brewed
From panic buttons to a Snoopy screensaver, our web collaborations with United Media reimagined how millions experienced their favorite comic strips online.
We had never stepped foot in a cubicle when United Media called us in to design their flagship Web site ‘The Dilbert Zone’. But we quickly got up to speed — collaborating with their team and getting to know Scott Adams’s characters Dilbert and Dogbert. For readers who took the site’s tagline “It’s better than working” seriously, we designed in a panic button to call up a fake spreadsheet if they suddenly found themselves with a Pointy Haired Boss looking over their shoulder.
We also collaborated with United Media to design the ComicZone site to showcase their other widely syndicated newspaper comic strips like Calvin and Hobbes, Doonesbury, B.C., Nancy, Cathy and many, many more.
The sounds of the Woodstock-in-flight or Charlie Brown’s “Aaargh” filled our studio as we worked with sponsor Microsoft to attribute unique graphics, animations and sounds to keyboard commands — like Vince Guaraldi’s Peanuts theme on reboot or The Red Baron crashing upon emptying the trash.
Perhaps the tour de force of our collaboration was having our copywriting quoted in The Wall Street Journal when we debuted the Dilbert Zone Financial Pages and its legal disclaimer: “While we think anyone who takes financial advice from comic strip characters gets what they deserve, our lawyers insist we tell you….”