Design : Innovation + Job News

"We usually just say we're an interactive entertainment company," says Shad Petosky.

He and his team of creative minds at Puny Entertainment in Northeast Minneapolis have had their heads down of late, cranking out everything from cartoon and Flash game animations to restaurant and TV-show concepts.

The company's official capabilities list reads like this: Interactive Programming, Design, Animation, Illustration, Concept/Scripting. And Petosky says Puny is expanding those capabilities, too, branching out into social media work and digital media purchasing.

Petosky co-founded the company in 2007. It's biggest success has been winning animation and web design work for the Nick Jr. show Yo Gabba Gabba! Other clients include the Cartoon Network, Disney Channel, General Mills, and The New Yorker.

The Yo Gabba Gabba! work typifies Puny's aesthetic. The show is aimed at preschool kids, but it appeals to hip adults, too, with cameos by indie musicians and actors. "We like to do stuff that works on two levels, where it works for kids and adults," says Petosky, citing The Rocky & Bullwinkle Show as inspiration.

Another common thread that ties the company's varied, multi-media work together: Petosky says "clients tend to want something that's more playful, fun, humorous. I guess it's mostly light-hearted, but with a classic, strong design sense."

That fun, playful vibe often translates well into social media, he says, which is why Puny is preparing to add new services related to social media.

After a quick growth spurt out of the gate in 2007, Petosky says the company is being more deliberate these days. With 20 employees, they're being more selective about clients and jobs and looking to avoid growing faster than they can integrate new employees.

And a new development: One of Puny's partners has acquired a 25 percent stake in the company. Petosky wasn't yet ready to announce details, but said the investment and the expertise it comes with should help Puny Entertainment manage growth.

Source: Shad Petosky, Puny Entertainment
Writer: Dan Haugen

Vast Enterprises is best known for turning scrap tires and other recycled materials into composite masonry products. Now, a company best known to most people for its brand of tires is going to be turning Vast's products into a line of commercial roofing pavers.

Firestone Building Products, one of the world's largest suppliers of commercial roofing materials, announced last month that it's selected Vast as the exclusive manufacturer of its new Firestone SkyPaver composite roof pavers.

The private-label partnership is a big sign of acceptance for Vast's technology, and it also gives the company broad entry in the growing green-roof market. Vast CEO Andy Vander Woude says they'd like to see the Firestone work be a $10-million piece of business by 2015.

Vast was founded in 2006 and introduced its first line of products a year later. It makes deck and landscaping pavers from 95-percent post-consumer recycled material, largely plastic and tires. About a year ago it started seeking out customers to use its pavers on rooftops.

"We've had two very diametric market forces out there," says Vander Woude. "The first is explosive growth of green building. The other diametric force is the complete bottoming of the construction industry."

Vast has managed to grow throughout the construction downturn, through not as fast as it may have under better conditions, says Vander Woude. One bright spot has been green roofs; the market for them grew by more than 15 percent in 2009, and it's not just for environmental reasons. Building owners are also trying to maximize usable space by making roofs habitable.

These projects require a walkable surface be installed on the roof. Clay brick and concrete pavers are heavy and can be difficult to work with on rooftops. Vast's pavers weigh about one-third as much as conventional masonry products, making them a compelling option for green roofs.

The company, which was founded in 2006, employs nine people at its headquarters in Northeast Minneapolis and another six at its manufacturing facility in Crystal. The company is nearing completion on a round of financing and will likely hire more employees next year.

Source: Andy Vander Woude, Vast Enterprises
Writer: Dan Haugen

The Minneapolis health department is helping ten corner stores try to boost the sale of fresh produce.

The state-funded initiative is part of a broader effort to combat obesity and chronic disease by improving access to healthy, fresh foods, especially in certain underserved neighborhoods.

North Minneapolis, for example, has only two full-service grocery stores and limited transit options for getting to and from them, which leaves many residents dependent on corner stores for groceries.

Health officials realized those corner stores could be a key partner in improving food options, so they decided to design a pilot program based on similar ones in New York, New Orleans and Philadelphia. The city asked for applications from 90 corner stores, mostly on the North Side and in the Phillips neighborhood. About 15 responded and 10 were selected for the initial trial, which started this month.

"We have so many corner stores in Minneapolis, it was just a natural fit," says project specialist Aliyah Ali.

