magneticNorth launches Pinball for BBC Scotland
The BBC has launched Pinball – a new set of online tools, created by magneticNorth – designed to inspire and unlock the process of creative thinking.
The site, aimed at everyone from schools and small businesses to musicians and inventors, looks to provide a fresh and playful way to generate creative ideas online.
Commissioned by BBC Scotland and created by Manchester-based magneticNorth (mN) the BBC Pinball site takes design cues from traditional arcade pinball machines with the user experience centred around four activities on the site.
The first set of tools consist of Wild Reels, Drop Zone, Dot Dash and Snap Shot, which are all simple, accessible ways to aiding idea generation, all adhering to the ethos of ‘one thing, one function’.
For example Drop Zone, designed to help make speedy decisions, is centered around sorting things based on gut feel, which is often experienced during the creative process. It allows the audience to upload images and phrases to an existing bank of content. This content is then flickered in front of them in a quick fire fashion asking them to decide whether each piece makes it into an ‘in’ or ‘out’ column. Forcing them to go with their gut.
In addition to working as single applications the tools work to create an interconnected journey through the site – the first idea generation tool of its kind to be offered for free to the public by the BBC.
BBC Scotland Producer, Rachel Duckhouse, said: "BBC Scotland producer Rachel Duckhouse, said: “We're delighted to launch Pinball both to the public and to BBC staff, to help them get really creative with their ideas. The beautifully designed site is fun and simple to use, and we hope it will inspire all kinds of people - in classrooms, homes and businesses - to have a play around and make something exciting happen with their thoughts and ideas.”
Brendan Dawes, creative director at magneticNorth, added: “The beauty of Pinball is there’s no implied specific use. Because the tools such as Drop Zone and Wild Reels are so flexible and open ended through their simplistic “do one thing” approach, they can be twisted into a myriad of uses. We like to think of Pinball as the “Swiss Army Knife” of idea generation. We’re very much looking forward to seeing how people use Pinball to bounce ideas around.”
The Drop Zone and Wild Reels tools were created by magneticNorth whilst the Dot Dash and Snap Shot tools were created by Edinburgh based developer Alan Craigie.
magneticNorth has also created three banner ad creatives (pictured) to support the launch of Pinball through the BBC network.
This is mN's third site launch for the BBC this year, having launched www.bbc.co.uk/memoryshare in May and BBC Earth a project for BBC Worldwide in March. It's not viewable in the UK but you can see it via our site here http://mnatwork.com/Earth. mN also launched a number of sites them last year including Bloom www.bbc.co.uk/bloom.