NEW ORLEANS, March 5 /PRNewswire/ -- Communication Arts has chosen Peter A. Mayer Advertising's LivesConnected.com oral history website as its Site of the Week. Selection for this honor is based on a combination of good design and technical expertise. LivesConnected will be featured on the home page of DesignInteract.com during the week of March 5 -12, 2007. LivesConnected.com is the up-close and personal look at 44 members of the Peter Mayer team and their trials and tribulations during and after Hurricane Katrina.

In the year following Katrina, the employees at New Orleans-based Peter A. Mayer Advertising chose to remember the tragedy through a web-based oral history - an idea as creative as it was therapeutic. By the time the site was completed, what began as a side project had translated into something even more significant: it is a showcase of the connections between co-workers who will be forever bound by a common experience.

"What we found was amazing and unexpected," said John Pucci, associate creative director at Peter Mayer Advertising. "While everyone's experiences were different, they were also incredibly intertwined. As we watched the footage, we realized that there was a common thread between every member of the agency."

Rather than using the traditional technique of delivering videos independent of each other, the Peter Mayer Interactive team developed an interactive data visualization website that allowed viewers to explore the connections between everyone's stories. In order to create a seamless website for viewers, the team relied on several technologies working together, including Flash animation, dynamic data, cued video and ActionScript.

With one click, viewers can seamlessly move from one point in a story to the connected point in another, allowing the viewer to focus entirely, never realizing the multitude of technologies behind it.

The website is important not only because it treads new ground in the interactive/web arena, but because it allows those outside of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast to hear first-person what real people saw and felt during Hurricane Katrina, and how it affects them still.

"It's all about connections," said Josh Mayer, Peter Mayer Advertising co- owner and creative director. "Connecting the lives of our employees. Connecting ourselves to the web and the world. Creating an emotional response in people who don't even know us. I can't think of a better tribute to our company, our people and our hometown."

To experience the site for yourself, please visit http://www.livesconnected.com/ or http://www.commarts.com/ .

Peter A. Mayer Advertising, Inc.

Peter A. Mayer Advertising Inc. was founded in 1967 with three employees and $200,000 in annual billings. Today it is one of the largest full-service advertising, public relations and marketing agencies in the Gulf South, with a staff of 115 professionals and annual billings of $75 million. Peter A. Mayer Advertising specializes in all areas of advertising, marketing, direct response, public relations, promotions and Internet media. Its client list includes local, regional and national accounts.

Communication Arts

Founded in 1959, Communication Arts is the leading trade journal for visual communications and was the first major design publication to launch a Web presence in 1995. DesignInteract.com is part of the Commarts Network and focuses on multimedia and technology. Design Interact was created to be the premiere source of information and inspiration for the field of interactive media.

CONTACT: Stafford Scott of Peter A. Mayer Advertising, Inc.,
+1-504-491-4249, or scotts@peteramayer.com

Web site: http://www.livesconnected.com/
http://www.commarts.com/