency. The client was thrilled with the work. The festival pulled in it’s highest attendance record. I designed the official site, T-Shirts, Web banners, vinyl graphics for buses, and motion graphics for the festival to be displayed on lcd screens downtown. I was asked back for Movement 2010, but took a quieter roll due to prior commitments.

iPhone Apps

I created the US Navy iPhone application. This included extending the basic design supplied by the agency, as well as UX design for the app. It took three weeks from concept to completion, which is astounding given the requirements Apple places on developers.

I also designed a game to test out Unity 3D for the iPhone platform. It's called Real Physics Mini Putt Golf.

In 2009, I assisted AutoWeek Magazine in building their iPhone application. This app delivers content from AutoWeek Magazine web site into a mobile friendly format.



iTunes Links:
Americas Navy
Real Physics Mini Putt
AutoWeek Car news and Reviews

Chevy Facebook Apps

I was the lead at RingSide Creative on a number of Facebook tabs for Chevy. We created an app for Campbell-Ewald’s social team to better deliver content and generate interaction with the Chevy brand on Facebook. One of the apps generated 12,000 new fans in just a few weeks. That was over three times the projected target. Unfortunately, I am unable to track down any images of the apps that we built earlier this year. The one pictured here is the most recent, Team Chevy Races.

Argos Olympics

Kunoichi, a Chicago based Creative and Illustration shop, commissioned me to animate, light and render characters for an online mini-game. This online mini-game promoted the release of “Rise of the Argonauts”; a role playing game from UK based, Code Masters. The game launched along side the Beijing 2008 Olympics. Reviews were great and Code Masters were extremely happy with the game. The site is no longer live, but check the screen grabs.

Hasbro Projects

Some additonal fun projects with the Chicago based Kunoichi: I rigged and animated the new-and-improved Mr. Potato Head for a sizzle video used to unveil the new design of this classic toy. Up to this point, I have not received permission to post the video here, but have provided a still.

I was also hired by Kunoichi, on behalf of Hasbro, to rig and animated the Littlest Petshop “Blythe” character for a short web-isode. In addition to this, I was hired to build a short sizzle video for a pitch for the “Chuck the Truck” character.

Amplify Avenger

In RingSide Creative’s ongoing partnership with BBDO Detroit, we developed a small micro-site for a campaign named “Amplify”. The URL was distributed via direct mail along with a tracking mark on the print piece. The site used computer vision libraries (FLARToolkit) to track and render a 3D Dodge Avenger over the print, when held up to the users webcam. Despite ‘Augmented Reality’ being over used in marketing, the site received a ton of traffic after being posted to blogs; reaching outside of the original direct marketing audience. I directed the CGI group as they built the 3D Avenger to achieve the best possible look and performance from the site.

See the micro-site here.

Equinox Realtime Tracking

This was a spec piece developed to show how we could display CGI assets online with an interactive overlay. It’s very similar to tracked copy on a broadcast spot, but here, they are rendered in real-time. This allows user interactivity and takes this common broadcast trick to the next level on the web.

See the spec piece here. Being a spec piece the video is high quality and may take a bit to load.

VW Labs

The VW Labs work is a spec piece for CP+B , built in less than three days. My team used interior assets from our retouching department as well as, exterior shots from the CGI group, to quickly assemble the flash piece. Users can pick different wheels and body colors, as well as explore the interior. The client was very focused on the ability to change the environment around the vehicle. We created backgrounds for the exterior and interior views that sync up and move independently as the users rotates the interior or exterior of the vehicle.

See the spec piece here.

Chevy Rise of the Autobots

I was on the concept team for this game developed to promote the Chevy vehicles featured in the Transformers movie. The lead creative for this project used (and expanded on) my gameplay idea. It featured a story driven plot and had upgrade codes hidden in print ads and on Chevy.com. It was developed by 2Advanced studios. It brought in over 300,000 users and had over 100,000 participating very day for it’s three month lifespan.




Alltel Holiday Tale

I was the Lead Art Director on the Alltel Holiday Tale project. We worked with Skidmore, an illustration studio in Royal Oak, MI, to illustrate and animate this Charles Dickens inspired story. The video was published online and in rich media banner ads. Alltel Holiday Tale won some CE internal awards, as well as a D Show award.

See the Alltel Holiday Tale here.

