专访: Resn创始人Rikki Campbell——做一颗充满创意的“能量球”

采访&文字&翻译: Viking Wong@dmunion.com

校对: Vivian Peng@dmunion.com

(原创内容, 转载请务必注明来自 数英网 | DIGITALING)

好作品千千万万，不过那些能触发兴趣，深究其背后故事的，或许寥寥无几，但Resn绝对是其中之一。无论是FWA，OneShow，Webby还是其他国际奖项，我们都能从来自美英法这几个出产创意的老牌大国中，看到Resn/NewZealand的大名。

要如何形容Resn才贴切？从极具强烈Resn风格的官网(www.resn.co.nz)和作品中，你就能得到答案。值得一说的是，Resn自身也喜欢制作一些带有实验性质的项目，从Threaded(link)开始到和Google+合作的Face Arcade，我们看到的不只是天马行空的概念与创意，还有各种新技术，新趋势的融合，正是创意+技术这样的简单组合，让我们产生了对Resn团队更进一步了解的想法。

Rikki Campbell，这个在自我介绍中注明了“喜欢可持续性的产品，whisky以及新西兰本土动植物”的Resn创始人兼总经理认为，Resn是为了能够让更多制作精良，令人难忘的作品的诞生而诞生的。这是他和同样身为创意总监的Steve Le Marquand，在10年前创立Resn时的共同初衷。

Rikki负责了Resn早期大部分作品的设计与美术指导，就像初创企业家们一样，很多事都需要亲力亲为。

Q：为什么会取名为“Resn”？它的背后带着何种的期望与目标呢？

Rikki：关于名字，我们曾想取名为“Resin”，但发现这已经被使用，所以我们去掉了“i”。正因为如此，在Google搜索我们时变得更加容易。

与一群充满激情、有自己独特想法的伙伴一起共事，获得更多看似无稽可笑不合常理但却能带来快乐的传播创意，这是令我们在一起工作的重要激励因素。而提到Resn，我希望大家就能联想到“惊人，美观，注重细节”这些代名词，而我们的每一个作品都可以触及到用户，以充满交互式的体验得到更多的沟通。

1颗心，24颗大脑，48只手臂以及240根手指，是Rikki对于目前Resn发展规模的形容。

Q：介绍一下目前Resn团队的规模，以及他们各自的主要职能？

Rikki：目前Resn有两个办事处，新西兰的惠灵顿以及荷兰的阿姆斯特丹。我们之间经常会通过网络相互沟通，分享信息。如果碰到比稿或者有项目时，两个团队就会在一起头脑风暴，获取创意灵感。如果涉及到项目需要一起合作完成的话，我们也会寻求最适合的工作方式，但大多数情况下，我们分工明确。

同时，每个团队的项目进展都有即时的反馈。日后也会有一些项目需要两地工作室的紧密地合作，充分利用12小时的时间差，来获得24小时的工作效率，迸发出创意的魔法。

Q：回顾Resn之前的许多作品，请列举出3个您最喜欢的。

“当我第一次把完成的作品呈现给agency时，即使是我看过无数次的项目，把说辞滥记于心，我还是紧张得都起鸡皮疙瘩了。但即便如此，至今我依然认为这是个绝妙的idea+执行的作品。”

Poject：Flash Driving Game
Client：NZTA 新西兰交通运输局
URL：www.flashdrivinggame.com

“REI的社区用户可以通过照片分享他们在户外运动中的每时每刻。网站以时间轴为中心，1440分钟等于一整天。纯HTML5响应设设计，可以跨平台浏览。”

Project：The 1440 project
Client：美国户外零售品牌REI
URL：www.rei1440project.com

“Flash的魔法，彻头彻尾的Resn风格。”

Project：Special Surprise
Client：Luke Buda (新西兰音乐家)
URL：www.specialsurprise.co.nz

Q：Resn似乎很喜欢做一些带有实验性质的项目，比如Threaded 和 Face Arcade。可否介绍下与Google+一起合作的项目Face Arcade？

Rikki：Google邀请我们参加为期2周的编程马拉松(hackathon)活动，利用Google+Hangouts脸部追踪API。我们接受了。用我们的脸，不过该如何做？一开始，我们把它想的很复杂，以至于无从下手。最后我们把答案浓缩为一个简单的概念，用“游戏”来表达。于是我们用4个小游戏，最终完成此次Google给予我们的任务。

一个与人工智能和刺激人类感官相关联的实验性网站。实验一开始，你会感到晕眩，不过在完成4个阶段之后，相信你会意犹未尽的再体验一次！也正是这个作品，让我们了解到了Resn团队。

Q：Resn把自己称之为一个充满创意的“能量球”，Resn是如何往球里输送源源不断的能量？同时又是如何保持创意的新鲜，让那些充满怪诞的想法从雏形开始一步步走向发生？

Rikki：在我们的工作室中，笑声扮演着催化剂的作用，有了它就好像出现了一条通往创意之路的管道。如果整个过程变得严肃那么就会制造出过度的压力，经常把创意扼杀在摇篮里。与整个团队在一起的创意讨论环节对于Resn来说是一个不可或缺的组成部分，团队中的每个人都可以发表自己独特的想法，这对于我们来说很宝贵。

Resn会仔细的研究这些来自团队内的不同观点，尊重每一个能为项目激发创造性思维的好声音，把这些额外得到的细节融入到我们的项目中。真正的自我批评则需要孕育出真正有趣的点子，并不只是形式。

今天我们还在讨论如何制作更好的Flash网站，但是第二天HTML5的技术浪潮已经让你措手不及，考虑着如何加快脚步。对于这个话题，大多数作品都基于Flash技术的Resn，给出了他自己的答案。

Rikki：HTML5和Flash一样都是工具，他们既不是一种技术信仰，更不可能成为生活方式(对于技术开发人员而言)， 这些是我们与用户沟通的有效手段。无论选择哪种渠道，能够将作品的最佳状态100%呈现出来，就是最好的答案。

Q：触摸手势，媒体查询(Media Queries)，响应试设计，视网膜显示屏，实时网络…您是如何看待这些日益成熟的技术以及他们日后的发展趋势？

Rikki：这些技术的开发为用户打造沉浸式及移动式体验提供了良好的技术支持，但归根结底，这些都只是为了大众交流互相的想法而建立的一种媒介。如果伟大的想法是依靠新兴技术而成形的，这的确不错！但我认为，技术本身并不能成为一个伟大想法。

Q：2013年，我们能在layout以及UI设计中看到什么新的变化？是崇尚简单的，还是以app风格为主的设计，或者是响应式设计，还是单页网站…？

Rikki：我无法定义某个确切的方面，不过简明单一的沟通与优雅的网站导航一直被看作设计中的重要点。可是，这些新兴趋势似乎让设计变得喜爱追求安全，从而千篇一律，让人有些失望。简单干净固然是好，但若显得呆板而又枯燥，就实在令人难以接受。

网页就像一个游乐场，让各种想法在里面产生，碰撞，发酵。我希望自己每天都能被各种意想不到，而又充满数字化的想法惊艳到。

说到新兴技术，还有现在我们常挂在嘴边的移动设备，社交媒体浪潮等，Rikki把这些在”互联网世界里创造东西”形容为”在沙子上写字”一样——短暂的时效性。

Q：但是从目前来看，甚至在未来发展的很长一段时间内，无论是广告商，代理商或是production house都将会把重点转向移动和社交这块领域，有的或许没有制定成熟的计划。

Rikki：“因为人们总是本能的将这类新生事物视为‘大事件’来对待。但说实话，这类新生事物的确在把创意人天马行空的各种想法变的可行方面，起到了决定性的作用。“

于未来：

“我希望这些包含了新兴趋势，技术以及媒介途径的大浪潮可以得到发展，能让我们从中看到未来的发展雏形。那些或好或坏的高科技趋势概念，能变得无关紧要。所有的这些都旨在提高改善我们共同的线上数字体验。”Rikki对于未来5年内做出了如上的设想。

