HAIR NET. FACE NET?

Sacrificing fashion for the creative process, Tom strikes a pose. Nice jacket.

NEW FRIENDS

New friends, new client. Abe makes the most of a recent trip to Southern Oregon for Discovery with Massif, a new addition to the Summit line-up. Keep an eye out for their sweet new website, set to launch late 2008!

SALES + CREAVITE ALIGNED = YOGI ZEN

It's the little things that make all the difference. Hand made, well thought and oh-so-creative, Summit pulled it together as a team and landed us our newest client: Yogi Tea. So, align your chi and pour yourself a cup. . .

FOUR!

Oh the joys of having a client in the golf business! A lucky chosen few took advantage of a sunny Tuesday afternoon last week and spent some time on the course brushing up on their golf skills.

CAKE & FLOWERS?! - MUST BE BIRTHDAY TIME

Happy Birthday Dave! Taking a little lunch break (cake is the entree of choice, of course) with an office full of on-lookers, Dave admires his flowers. Someone must think you're pretty special.

A side note: Many Summit-ites have become quite savvy, including Beth, who shot this lovely photo with her new iphone. Other iphone owner include Jenn, John and Eddie - to name a few. Those of us stuck in the stone ages with our numeric key pads are secretly envious!

LOVE IS IN THE AIR

Congrats to April and Tom, who found time in their busy work shedules to tie the knot last month. The two creative types partied with friends and family, including a host of other Summit empoyees, at the Crag Rat Hut to celebrate.

Next up on the Summit wedding roster: Erin and Jim . . .stay tuned.

GORGE GAMES 2008

The 2008 Gorge Games took over Hood River this month and Summit's very own were there to represent. Among the fiercely competitive were Dave Russel, pictured above, who's team took 2ND place in the 24 hour Adventure Race; Creative Director Tom Lehmann killed it in the Men's Mountain Bike comp; and Dru Kepple who placed in the better half of the pack in the Half Marathon. Nice work!

SUMMER BBQ

Work party, minus the work. Summit's annual summer bash at Craig's house was a blast. Great food, an unbelievable view, lawn games, and of course - a few cocktails. We all had a chance to relax and mingle. The cowboy pictured above - well, he never did show. Who is that guy anyway?

ROB FEELS LIKE A MAN TODAY.

Hood River just added Motorcycles Only Parking. Convenient for Rob, it's located smack-dab in front of Summit's front door.

FRESH TROUT ON NEAL'S DESK

No thanks to the bowl of Lifesaver mints on Steph's desk. Neal brought trout for an afternoon snack today.
Who brings fresh smoked fish to the office for an afternoon snack?
From the man himself -->
where: Kingsley Reservoir
how: mad fishing skills
why: for fun!
when: last weekend and every night this week
Laura and I have been fishing in the evenings lately in our new backyard, Kingsley Reservoir! Pleasantly surprised with the quality of the fishing and the great tasting fish.

UH OH...

1.2 mile swim. 56 mile bike. 1/2 marathon. "Sure, I'm fit enough to give it a shot. "Umm, training? I'll be fine". Famous last words before Kate attempted last weekend's Pacific Crest Half Ironman triathlon in Bend. The 100 deg weather + altitude + "climbs from hell" on the bike left her crawling on the run (literally) with a big phat zero in the gas tank. "I knew it was bad with only 200 meters to go and I was laying down on the course to let the nausea and dizziness pass. Old people were passing me saying 'you got it girl!' Damnit!".

Her eyes were on the prize indeed after crossing the finish line - straight into the medical tent that is. 45 min of oxygen through the nostrils and 1.5 hours of med attention and she was released. Hows that for a relaxing weekend.

DAMN HER

It's April's birthday and she gets to slam down a Polly's cake this afternoon.

Not bad when the office wants to buy you a treat for your big day and they head down the street Polly's. No they're not just cakes. Insane works of art.

24 HOURS ROUND THE CLOCK

Memorial Day 2008. 3 days of pure relaxation and:

(1) Hell yeah my Blackberry won't turn on.

(2) None of that weak office drip *&#. French Press please.

(3) Feet up.
(4) Etc.

What did you do? Bryan and Dave did something. Something kind of epic if you ask me.

The power duo decided to tackle a 24 hour relay mountain bike race up in Spokane. 24 hours of racing round and round a 15 mile off-road course. 24 hours of sleepless, painfull grinding. 24 hours of passing the baton (mind you, relay teams are generally composed of 5 people, so B + D did double time). Whoa. Nice work boys.

PORTLAND'S TOP MARKETING FIRMS- SUMMIT PROJECTS MAKES THE LIST

Looks like Summit made Portland Business Journal's list of Top Marketing Firms. You know what else is pretty cool...we were 16th to be exact, up 2 spots from last year.

SHOT OF THE DAY.

WELCOME TO THE WORLD.

Ethan Sanner Kepple was was born on May 12th, 8.31. 8 pounds, 6 ounces, 21 inches. We're thrilled for you Dru!.

MT. HOOD CYCLING CLASSIC

Top professional cycling teams from the U.S. and Canada arrived in town last week for the 6th annual Mt. Hood Cycling Classic. Recognized as one of the top professional bike races in the United States, the event features 6 grueling stages in 6 days and 35,000 vertical ft of climbing. Combine that with near record highs in the mid 90's this year...let's just say we're all pretty pumped to work in the web industry and not the pro cycling circuit.

Ask any local what their favorite stage is they'll undoubtedly say the 6th and final Sunday criterium in downtown Hood River, where cyclists battle for an hour round a 1 kilo lap with sickly sharp corners that make you cringe when the peloton flies by.

The scene is really something else. Thousands of roudy spectators, music, food, Full Sail brewery and Double Mountain pulling pint after pint for the crowds. Not a bad way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

FREAK OF NATURE

Our one and only endurance freak machine (Dave) striked again and kicked some serious butt in last weekend's Desert Winds 26 hour expedition race in Nevada. How does he do it? We have absolutely no idea. He's one serious animal.

HOOD RIVER- PADDLER'S PARADISE

On my way into the office this morning, I walked right through a photo shoot for Paddler magazine. Apparently they're doing a spread on Hood River as the ultimate paddler town. Pretty cool to see dozens of hard core local water enthusiasts (including Tao Berman, one of the world's best-known extreme kyakers) lining the entire main drag, all geared out and enthused to be taking over town. And the quitessential Hood River family on top? Yes, that's Jen, Summit Project's email marketing director, posing with her two sweathearts.

Winn Grips

How do you take a seemingly boring, benign product like golf grips (no offense to all you golfers out there) and make them come to life with a kick-ass brand and product experience? Hand the project over to Summit. Check out Winn Grip's new site.

LUCASARTS LEGO INDIANA JONES LAUNCHED

LucasArts' new Lego Indiana Jones site is live. It's not everyday that you get to collaborate with the brilliant video game masterminds of LucasArts, dream up the ultimate interactive experience for the launch of their HOT new video game and jam to the Indiana theme song (officially ingrained in our brains). It's been quite the journey and we're psyched with the final execution. Sure didn't take long for people to start talking:
--> JOYSTIQ.COM
--> KOKATU.COM

HYATT NORTHSTAR

A luxury destination resort, the Northstar Lodge-Hyatt Residence Club is a unique new gem in the heart of North Lake Tahoe. We were proud to join forces with Tahoe Mountain Resorts in the concepting and delivery of a rich online experience that would engage prospects and convey the exquisite amenities offered by this new development. Interested in the result? Check out hyattnorthstar.com (launched this week!)

Webby's

It's Webby season again. Looks like Nike Golf's apparel site made the cut in the Marketplace Retail category. As the People's Voice Award winners are determined by the online voting community, time to explore the candidates and shout out your favorite nominee here.

BANFF FILM FESTIVAL IN HOOD RIVER LAST WEEKEND

Aimed at promoting understanding and appreciation of the world's mountain places, the Banff Mountain Film Festival provides a collection of awe-inspiring adventure films from around the globe. Lucky for us, Hood River fell on the map of World Tour stops this year.
Impressive and thoroughly amazing to say the least was this year's selection of films. Jens Hoffmann's 20 Seconds of Fame was arguably one of the most exhilerating and moving. The feature length documentary film offers incredible insight into the life, the fears, and the career of Base-Jumper Karina Hollekim. It depicts many emotional moments and explores the complex psychology of extreme sports, namely why someone would risk their entire life for a brief moment of adrenaline.

TWO PEAS IN A POD.

Loud. Witty and hilarious. Hockey junkies (yes, one wears a Flyers jersey to the office on game day). Sickly creative. Sickly good mountain bikers (have to close your eyes when he commits to a jump). Adventure-seeking (with more knowledge about the area than any guidebook despite their recent western migration from Philly just over a year ago). They are quite the team and they're making it official this summer. Tom and April (Summit's creative director and designer) are tying the knot in July!

