We worked with Mechanica on the launch of The American Heritage Dictionary’s 5th Edition, designing and building a site experience around the concept ‘You Are Your Words.’ The core of the concept is that the words you use are about more than just communicating – they tell the world who you are.
The site brought this concept to life in a very literal way – engaging people to create a self-portrait in their own words. Visitors to YouAreYourWords.com can upload a photo or use their webcam to take a picture of themselves. They can then connect to Facebook or Twitter to pull in words from their social stream, or type some words that best define who they are. From there, Lollipop created a server-side application that composites a user’s words with their photo, creating a self portrait ‘in their own words’.
One of the largest challenges on this project was to develop an engaging interactive experience that didn’t rely on Flash or HTML5 functionality. The site is built on a Ruby on Rails infrastructure and uses front-end technologies that do not require the use of plug-ins or advanced browsers.
Here are some screens grabs from the site:
