I made this maze originally as a holiday card back in 2002. Many of my puzzles are based on some bit of tradition, history, or trivia, so for Hanukkah I picked one of the most recognizable symbols of the holiday: the dreidel!

Every year I forget the exact rules of the dreidel game so I’m recording them here for the sake of my failing memory as well as for my gentile readers.

A dreidel (sevivon in Hebrew which means “to turn”) is a four-sided top with a Hebrew letter on each side. The letters are: נ (Nun), ג (Gimmel), ה (Hay) and ש (Shin), which stand for the phrase Nes Gadol Haya Sham which means “A great miracle happened there” (there being Israel).

Any number of people can play. At the beginning of the game each player is given an equal number of Hanukkah gelt (usually chocolate coins wrapped in gold tin foil but anything can be used).

At the beginning of each round, every player puts one piece into the center pot. They then take turns spinning the dreidel, with the following meanings assigned to each of the Hebrew letters:

• Nun or “nichts” which means “nothing” in Yiddish. If the dreidel lands with a nun facing up the spinner does nothing.
• Gimmel or “ganz” which is means “everything.” If the dreidel lands with the gimmel facing up the spinner gets everything in the pot.
• Hey or “halb” which means “half”. If the dreidel lands with a hey facing up the spinner gets half of the pot.
• Shin or “shtel” which means “put in.” If the dreidel lands with a shin facing up the player adds a game piece to the pot.

If a player runs out of gelt they are out.

Happy Hanukkah!

Anytime you’re looking for inspiration, the immensely talented artists that inhabit deviantART never fail to deliver. This piece is called Samantha and the Anatomy of Halloween by Grelin Machin from Montreal.

Happy Halloween!

For our Stamford BNI (Business Network International) Visitor’s Day I created two email blasts that were sent separately over the preceding two weeks.

I used MailChimp to manage our list of invitees (collected from our membership over the year) and to send/track the email blasts themselves. With a highly targeted list like this one, we expect a high open rate but for August a 58% is not bad.

Shortly after we launched the CONNECT Computer website, we were asked to design, write, and manage a monthly newsletter for ongoing client communications as well as provide useful insight into the IT industry for those who opt-in (via website, email blasts, and social media channels). After some A-B testing, this design layout below proved to be the most engaging for CONNECT’s subscribers. On average we see 18% to 24% click throughs to full stories residing on the website.

St. Patrick’s Day is an enchanted time — a day to begin transforming winter’s dreams into summer’s magic. And to help celebrate the day, a maze of shamrocks. Enjoy!

Digging through my old collection of mazes that I’ve created over the years (see Daedalus My Muse), decided to make a few “special occasion” ones available here on Virtual Arts for non-commercial use and distribution. So Happy Velentine’s Day and enjoy the pieces of my heart.

Our client CONNECT Computer was running a year-end promotion in partnership with HP: Get a $15 Gift Card of your choice when you purchase two of the same HP LaserJet Toners. The offer expired December 31st, 2010.

We did the typical stuff like email blasts and updating social channels but given the short notice and the fact that CONNECT’s social channels were too new (we had only recently launched the website) to have yet accumulated enough “social” capital, we needed something else… and fast!

The answer was a splash page specific to the Gift Card offer and leveraging social browsing communities like StumbleUpon to drive targeted visitors to it.

The idea behind a splash page is that it is a standalone page with a singular purpose, in this case the Gift Card. There is no navigation, no extraneous copy, and one call-to-action. More importantly, it can be done quickly and cheaply.

Since the Gift Card offer expired at midnight on 12/31 we decided to create a peaceful winter scene, replete with animated snowflakes, displaying a countdown to 2011 (instant value add BTW). Both the snowflakes and the countdown were done using jQuery so the page worked even on iPads and iPhones!

Social browsing took place over the last 5 days of the year. Yes, only 5 days! Personally, would have liked to have had 3 weeks for a campaign like this but we played the hand we were dealt. We still witnessed a 33.21% jump of visits to the Gift Card page and several sign ups. I suspect we would have seen even higher numbers if the campaign started before the holiday rush (i.e. end of November instead of December).

The offer is over but you can still see the splash page here.

Commissioned by NYC marketing company Moss Appeal to develop branded content for DirecTV Ad Sales team’s social media  initiative, which included a Twitter page, a Facebook page (with two custom apps), and this interactive DirecTV Perfect Match Game that utilized video outtakes from DirecTV’s popular programming.

The game also featured a Bobble Yourself viral marketing component where participants could upload a photo to create their own bobblehead with a personalized URL that featured them on the game’s microsite. This created greater engagement and encouraged more sharing through email and social media.