Sway was launched in June of 2001 at the start of the recession and right before September 11. (I've always liked a good challenge.) Sway decided to develop promotional materials that demonstrated that when the going gets tough, the tough get growing! Thank you for your interest in Sways Desktop Farming Initiative. Enclosed you will find one Desktop Farming Sphere, a fully functional biosphere that has been optimized for growing agricultural staples on the desktop. Directions for the assembly and planting of your Desktop Farming Sphere can be found online at http://www.swaysf.com/growThe Sway Desktop Farming Sphere was developed to help feed hungry office workers in times of economic uncertainty. This self-contained ecosystem can provide much-needed nourishment and dietary fiber – not to mention a renewed sense of self-esteem and personal autonomy – using less than 4 square inches of desktop real estate. The Desktop Farming Sphere is a beacon of hope for professionals everywhere, reminding them that while the current economic climate might seem frigid, spring is, in fact, just around the corner.Sway is an interface design studio. Sway develops creative strategies for using new technologies to enhance the interaction between brands and their consumers. Weve helped cultivate business growth for companies like Levi Strauss , Red Herring and Wells Fargo.If you are interested in growing your business, or know of anyone else who would benefit from a little desktop farming, please e-mail us at grow@swaysf.com.

This rich Brand Identity + Web Site foster visceral consumer interactions with the the Medlock Ames product on and offline A die-cut label is used as both an icon and window into the soul of the product. This sense of rolling liquidity that mirrors the landscape from which the product is derived, is then elegantly, interactively animated within the website.

The Gaylord Hotels web sites were completed under Ryan's leadership at Sway, in partnership with Gaylord's advertising agency, and a development team from Fusion Productions. Gaylord Hotels is a family of resort and convention centers with properties in Orlando, FL, Nashville, TN, and Grapevine, TX. Prior to working with Sway, each property had developed its own web site, at different times, with different functionality and different looks. TBC Advertising, the agency of record for Gaylord Hotels, asked Sway to integrate these disparate sites with the look of a new umbrella brand advertising campaign they had developed. Before the re-design process began, Sway was presented with several restrictions from Gaylord's technology provider, Fusion, who was pre-contracted to handle back-end development. The existing site architecture for th Orlando property was to serve as the site architecture for all of the properties, without any changes permitted. The basic layout of the page and dimensions of navigation and header areas were also pre-determined. Despite these constriants, Sway was able to design an interface that met the technolog providers specifications, while simultaneously addressing some of the usability issues present in the existing sites. Sway's new design clearly distinguishes and prioritizes different types of information. Before, the interface mixed different types of content together. In order to maximize navigability,the new design divides the page into four key interface areas, each with a different objective. The top of the page enables the user to easily identify which sub-section of the site is being viewed, the lower left enables users to jump to other properties' sites and the right column enables users to find content related to what is being viewed in the main body of the page. The interface also presents key actionable information (such as numbers to call for reservations or links to buy tickets online) in aconsistent location on every page. The new design leveraged some of the key elements of the advertising campaign, but translated them for best effect online. The advertising treatment also included a beveled gold bars for headlines, and parchment paper backgrounds, two effects that don't transition well online. Sway's clean design is clearly consistent with the brand look created by TBC but medium-appropriate. The result is a high-end, polished site consistent with the state-of-the art facilities and luxurious accommodations that Gaylord Hotels offers.

Yahoo! MusicA series of novel online ads created for Yahoo! Music and Yahoo! Mobile. Cramming compelling experiences into small ad placements, these ads used algorithmic animations to keep file size down while providing interactive dazzle .

A fun design used for this Training Software at Apple customer support training centers worldwide. This software helped new employees coming from a range of technical backgrounds to get up to speed on a their new jobs quickly and easily.

