"A unique motivational concept for a military recruitment tool. The notebook-doodle-style art looks young and uncontrolled. The writing is funny and 'keeps it real' by implying that being a slacker will lead to something awful, like living with your parents." —juror Lou Kinard
"The hand-drawn approach adds energy and interest. And the iconic sketches as navigation invite nonlinear exploration and allow users to uncover the content areas in an engaging way." —juror Susan Easton
Overview: This friendly and often funny site teaches high school seniors about career opportunities with the U.S. Air Force. Students choose their own paths, revealing humorous situations that educate them about career choices. At the same time they can watch videos, download desktop wallpapers and request information.
• 35 SWF files
• 12 videos
• All-text Section 508 compliant version
• 20.3MB total file size
Comments by Sean Keith and Christopher Staub:
"We were faced with drawing in the best and brightest young men and women we could find to ponder a possible future with the Air Force. Traditionally, the Air Force sends out 2.3 million business reply cards to high school students in between their junior and senior years. However, our demographic, the 17- to 24-year-olds, had migrated from magazines and newspapers to the Internet. We decided to fish where there are fish.
"The result is this humorous microsite called WhatAmIGonnaDoNext.com, where visitors can explore a wide range of career opportunities. Some of the jobs on it are crummy, some are unrealistic and some are with the U.S. Air Force. We purposely mixed them all together to keep the exploration fun and engaging.
"Apparently it worked. It wasn't long before we started seeing blogs where kids were passing around the URL and suggesting to others that they take it for a spin (something that doesn't normally happen with military recruitment sites).
"The concept for the site was inspired by all the horrible jobs we did when we were growing up. Two jobs that didn't make the list: 'shoveling sheep crap in 100-degree weather' and, of course, 'advertising.'
"Transistor Studios really went the distance for us, and then some. It truly was an integrated team effort and a great sharing of ideas. We wanted them to bring something to the table, and as you can see, they did."