Q：Resn最新的一期作品“1440 Project”同时荣获“site of the day”以及“mobile of the day”，从中看出Resn也在致力于跨平台的开发。你们团队有没有自己的一套方法来平衡开发中会出现的一系列问题？

Rikki：除去必要的技术支持，我们会不断地完善工作流程，以解决从一开始就会出现的跨平台兼容问题。从项目开始到结束，相互间的沟通很重要。而我们所做的项目，也会在内部进行公开展示，以此获得及时的反馈。

几乎和所有的创意数字制作团队一样，Resn与许多的大型代理商都有过一定的合作。比如和Saatchi & Saatchi LA合作，为Toyota制作的Sponsafier与 The Camry Effect 这两个作品, 以及及具艺术感的商业项目Hennessy—Never Stop Never Settle。Rikki说，他们想做世界上最cool的项目。

URL: http://sponsafier.resn.co.nz/

URL：http://www.toyota.com/camryeffect/

Q：与代理商自己内部的制作团队相比，Resn有什么明显的优势？

Rikki：我想我们团队的性质，从一开始起就定义了不同。我们喜欢做一些与众不同，惊险刺激的东西，而这也正是许多客户所寻求、所渴望的。这样的“Resn效应”让整个数字世界还有我们的客户品牌，变得更加有趣。正如当你全身心的投入到工作中时，它就会带你领略这个世界。

Q：Resn是如何挑选适合自己团队的创意人才的？

Rikki：除了必要的专业技能外，他/她是否拥有正确的态度，对所做的工作有极大的激情。

当然，我们最看重的还是他/她与团队的契合度，必须善于融入团队。Resn是一个团队，但团队里的每一个人又是一个单个体，互相尊重。这对于创建一个充满活力的创作环境至关重要。

Q：2012年，Resn选择了阿姆斯特丹作为其海外发展的一个分支。能给我们讲讲Resn选择这个城市的原因吗？以及Resn的下一步打算？

Rikki：阿姆斯特丹作为Resn迈出的第一步帮助我们接触到不同国家，地域文化的品牌和agency，从而制作出丰富，带有特色的作品。这也是我们开始北半球计划的起点。下一步计划？我们希望能保持Resn的一贯风格就好。

Q：由于中西方文化的差异的存在，创意上同样如此，可以说一下你眼中的“中国创意”？未来会有在中国发展的打算吗？

Rikki：在创意中，文化的差异与多元化，总会碰撞出不同的火花，强烈充满野性，又或者是那种不可形容的微妙感觉。这些都造就了另一个捉摸不透的的数字世界。中国是一个拥有巨大潜力的市场，随着在数字领域的成长，我们希望未来能与这个充满活力，创新的文化有更多的接触，创造出不同但又真实的数字体验。

Resn 2012作品集

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English Original: 

Interview to Rick Campbell, Co-founder and Managing Director of Resn

About Resn:

Q: Please introduce yourself to us briefly.

Rikki: My name is Rikki Campbell and I am the Co-founder and Managing Director here at Resn.Resn was founded nearly 10 years ago with my business partner and Creative Director Steve Le Marquand. We both had a simple collective desire to create stunning, memorable and bewildering interactive experiences.

I designed and Art Directed much of Resn’s early work which broke us onto the global scene including our much loved and at times maligned portfolio website – ResnDotConz. I enjoy sustainable seafood, whisky and native New Zealand fauna and flora.

Q: With what kind of expectations and objectives, you got started with Resn? Is there a different meaning behind the word “Resn”?

Rikki: Resn was birthed from a need to make amazing, beautiful, detailed, interactive experiences that delight our audience.Collaborating with passionate and brilliant people while having fun and spreading absurdity are important motivators in what we do. We build projects that touch people and communicate messages in engaging ways.

We tried to buy the domain for ‘Resin’ but it was already taken, so we dropped the ‘i’ and the rest is legend.

Q: What is your company scale? How many people currently work at Resn? And would you mind sharing the teams major divisions of functions in company?

Rikki: We have one heart, 24 brains, 48 arms, and 240 fingers all working in astonishing synergy to make the web a better place.

