This summer saw the launch of Seussville, one of our highly anticipated sites for Random House. The website is huge, and the project’s producer walks us through the challenges and solutions of developing such an immersive interactive experience.Tomato Catch-Up (TC): What is Seussville?
Ryan Ring (RR): Seussville is a vast, all-things-Seuss, interactive world inhabited by the 400+ characters and the full catalog of Dr. Seuss books and audio. The website captures the extraordinary fun-filled worlds and characters of Ted Geisel's (Dr. Seuss) imagination, where visitors explore the animated lands of Seuss and see their favorite print characters brought to life. Add to that, Seussville will feature the complete book and audio catalog of Dr. Seuss, where you can read excerpts, create wishlists and purchase titles from the site. You can also find plenty of cool new Dr. Seuss games, videos and downloadable activities, in-store events, press releases, and you can explore a robust destination for Educators and Parents. You can learn a great deal about Ted Geisel's life as well. It's an amazing, all-purpose destination for everything Dr. Seuss.
TC: What's one element of this site that helps it stand out from other kids entertainment sites?
RR: This site really breaks the fourth wall by encouraging immersive exploration of Dr. Seuss's unbelievable array of characters and books. The character section is simply mesmerizing -- you can watch all 400+ Dr. Seuss characters parade by, click to learn more about them and see their books, games, videos and activities. Our goal was to find creative ways using Flash to unleash the extraordinary array of Dr. Seuss characters and introduce them to viewers, who hopefully will be inspired to buy the books that those characters live in.
TC: What are some of the challenges you encountered and how were they solved?
RR: Because these characters had only existed in print for the most part, they each had to be hand drawn specifically by BBT for online delivery. 400+ characters were drawn to meet the precise style-guide standards of Random House and the Dr. Seuss Estate, while still optimized for web delivery required surgical strategy and precision. The web is not print, choices and compromises need to be made without sacrificing the quality of Ted Geisel's artwork. On the technology front, delivering lots of character animation in a website that is optimized for slower computers is always a huge challenge. The optimization strategies, workarounds and tricks by our programming team to pull that off is pretty complex. And lastly, this site captures the worlds of 64 books -- how do you blend the landscapes and worlds of 64 unique worlds into one website? That was a challenge that we worked on with Random House for a long time.
TC: What is your favorite feature of the site?
RR: Creatively, my favorite features of the site are the parade on Mulberry Street and the character section. These two sections offer a rare window onto some of Ted Geisel's strangest, most imaginative characters from lesser-known books. While Dr. Seuss is renowned for young, educational titles, he was also quite a visionary of the bizarre. From a technology perspective, the books section is a terrific comprehensive catalog that pulls in virtually all titles and content from the Random House/Dr Seuss databases so you can view and purchase any Dr. Seuss title you wish. Its a full-bodied shopping experience.
TC: Will there be any updates to look for in the future?
RR: There will be a series of updates and rollouts for later phases in the Seussville project. We'll be rolling out characters ongoing over the next several months. Also, there are a series of new games being developed based on the books "Fox in Socks," "Hop on Pop," and "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish." We also anticipate the possibility of further expansion into new and exciting Seussian worlds we have yet to explore.
TC: What was it like working with the Random House team on Seussville?
RR: They're a very creative team who tirelessly contributed very impressive forethought and analysis. I love collaborating with creative clients. Clearly this brand is very special to them, and its very special to BBT. The layers of Random House stakeholders and reviews all the way up to the Dr. Seuss Estate impressed upon me the precision and accuracy needed to meet the standards of Dr. Seuss's quality. Random House and the Dr. Seuss Estate hold this content is such high esteem, that to get their enthusiastic thumbs up on our work was a very satisfying validation that BBT can continue to meet the quality standards of the biggest kids brands in the world.
