Bringing a New Dimension To The Visual Web

Photo credit: State of Maine

Kristen Muszynski is the director of communications at the Department of the Secretary of State in Maine. Some time ago her colleague Tammy Marks, who works as the archives director of the department, started advocating for investing time and money in new technologies to showcase the archives’ holdings.

This example shows how interactive infographics on large touch screens can be used to create engaging exhibitions in a physical space.

The Anglo-American School of Moscow (AASM) is an independent, international school catering for students between the ages of 4 and 18, chartered by the American, British and Canadian embassies. As their communication and development department started preparing for the school’s 70 year anniversary,   graphic designer and public relations coordinator Anastasia Osminina started looking for interactive touch screen solutions for their exhibition.

ThingLink user: WaterAid - is a remarkable organization who focuses on making clean water, decent toilets and good hygiene normal for everyone, everywhere.  Read more about their amazing work and make a contribution, here!  Each year the WaterAid digital team puts together a landing page that reviews their various initiatives in the form of a Global Annual Report.  In order to increase engagement and improve the experience of readers, WaterAid uses two interactive images on their landing page, one map and one infographic.  Continue reading to explore these examples and learn pro tips if you want to create similar content! 

ThingLink user: DERTOUR - BOO! It is Halloween and at the Europa-Park theme park and resort!  Seeking to create a stunning, visual experience to bring their website content to life, DERTOUR creates an interactive map featuring many great attractions in the theme park that guests can experience.  Interactive content is the ideal solution for communicating, educating, and reeling in your audience within landing pages as we see in this example.  Behind every pumpkin hides one of the fantastic Halloween highlights awaiting guests at Europa-Park. Just click through, be amazed - and with a little luck even win free tickets. Our tip: turn on the sound!

ThingLink user: VRM Arena Tour - VRM is a regional media company that uses ThingLink in this article to give readers the experience of touring the Opel Arena in Germany.  The tour begins with an aerial view outside of the stadium and readers can click on the various illustrations to explore points of interest.  For example, clicking the field will take you to a 360° view from on the field, and clicking the shopping bag will take you to explore the stadium store.  This use case highlights the ability to include regular flat images into your 360° tour.  Including a regular image as your starting point gives the reader an easy to navigate table of contents that they can revisit at any point within the tour. 

Many real estate agents from small local shops to large commercial brands are leveraging interactive content to tell more visual stories or market properties more effectively.  In this blog post you will learn four project ideas for using ThingLink interactive content in your real estate marketing, communications and property tours. These include 1) schematic floor plans 2) concept designs 3) project site maps and 4) property tours. 

Watch this short video to acquaint yourself with how easy it is to create a ThingLink with out latest updates included.   In this video you will learn the 3-step process of uploading content, using the five tag layouts available, and publishing your content.   We are always looking to improve our product and would love to hear from you with feedback or feature requests, don't hesitate to get in touch!  

360 cameras allow you to take high-quality images for your school, business or marketing project. However, if you do not have the funding for such equipment or just want to try out 360 images, you can use the free Google Street View app on your phone. Continue reading to learn how to actually take these photos on the app, exporting them to ThingLink, and some live examples! 

ThingLink user: CoMap Control - marketing your products visually in today's web environment is critical when it comes to capturing attention and presenting information in an engaging way for customers.  Using interactive hotspots to deconstruct and market your products is an easy and powerful method for continuing your product's story through a piece of visual content where normally it could be challenging to design the necessary text within an illustration.  Using text, image and video hotspots, CoMap Control visually breaks down the key features and selling points for one of their intelligent electronic control products and solutions.  Continue reading to explore the live example. 

ThingLink user: Cincinnati Orchestra - take a virtual trip directly into the conductors chair of the Cincinnati Orchestra with this interactive 360° tour.  Learners can navigate through each section of the orchestra, hearing specific instruments in the background, seating arrangement locations, and explore embedded Wikipedia pages on each instrument.  ThingLink 360° tours can be consumed on any device, screen size, and within VR headsets powered by WebVR (view compatible headsets). This content was captured with a Go Pro 360 camera.