The city helped coordinate with a wholesaler, Bix Produce, to distribute fresh produce to the participating stores. It set up training for store owners on how to properly handle produce to maximize shelf life. And it came up with a specific action plan for each store involving signs, displays and store layout changes aimed at making fresh produce more visible, attractive and affordable to customers.

What makes Minneapolis' initiative unique is that the city has a ordinance to back up the program's goals. In 2008, the City Council approved the Minneapolis Staple Foods Ordinance, which requires all stores with a grocery license to carry a certain variety of fruits, vegetables, meat or protein, dairy and bread or cereal. The Healthy Corner Store Program is helping store owners comply with those rules, says Ali.

A recent review of 35 corner stores found that most were not in compliance with the ordinance and that more than a third didn't carry any fresh produce.

The city plans to track produce sales at the participating corner stores through June 2011 to see if the program boosts sales as it hopes. If it works, officials hope to expand it city wide.

Stores participating in the Healthy Corner Store Program are: Vitalife Pharmacy Rx (4151 Fremont Ave N), Lowry Food Market (628 Lowry Ave. N), One Stop Station (1604 W. Broadway), Northside Food Market (3559 Lyndale Ave. N), Glenwood Market (1501 Glenwood Ave. N), Cedar Food & Grill (2600 Cedar Ave. S), Neighborhood Grocery (814 East Franklin Ave), Shabelle Grocery (2325 E. Franklin), West Bank Grocery (417 Cedar Ave. S), and Flag Foods (2820 East 42nd St).

Source: Aliyah Ali, City of Minneapolis
Writer: Dan Haugen

Could the clothing we wear someday help us monitor our heart rate, track our performance, or even recover from injuries?

That's the future Lucy Dunne is exploring as an assistant professor in the University of Minnesota's apparel design program

Dunne studies wearable technologies, sometimes referred to as "smart clothing." The term describes to clothing or accessories that incorporate come sort of electronic component.

It's an emerging field with a lot of interest but few products on the shelf so far. One example would be Nike shoes that can send information to an iPod or iPhone. Then there are tackier, or should we say more novel, applications, like the mp3 player jacket or light-up T-shirts.

More serious applications, though, revolve around sports and medicine. One challenge with integrating body monitoring technology into clothing, says Dunne, is that in order to pick up a quality signal, such as a heartbeat, most sensors need to be tightly affixed to the body, often with a strap or a patch.

"I was originally a clothing designer, and in clothing design you can't ask the consumer to make those kinds of compromises, where they're uncomfortable or they feel like they look weird," says Dunne. "So my interest is in translating those sensing techniques into everyday clothing."

Dunne recently received a garment-tech innovation award for her work studying how signal quality is affected by looser fitting clothing (or "Joint Sensing in Everyday Clothing: Analysis of Garment Ease and Signal Noise in a Garment-Integrated Optical Bend Sensor.")

The hope is that her work will one day lead to everyday smart clothing that does more than light up or play music.

Source: Lucy Dunne, University of Minnesota
Writer: Dan Haugen

Luis Fitch makes sure marketers' messages don't get lost in translation.

Fitch founded the UNO Hispanic branding agency in Minneapolis in 1999. A gallery exhibit opening Thursday at Metropolitan State University will celebrate a decade of his work.

The Mexican-born creative director previously worked for agencies including Fame, a division of Martin Williams, and John Ryan Group, which specializes in branding for banking.

Fitch started UNO after seeing U.S. Census figures that confirmed what he already knew: that the U.S. Hispanic population was surging in terms of size and purchasing power.

UNO does some work in Mexico and Latin America, but its focus is on the U.S. Hispanic market, which is incredibly diverse, as Fitch recently explained to a new client:

"They wanted to go after the Latino market, and we said, well, which Latino market?"

UNO uses a method called Filtros (or "filters") to better define who a client is seeking to target. The branding strategy will vary depending on things such as language, religion, and country of origin.

Much of the agency's work involves in-store retail displays or package design. It also helps local advertising agencies adapt their campaigns for Hispanic audiences.

The company has five employees, along with a circle of freelancers. Clients include local Fortune 500 companies such as Target, General Mills, and Nash Finch.

"Ten Years of Hispanic Posters by Luis Fitch of UNO Branding" opens with a reception 4-7pm, Oct. 14, at the Gordon Parks Gallery (645 E. 7th St., St. Paul).

