Stickybits — Rudi O'Meara

Stickybits

Challenge /

Have to be honest. It took a few minutes for the idea behind Stickybits to sink in when I first met with the company’s founders. Scannable stickers that acted like virtual graffiti for media sharing? The more we talked about it, the more we realized: the possibilities were endless. But so were the challenges. How do you explain something so mind-blowing—an app that allows you to attach any type of content (movies, music, pictures, the works) to any barcode on any object anywhere in the world—without overcomplicating things? By keeping it simple, actually.

Easier said than done, of course.

Solution /

Given the Seth and Billy, the founders of Stickybits (and its follow-up, Turntable), are firm believers in the move fast and break thinks mantra, I didn’t belabor the process of getting their story straight. In this instance, the exercise was largely focused on sussing out fundamentals—and then building both a brand voice and design language that could scale and adapt on the fly as the business evolved. Judging by the initial response (everyone from The New York Times to CNET to Time Magazine raved after their launch at SXSW), things worked out just fine.

And that’s just the way I like it.

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