PlayNet Technologies developed location-based, networked, entertainment systems. PlayNet targeted the hospitality industry with video games and music stations to be placed in bars and hotels around the country. Ryan helped design and produce these next-generation jukeboxes that redefined how consumers experienced music in public. The Music Stations not only played music, they also provided information about the artists, a list of tour dates, coupons for upcoming album releases, and more. The Music Stations were designed to provide a more robust music experience for consumers and merchandising opportunities for the labels. While old jukeboxes were about making 25 cents a song. Music Stations were about selling CDs and more. The Music Stations were also designed to take full advantage of the benefits of networked connectivity. No longer did people have to go out into the field to change records in jukeboxes. With the Music Station music could be pushed out from a central office. Music could be tailored to different locations based both on what users in that market were listening to, as well as on what the labels wanted to promote. Ryans work on the PlayNet project included devising the initial specifications for the software,managing database design, designing information presentation and overseeing hardware development.

MasterCard's continued objective is to get members to use their MasterCard more often. One way this objective is met is providing members with card-use incentives. Sway was tasked with presenting these incentives in a consolidated platform, packaging them together in a way that provided some meaningful context for their use. The solution was MasterCard Destinations, a travel portal. The architecture and design had to account for the fact that content was being aggregated from a variety of sources, and that much of this content was originally developed for disparate purposes. In other words, the design had to create consistency where there had been none, and ensure that users had a cohesive experience (as opposed to feeling like the site is just a bunch of stuff thrown together). In addition, because the Destinations site was essentially part of the larger MasterCard site, the design had to complement the existing look and feel, but still stand out as a separate promotion. Sway's solution achieved it all, and thousands of offers have been redeemed by travelers using their MasterCard.

When The Wall Street Journal came to Sway, their online advertising did not match their website, nor did it match the much-publicized redesign of the print version of the paper. When users clicked on a banner (which was rare, as the call-to-action was difficult to see), they would land at a site that looked completely different from whence they came. Sway established a visual vocabulary that could be used for all online marketing initiatives that tied in with the look and feel of the actual product. Sway also focused on creating a visual hierarchy for the information presented. These changes dramatically increased click-throughs and conversion for the paper. This campaign ended up significantly increasing online subscriptions.

See Change Technologies, a spin-off of APL Logistics, provides logistics professionals with web-based supply-chain information. The SCT system not only tracks product across carriers of all sizes and all modes of transportation all over the world,it also helps optimize supply chain networks by reducing costs and accelerating productivity. As a new company in a competitive category, SCT needed a web site to support their efforts to generate qualified sales leads. The primary challenge was how to explain a technically complex product to a stressed-out, overworked target. The interface developed addressed this challenge in two ways. First, the information architecture prioritized product information over all other site content; executive bios, press releases, etc. were relegated deeper within the site so as not to compete with communication of product benefits. Second, in addition to providing a textbook definition of the SCT offering, imagery and copy were employed to creatively describe the problem SCT solves. Lines such as 'What if the little engine that could can't today?' and 'A 15 ton needle sitting in the wrong haystack' indicated an understanding of and empathy with prospective clients'situation and provided some personality for SCT. Not only did the interface developed provide a concept that could be leveraged for other communication materials such as sales collateral, it was also designed to incorporate additional information and functionality over time and be easy for SCT's internal web team to maintain and adapt for use in other countries.

After conducting a study,Red Herring found that most advertisers and media planners were usually familiar with one Red Herring media product or publication, but not with the full range of properties available. They wanted to create a new media and advertiser-specific site where they could bring the multi-faceted nature of all of their disparate properties together under a single brand. A unique UX design solution was developed to address this problem. The Red Herring Media Site showcases the three main media platforms-magazine,web site and events at all times. When a user is interested in information related to a specific platform, the screen area allocated to that platform increases, while the othertwo platform areas shrink, but never disappear. This way, even when a media planner comes to the site to find rates for the magazine, the notion that Red Herring has other products with a similar demographic available as part of a buy is always being reiterated. Swirl followed this site launch with a large online advertising campaign.