Source: Luis Fitch, UNO Ltd.
Writer: Dan Haugen

Paging Dr. Device Overload...

A recent survey showed nearly three out of four physicians carry around a smartphone. Yet, when it comes to receiving hospital alerts, many still have to carry around a separate tool belt of pagers or hospital-specific devices.

A fast-growing Minnetonka software company is working to free up some pocket space for doctors with a pager-replacement smartphone application.

Amcom Software has sold hospital call-center technology since the mid-80s. Chris Heim and Dan Mayleben bought the company in 2007 and have since grown annual revenue from $11 million to about $50 million.

Some of that growth is due to acquisitions, says Heim, but some comes from growing interest in new products such as Amcom Mobile Connect. The app lets physicians receive pages on their BlackBerry, iPhone, or Android smartphones.

"We've got pictures of doctors carrying five different devices," says Heim. "What this application allows them to do is consolidate down to one device."

Since releasing the product in December, several major hospital systems have bought in, including Park Nicollet Health Services in St. Louis Park.

"I think there's an increasing awareness within healthcare that communication is the root cause of a lot of inefficiencies," says Heim.

Heim believes better communication can lead to better patient care. Amcom Mobile Connect improves on the pager by automatically sending confirmation messages when alerts are received and read, and allowing text replies.

Amcom has about 230 employees and was seeking to hire another 10 more.

Source: Chris Heim, Amcom
Writer: Dan Haugen

A group of civic and business leaders announced an initiative Tuesday to try put Minneapolis-St. Paul on the map in the areas of creativity and innovation.

The nonprofit 4FRONT is made up of local business, education, arts, and government leaders who want the region to take its "rightful place on the world stage."

Executive director John Foley points to a recent ranking of innovative cities worldwide in which Minneapolis slipped to 45th overall from 33rd the previous year.

"Cities all over the world get it. They're working really hard at innovation and trying to figure out how to attract talent, and we're acting like we're not even in the race," says Foley. "We continue to compare ourselves to the likes of Sioux Falls and Mississippi, literally. It's like we don't get it. We're not there yet. We just don't understand the dimensions of this race, and we're missing the big picture that we're competing with Amsterdam and Paris and San Francisco" and other major cities around the globe.

The plan is for 4FRONT to attract, retain, and nurture talent in the areas of food, health, design, and the arts. The centerpiece will be an international symposium and awards event that they hope will annually attract more than 40,000 people.

The Twin Cities are in a global competition for talent, says Foley, and the hope is that the awards will be a way to identify talent and give them a connection to the region. The goal is for Minneapolis-St. Paul to be recognized as the world's premier center of innovation and creativity by 2015 in health, food, design and the arts.

The group is working toward holding its first major event in the summer of 2012, with an abridged event and awards ceremony to introduce the concept in 2011.

Source: John Foley, 4FRONT
Writer: Dan Haugen

A University of Minnesota architecture grad student has designed a unique elementary school and clinic, and now he's part of a team that's raising money to build it in an Ethiopian village.

The project started when Andrew Blaisdell was connected through the College of Design with Wosen Kifle, a Minneapolis resident and Ethiopia native who was looking for help designing a facility for his family's land near Addis Ababa.

Blaisdell made the school project the centerpiece of his thesis, focusing specifically how a school could be designed to reflect changing technology and encourage learning through curiosity. His paper revolves around the theory that computers are going to make all information accessible to everyone within a couple of decades, and how that will change the role of a teacher.

The initial expectation was for a very modern, very Western-style building, but, says Blaisdell, "As you can see from the renderings I've put on the website, it's anything but western."

The open structure is made from compressed earth block, a labor-intensive but low-cost material that is widely available in the area. One of the centerpieces of the design is a wall of television-shaped cubby holes, where Blaisdell imagines students could place interesting things they discover to share with their peers.

Kifle has set up a nonprofit, and he and Blaisdell are trying to make the school a reality by raising $470,000 through its website, http://www.furischool.org.

Source: Andrew Blaisdell
Writer: Dan Haugen

A Minneapolis digital communications firm is grabbing attention--and bystanders--with a new interactive billboard in Times Square.

Space150 recently became the agency of record for Forever21, the trendy youth fashion chain. Its first project: creating a giant high-tech display for the retailer's flagship store in New York's Times Square.

