ATTIK Designs and Launches HypeWilliams.com as Renowned Director Receives MTV Video Music Awards' 'Vanguard' Lifetime Achievement Award

ATTIK Designs and Launches HypeWilliams.com as Renowned Director Receives MTV Video Music Awards' 'Vanguard' Lifetime Achievement Award

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 6 /PRNewswire/ -- Global creative and brand- engineering agency ATTIK ( http://www.attik.com/ ) today announced their role in designing and launching the website http://www.hypewilliams.com/ in time for the renowned director himself, Hype Williams, to be honored with the Video Vanguard Award at last night's MTV Video Music Awards. At the height of the star-studded, Aug. 31 live event held at New York's Radio City Music Hall, millions of simultaneous MTV and MTV.com viewers watched as Missy Elliott, Kanye West and Busta Rhymes presented Williams with the prestigious award.

In anticipation of the honor, just weeks before the event, Williams had renewed his past working relationship with ATTIK, to have the company design and launch his official website, complete with 100 of his own photographs, and 50 digitally remastered versions of his most famous music videos.

"Back in 2000, I was invited by fashion designer Julien Macdonald to produce his 'Modern Skins' show at the Millennium Dome on the final evening of London Fashion Week," Williams explained. "I hired ATTIK for that project, to create an artistic, high-tech backdrop for the show, and I felt that their work was truly phenomenal. So, when I learned that I might be up for this award, I got them back onboard to get the site up and going. I gave them a lot of input on what I wanted, and not a lot of time to get it done, but as I expected, they came through in style.

Along with design director Stan Zienka, ATTIK's project team consisted of junior designer Ryan Lee and project manager Oliver Ralph. Using Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, as well as Macromedia Dreamweaver and Flash, the designers adapted the look and feel of the company's past 'Modern Skins' artwork for the new site. The assignment also involved recompressing the music videos and optimizing them for streaming, as well as establishing the most robust hosting platform available, which was secured through Pier One Management, to ensure that the site can handle maximum traffic for its several gigabytes'-worth of spectacular contents.

"Hype had requested a minimal and predominantly white aesthetic for the website design," Zienka said. "It was something that we felt would be simple and allow the user to get to the vast quantity of Hype's work easily. The background textures were reminiscent of the past video project we had done with Hype; a combination of in-camera light experiments and digital compositions."

The new site's traffic exceeded nearly 20,000 hits in the first 24 hours after Williams received his award, which is remarkable in that the site was not yet registered in search engines.

Since 1994, Williams has directed over 200 music videos for the world's top recording artists, including Aaliyah, DMX, Kanye West, Nas, No Doubt, Outkast, and many, many others. Past Video Vanguard recipients include David Bowie, Madonna, U2 and Michael Jackson.

Other awards for Williams' work in the music video field include the Billboard Music Video Award for Best Director of the Year (1996), the Jackson Limo Award for Best Rap Video of the Year (1996) for Busta Rhymes' "Woo Hah," the NAACP Image Award (1997), MTV Video Music Award in the Best Rap Video (1998) category for Will Smith's "Gettin' Jiggy Wit It," MTV Video Music Award for Best Group Video (1999) for TLC's "No Scrubs," MTV Video Music Award for Best R&B Video (2006) for Beyonce's "Check Up On It," and the BET Award for Best Director (2006) for Kanye West's "Gold Digger." He made his feature film directorial debut in 1998 with "Belly," which has since gained a huge cult following, and he has also directed remarkable commercial campaigns for leading global brands, including Nike, MasterCard, Revlon, Fubu, Toyota, Verizon, Reebok, The Gap, and Dolce & Gabbana. For further information, please visit http://www.hypewilliams.com/ .

About ATTIK

ATTIK (http://www.attik.com/ ) is a global creative and brand-engineering agency committed to designing extraordinary creative experiences that inspire consumers through compelling communications. ATTIK's strategic planning, design, advertising, production, client service and young-adult research expertise have driven success across an array of consumer product and service categories. ATTIK articulates corporate brand strategy, designs creative solutions for advertising, below-the-line and online media, ensuring target audiences are vitally connected to every facet of its clients' brands. For inquiries in the eastern U.S., please call Will Travis at 212-334-6401. In the western U.S., please call Justin Smith at 415-989-6401, and in Europe, please call James Sommerville at +44 (0) 113 2021530.

Available Topic Expert(s): For information on the listed expert(s), click appropriate link. James Sommerville http://profnet1.prnewswire.com/ud_public.jsp?userid=521202

William Travis http://profnet2.prnewswire.com/ud_public.jsp?userid=521190

Simon Needham http://profnet2.prnewswire.com/ud_public.jsp?userid=521207

Source: ATTIK

CONTACT: Roger Darnell of DWA, +1-828-264-8898, or rd@darnellworks.com,
for ATTIK

NOTE TO EDITORS: Please visit this link to view/download high-resolution artwork to accompany this story: http://www.darnellworks.com/attik/nr0057.htm

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