TINY TOONES FUNDRAISER AT THE GREENWOOD COLLECTIVE

photos courtesy of Charles Peterson

I headed North to Seattle this weekend to attend a pretty unique fundraiser event at the Greenwood Collective. Inspiring, entertaining and educational, the event featured performances by World B Boy champs, the Massive Monkees, and showcased work by legendary Seattle photographers, Charles Peterson and Stuart Isett. Stuart has been documenting the Tiny Toones movement since their infancy, and his imagery truly celebrates the strength, hope and vibrant spirit of an incredible group of Cambodian children. Check out some of his photography here.

Tiny Toones was born in the Bassac slum area of Phnom Penh, Cambodia and provides free HIV/AIDS, health, drug awareness, performing arts and language education to underprivileged youth. It also serves as a community center where hundreds of children have a positive environment to channel their energy into learning and performing arts. The group, 600+ strong, was founded by Tuy Sobil, originally from Long Beach, who brought his b boy dance talents to the streets of Cambodia to help the country struggling to rebuild after 30 years of war.

All in all, it was a spectacular evening. Met interesting people. Checked out exceptional art. Witnessed mind-blowing break dancing and dedicated speakers. Heck, I even exposed my breakdancing talents (or attempts) to the crowd. The energy was consuming and contagious, and it was exhilarating to see such a diverse group of people being brought together via art and dance with a common mission and goal to raise funds for such an inspiring cause.

-Kate

Nike Team launches new Custom Fitting microsite.

Interested in a digital tour of Nike Golf's innovative custom fitting technology? Check out the most recent addition to their innovative microsite collection. Summit designed and shot video components in Florida, edited footage in Avid suites on the Nike campus, worked with a 3rd party animator for the flash movie files and architected the rest in-house (oh, and don't let us forget the rich photography assets provided by Nike Golf's image design group). The result is pretty sweet interactive representation of Nike's program offerings.

Neal attends Papervision3D workshop in Vegas

Recently, Tim and myself where lucky enough (literary, we drew straws with the rest of the flash team) to attend a Papervision3D workshop in Vegas hosted by John Grden, one of the developers of Papervision3D. Papervision3D is an open source 3D engine for the Flash platform, and in my opinion one of the most exciting things happening in the flash world today.

While John was not the man behind most of the code (Carlos Ulloa is the lead developer), he was a super friendly guy who was probably more appropriate for giving presentations. You could just feel his child-like excitement as he revealed his Papervision3D creations, the first one being an Xwing fighter game, of course! While Tim and I commented later that we wished he would have been more thorough about the details of the code, John doesn’t consider himself to be a hardcore programmer – but that didn’t suppress his passion for Papervision3D, and in some ways made his explanations more approachable for non-programmers, or those just new to 3D.

At the end of the 2 day workshop we both left very inspired. I believe that using Papervision3D tastefully in our future projects will really push our work to the next level. Flash has come a LONG way since the days of mainly vector sites and splash pages. With the combination of the AS3 code base, video, bitmap effects, filters, blending modes, and now 3D we can pretty much do anything we want!... within reason.

A couple of my favorite interface examples:

www.nike.com/nikeacg/index-en.html
www.whitevoid.com/application
http://www.nitrogroup.com/

- Neal

SUMMIT BANNERS FEATURED IN AVENUE A'S NEWSLETTER

Nike Golf's recent rich media banners were featured in the creative showcase for Atlas's newsletter.

CRAIG FEATURED IN PORTLAND BUSINESS JOURNAL

Check out our head hauncho in Portland Business Journal's Executive Profile last month.

COFFEE MODELS

If you happen to walk into Hood River's Ground Espresso for your morning java anytime soon, you'll probably stumble across this advertising postcard...featuring a ton of Summit Projects folks.

NEW SITE FOR BUCK KNIVES-LET'ER BUCK!

Arguably the most famous name in sports cutlery, family-owned Buck Knives designs and manufactures knife products for a variety of outdoor, hunting and fishing, everyday and tactical uses. Almost more impressive than the worldwide recognition and respect for their high quality knives is the family history, with infancy dating back four generations of Bucks that truly makes this company unique.

In 2007, we were tasked with the challenge to create an engaging and sophisticated site that would effectively communicate the Buck brand and improve the overall online user experience. Today, after months of close collaboration between Summit Projects and Buck Knives, we can proudly say "Let'er Buck!" as we launch the newly redesigned http://www.buckknives.com/.

A VISIT TO SLINGSHOT

We paid a visit to Slingshot's shaping studio this morning and got acquainted with the mastermind behind board/kite design, Tony Logosz. In a simple shoot aimed at capturing some visuals to get a better feel for their style, we photographed the details and inner workings of the shop and walked away with hundreds of images to fuel our brainstorm.