In most places, a 61-foot-tall video screen would be enough to turn heads, but not in Times Square. Over the past decade the center has been overtaken by increasingly enormous screens to the point that it now looks like a sports bar for giants. Space150 decided to go different instead of bigger.

"We looked at it and said this is almost like a giant computer screen, versus a television screen where you just have the one-way interaction," says space150 founder/CEO Billy Jurewicz.

The firm created a series of interactive "episodes" that rotate across the screen. One displays recent tweets that include the phrases "love" and "Forever21." Another is "Forever Runway," an ongoing loop of user-generated videos showing fans walking from one side of the screen to the other.
 
The real eye-catcher, though, is a bit called "getting picked up by a model." A super-high-definition camera mounted on the billboard displays a real-time stream of the people standing below. A superimposed model enters the screen, then reaches out and plucks a person's image from the live video feed. The model might kiss the person, or put them in a shopping bag, or flick them away.

"This is sensational. It's a live image of the crowd. People just start mobbing like they're watching the World Cup or something," says Jurewicz. "If you see it, you're going to say that's something you want to do as a tourist in New York, to go get picked up by a model at Times Square."

Jurewicz founded space150 in March 2000. The company recently celebrated its tenth anniversary in the midst of an expansion. The firm has grown to about 140 employees from about 90 at the start of the year. It's hired about 20 in the past three weeks alone.

Source: Billy Jurewicz, space150
Writer: Dan Haugen

A pair of industrial designers hopes their new St. Paul firm can help clients create greener housewares and other consumer goods.

Strom Studio celebrates its launch on Thursday, July 1, at its new downtown office in the CoCo coworking space. The industrial design shop will focus on design research and sustainable development.

Co-founders Kerstin Strom and Marshall Young have backgrounds in the children's safety products and medical devices, respectively. They already have clients from networking at this spring's International Home + Housewares Show in Chicago, though they can't drop any names yet.

The timing is right, says Strom, because many companies' green marketing efforts are being met with greenwashing accusations. Strom Studio will help companies work through sustainability issues early on in a product's development instead of waiting until it's complete.

Strom credits CoCo, too, for the timing of their company launch. (She's also events coordinator for CoCo.) The coworking space eliminated much of the overhead related to starting a company, she said.

Another key factor: CoCo is across the street from what's expected by 2014 to be a high-speed rail stop connecting St. Paul to Chicago, where Strom has clients already.

"It's a great opportunity for us to stay in the Twin Cities," Strom says about the future rail link, which she expects will generate significant commerce back and forth between the Twin Cities and Chicago.

Strom Studio celebrates its launch with a open house 4-10 p.m., Thursday, July 1, at CoCo, 213 4th St E., 4th Floor, in St Paul.

Source: Kerstin Strom, Strom Studio
Writer: Dan Haugen

A University of Minnesota student team edged out competitors for second place last week in a cross-country solar-powered vehicle race.

The student group was among 18 teams that designed, built and drove a solar-powered car more than 1,100 miles, from Tulsa, Okla., to Chicago, Ill., as part of the 2010 American Solar Challenge.

"It's a rather significant feat that in two years a bunch of college kids design, build and race a car from scratch," says Alan Jacobs, a materials science student and project manager of this year's car.

The Minnesota team prides itself on building extremely light and aerodynamic solar cars. This year's model, called Centaurus II, is the school's ninth solar car project. It's about 3 feet tall, 16 feet long, and 6 feet wide, and weighs less than 400 pounds without a driver.

The competition takes place on public highways, meaning the teams need to contend with traffic and gawkers. The vehicles begin charging each morning at 7 a.m., then leave the starting line at 9 a.m. Most of the vehicles have no problem going the speed limit, 55 to 65 mph.

The Gopher team briefly took the lead during Day 5 but then ran out of juice and had to pull over to recharge while Michigan and Stanford passed them by. The Minnesotans passed Stanford the next day but were unable to catch Michigan, which held on to win first place.

"It was a really close race," says Jacobs. "We were just trying to keep going the best we could."

About 30 students from the College of Science and Engineering actively participated in the project, which is funded through cash and in-kind donations of parts and materials.

Source: Alan Jacobs, University of Minnesota Solar Vehicle Project
Writer: Dan Haugen