New Retro Synth Ads feature: Advertising and Promotion Timeline Tool

Here's something a little different.

I've created a new Retro Synth Ads' Advertising and Promotions Timeline Tool to help readers quickly find a particular ad/blog post without having to scan through the increasingly long list of labels that travel down the left side of the blog.

Keep reading if you want to know more about the tool, or just click on the image above to go directly to the new timeline tool page.

I got the idea for the timeline tool while researching a similar feature for a work project. As soon as I came across this little Flash tool online, I instantly saw the potential to allow visitors to quickly flip through the ads that I've blogged about. I could have just posted a page with small thumbnail images, but hopefully lining up the ads in a timeline format helps add a bit of value.

It's really interesting to quickly flip through each company's ads and see the evolution of design through the 70's and 80's. Color, style, layout - you can start to get an idea of how Korg or Moog ads transitioned from one marketing and design concept to another.

Keep in mind there are still holes in each timeline - not all ads have been added yet. But over time it should all fill in. Right now, as proof-of-concepts, I've just created timelines for ARP, Korg and Moog - all linking back to each ad's corresponding scans and blog posts.

In order to accommodate the new timeline feature, I had to make a few adjustments to the blog. I was originally going to change the site to one of the new Blogger templates, but the more I fooled around with the options, the uglier it got. So, I decided to try and just tweak the current design by clicking on that scary Edit HTML button. I'll deal with a site redesign another time.

As for the tweaks.... first, I widened up the blog. But then the blog post font felt really small, so I enlarged it a tad - much easier to read in my opinion. But then it made the blog post titles look wonky, so they needed to be slightly adjusted too. And so on... and so on.

Overall, a fun project. Will add more timelines in the near future.

Like, tomorrow, probably. :D