We have two digital nodes, Wellington, New Zealand and Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Through the power of the internet we constantly communicate with each other. We often work as one team on creative pitches for agencies and projects. When it comes to production on projects we work together when it best suits the project, but the majority of our work is modular.

We are always providing feedback on each team’s progress on projects. We make good use of the 12 hour time difference to get that mystical 24 hour productivity model happening. Some of our future projects will require both studios to be working closely together to make magic happen.

Mind sharing sounds spooky, I don’t know if I’d like to mind share. Does it hurt?

The Philosophy of Resn’s creativity

Q: Looking back at the many works Resn has managed, could you list 3 that you most proud of?

Rikki: Flash Driving Game (www.flashdrivinggame.com) for NZTA (New Zealand Transport Authority) literally gives me goose bumps when I present this to agencies, even though I know the twist and have seen the project numerous times. I think this is a brilliant idea, brilliantly executed.

The 1440 project (www.rei1440project.com) allows the American outdoor retailer REI community to share their moments outdoors through photography. The site is designed around the 1440 minutes that make up a full day. The site is pure HTML5 responsive design it works across a large range of browsers, tablets and smartphones.

Special Surprise, the site we built for New Zealand musician Luke Buda (www.specialsurprise.co.nz) is pure ol’ school Flash magic. It’s engaging, visually playful, absurd and cheeky – It’s Resn through and through.

Q: We love the project you did like Threaded and Face Arcade. Could you give us a introduction about Face Arcade you co-operated with Google+?

Rikki: Google challenged us to a 2 week hackathon utilizing their new Google+Hangouts face tracking API. We accepted, with our faces, but how?

Simplicity was the answer. We realised, with the timeline being so short, we needed to keep it to a tight easy concept, 1 game. So we decided to make 5.  It was soon agreed that this was a ridiculous expectation to impose on ourselves. We were horrified. Answer, we made 4 games instead.

Answer – Face Arcade (http://facearcade.resn.co.nz/).

Q: How do these so creative and a little bit quirky ideas come from? Where does Resn team find their inspirations? And how about you?

Rikki: We try and make each other laugh, laughter is more often than not the goofy conduit to our creativity. Taking the process too seriously creates undue pressure and can often strangle your creativity and the self-criticism needed to develop truly interesting ideas.

Creative sessions with the whole team have always been important to Resn, everyone has a voice and a unique take on any given idea and this is very valuable to us.

Q: In such a competitive market, how do you manage to surprise and come up with new ideas that haven’t been done before?

Rikki: By presenting a unique voice and brand, investing in Resn R&D exploration, being respected enough to bring a lot of creative thinking to our projects, and going the extra to bring the loving details to our commercial projects, we attract people who are drawn to these qualities and who want to push things in both creative and interactive.

We have also bought a brand new whiteboard which is sweet as!

Web and New Tech Trends

Q: Since the beginning of HTML5, it has always been a hot topic. But we know most of Resn’s works are Flash-based. Can I ask your opinion on HTML5? And looking 5~10 years in to the future, what is the web trend in your views?

Rikki: HTML5 is a tool just like Flash, neither are a lifestyle, or a religion, they’re the means to an end, the end being effectively communicating with our audience.

Put simply we use whatever approach is the best approach for the project. We’re not crusaders, we’re lovers.

Q: Touch and gestures, media queries, responsive, retina display, webfonts, realtime web… How do you think these techniques and technologies will evolve and what will be next?

Rikki: It’s all gearing towards immersion and mobility, but this is ultimately just the delivery mechanism for the communication of ideas.

Ideas are what interest us, ideas are what capture the imagination. If great ideas are informed by an emerging technology, fantastic! But technology alone does not a great idea make.

Put another way: I’ll be happy if I never see another zombie themed game showcasing latest bit of new tech.

Q: What do you think we’ll see in layout and UI design in 2013? Simplicity, app-inspired design, responsive, single page websites, alternative navigation patterns…?

