I opened my inbox this morning to an email from my buddy Joe calling me Scruffaluffagus and telling me my facial hair is as outdated as Hammer Pants. After crossing Joe off my list of people I’d buy a car for if I won the lottery, I followed a link to an audio/video message he created for me. What I was presented with was a talking head spouting out some critique of my hair stylings. Intrigued and slightly bruised, I ventured into the linked website, barberbrigade.com.
The spinning barber shop stripe sign used as a loading status bar, along with the website’s URL, were enough to tie this all together. It’s a site dedicated to male grooming. All the outright and unwarranted abuse of my facial fuzz fashion fax pas aside, my experience with barberbrigade.com was a good one. The design of this website (it’s flash man, get with the program), is as sweet as Joe’s girlfriend’s lips (think honey with a touch of caramel). Almost everything on the site is clickable and interactive. The nutty designers of the site at Wexley School for Girls did a great job of flexing their creative creativeness. There are sound bites, birds that take dumps and even a fish that blows balloon animals.
I was quickly hooked by the interactivity and design. So much so that I spent a good hour on the site (Yes, while at work but it’s cool, I put my hours under miscellaneous on the timesheet.). The site also succeeded in sparking my interest in the grooming products it is attempting to sell. I even showed them to my lady. Personally, I still have a hard time spending more than $10 on anything to do with hair so if she wants me to look pretty, she’ll have to dig into her pockets. Hey, I’m no $2 whore, you know. Not like Joe (you know who you really are).