Alltel Mancave

The Mancave was the interactive leg of the Alltel MyCircle campaign. Users had the ability to go deep into the basement lair of the Alltel Sales Geeks, where they scheme against Chad, play with their guinea pig, Alice all while playing Dungeons and Dragons. We shot over the course of three days at Universal Studios to create over sixty video skits for the site. Struck Creative, of Salt Lake City, were brought in to aid in the production of the site. We also created a number of games hidden in the site, as well as a white board where users could draw and submit content for other users to view. I directed the steady-cam work and art directed some of the shots, along with the other art director on set. I also, directed the video in post production and worked closely with the motion graphics crew at Struck, as they built the interactivity. Mancave brought in a ton of awards including a FWA. The client was ecstatic with the outcome and the work really expanded on the MyCircle campaign.

See the site here, it’s been mirrored on my site so not all of the functionality is working. This is the holiday update we did post launch.

Wireless Thugz

The Wireless Thugs was a small offshoot of the Mancave Project. While on set, the Creative Director wrote a small rap song and Wardrobe fitted the talent with gold chains and bandannas. We shot enough footage to cut a short music video in about 40 minutes. I designed a look and feel, CD cover, Band logo and a MySpace band page. The MySpace page was part of a promotion with MySpace, where users could download the raw audio of the song and create a remix. MySpace users were able to vote for their favorite remix and the winner was awarded $10,000. This little tangent we had on set, turned out to be very cool and just so happen to really expand on the nerdy-ness of the characters in the MyCircle campaign. It also helped drive traffic to the Mancave; where users could experience even more from the Alltel geeks.

See the infomercial for the fake album.
See the full video here.

Alltel Celltop

I worked with another Art Director to design and develop a pure flash site for the launch of Alltels Celltop interface, a unified GUI they would deploy on all of their handsets. Working with the client, we designed a flash site that mimicked the user experience of the actual product itself. I headed up the team to get all the pieces produced and built. The outcome was an extremely slick site that conveyed what the Celltop interface was all about.

The site is still live here.

Alltel Moto Rokr

Micro-site for the launch of the Motorola Rokr. I art directed the motion graphics piece and lead the flash production.

See the micro-site here.

Sin-de-kat Logo

Logo design for a friends production company.

Resumé

I enjoy breaking things down into its raw bits and rearranging them in a new or simpler manner. Or, into an entirely new medium all together. This is why I find myself on the creative and technical side of the projects I work on. Whether, it’s on a shoot directing for online video, or designing an interface for a client project, I can operate on all ends of the spectrum.

RingSide Creative

Associate Interactive Creative Director :: January 2008 - Present

I am currently the Associate Interactive Creative Director at RingSide Creative. Here, I work with Creative teams from local and regional agencies, such as: Team Detroit, CE, Doner, CP+B, just to name a few. We have created solutions for these partners ranging from iPhone apps to social media solutions. I also collaborate with all of the many departments including Motion Graphics, CGI, Composing, Audio, Editing etc. As the digital space continues to grow, I use my agency experience, creative thinking, and technical experience to help these internal groups deliver creative that is ready for the web and other interactive technologies. Recently, I have been aiding in video production, which is something that I’ve been quite detached from since leaving CE in early 2008.

Campbell-Ewald

Senior Multimedia Art Director :: February 2006 - January 2008

Digital Designer :: March 2005 - February 2006

CE assembled a team of talented creatives to take on the digital side of new business pitches and rapid prototyping. At this time, the web was still in it’s infancy. We had a blast creating new and exciting ideas for potential clients to engage with consumers. We even won a few of the pitches, too! One of those wins was the Alltel client, the fifth largest wireless provider. That is when my double duty between Chevy and new business ended and Alltel began. On the Alltel account, I quickly became the Lead Creative when it came to video. Most of the campaigns we were assembling such as, Alltel MyCircle or the Man Cave, were using video to engage users in the products or stories. I directed the video we shot for web and banner campaigns, and large award-winning campaign sites such as Man Cave. I also managed junior art directors and vendors. I had direct contact with clients for shoots, ideation and concept presentations.

Doner

Interactive Designer :: January 2001 - March 2005

At Doner, I was also pulling double duty between client work and new business. I worked for clients such as Mazda, La-Z-Boy, PNC Bank, Six Flags and Sirius Satellite Radio, just to name a few.

Prior to joining Doner, I worked for a number of small internet startups and Aquent, a placement firm.
I also operate under The Federal Design Bureau for Freelance. I’ve had the opportunity to create work for clients such as Hasbro ( Mr Potato Head, Littlest Pet Shop, Transformers, GI Joe ) , Game Masters ( ARGO Olympics ) some of which are featured above.

Honors

Press