From the cutting room floor: N*E*R*D cartridges

Fans of the 2009 N*E*R*D site should recall the large cartridge that the crowd held up on the intro page. Well, that was actually just one of many different fake cartridges that I created. Here’s the story of a concept that didn’t quite fit in with the rest of the site so it wasn’t used.

Back in December 2008, I was brought onboard to redo the official site for N*E*R*D. Another company had been working on it, but the band wasn’t happy with the direction they were going in. I was soon on a call with Pharrell, who was detailing his concepts for the new site: an old-school Atari theme.

This got some wheels churning. As luck would have it, a friend I’ve known since 3rd grade is a big Atari fan and has a pretty large collection. We arranged for him to send me a package of games, controllers and a system. I wasn’t exactly sure what I’d do with them, but hoped that the gear would spark some ideas.

And they did! I love those old, classic cartridges. The labels, the graphics, the way they were all worn down from years of use and abuse. I didn’t have an Atari growing up, (we were a Commodore family,) but it took me back.

I then looked to the album artwork, which also had great illustrations:

My next step seemed obvious…

I started laying out the different labels, naming them (some with titles that still make me chuckle,) and got to cutting and pasting (literally this time, not digitally!)

The results:

One thought was to have each cartridge associated with a section of the site, and the homepage would let you select which cartridge to put into the system. (roll over for example.)

In the end I was really happy with the results, but this “real retro” style just didn’t fit in with the “8-bit retro” style of the rest of the site. The cartridges are currently lined up next to my desk, trophies of a concept that didn’t make the cut.