Rikki: Simplicity of communication and elegance of site navigation have always been of the upmost importance to us but here is an emerging trend for safe sameness which is disappointing, clean is fine but clean and boring – Unacceptable and dull.

The web should be a playground for ideas, I want to be surprised everyday by the digitally unexpected… That’s my dream.

Part 2

Q: Mobile device and social media gain a lot of attention, whether advertiser, agency or production house wants get in maybe with a half-baked plan. So what do you think of this phenomenon?

Rikki: It both comes as no surprise and is completely understandable, creating something online is like writing in sand, it’s transitory and there will always be a knee jerk reaction to what is perceived as the new ‘big thing’.

The truth about mediocrity is that it allows the truly remarkable concepts to shine through and the online is no different in this respect.

Q: If we said mobile device and social media were synonymous with the term ‘new media’ in the past five years, what do you think we will see in the years to come?

Rikki: My hope is that the current flood of emerging trends, technologies and approaches will educate and inform our future. Perceived notions of good or bad tech-trends will become irrelevant and serve only to improve our collective online digital experience.

Q: Multi-platform seems a ‘trouble guy’ for developers to deal with. Does Resn itself have a better process way?

Rikki: We are constantly refining our work processes to address issues born from the multiplatform world we live in.Every project we undertake helps inform and ultimately strengthen our process. We achieve this through a democratic review at the end of each project allowing us to openly and honestly critique the work and our approach.

Resn and Resn’s Partner

Q: Knowing Resn is a creative digital partner to some of the world’s leading advertising agencies including Saatchi & Saatchi LA, BBDO NY, Droga5 NY. However, most agencies have their own production team/dept. So comparing to their own, what part do you play during the working process and what is the major advantage Resn has?

Rikki: We do things a bit differently to the usual suspects and lots of clients crave this – we supply the ‘Resn Effect’ to make the digital world, and our clients brands, more interesting and more loved by our audience.

You attract the work you make and the work you put out into the world. We balance large projects, such as our work for Toyota – Sponsafier and The Camry Effect (http:// www.toyota.com/camryeffect/), with our Resn funded, digital drugs such as Threaded (http:// www.resn.co.nz/threaded/) and PULS (http://puls.resn.co.nz).

We are getting a nice overlap with our commercial work and our art in some recent projects such as Hennessy – Never Stop Never Settle (http://www.neverstopneversettle.com/) and Face Arcade.

Q: Does Resn have the criteria to select the partner or project? When choosing, which part does Resn most value?

Rikki: We look for the coolest digital projects in the world.

Others

Q: There is no doubt that Resn is a team with some creative talents. How Resn seeks talents? What is your most required characters?

Rikki: Having the right attitude and the ability to gel with the Resn team is of great importance to us. Resn is a group of people who have all become friends. Everyone gets along and has respect for each other. This is crucial for a vibrant creative environment.

Everyone is interacting with each other creatively on a daily basis. We have recently been calling out for all types of creative freelancers within New Zealand and across the globe. So far the response has been fantastic.

Q: In 2012，Resn has chosen Amsterdam for its new European base. So could you tell us the reason why you choose Amsterdam? And what is Resn next plan?

Rikki: The goal of the new outpost is to bring the Resn approach of creating narratively rich, experiential content and style to interactive media projects, brands and agencies across the UK, Euro zones and the east coast of the USA.

The Amsterdam node has also allowed us to be better equipped to service the northern hemisphere time zone.We also wanted to have an accent and live under the sea.

Q: Because of the difference of eastern and western cultures, creative as well, so could you tell us something about the ‘Chinese creative’ in your eyes?

Rikki: The cultural differences in creative approach can be wild and varied, or subtle and nuanced, providing an exciting and unexpected digital landscape. It’s exciting to see an explosion of unique self expression and vitality coming out of China thanks to an exponential growth in the digital and the online.

Q: Does Resn has plan towards China in near future?

Rikki: Yes. China is a huge market and Resn is genuinely excited about the possibilities of working with such an energetic, innovative and design oriented culture.The prospect of combing our two approaches and sensibilities is where we will create some true experiential magic!