Michael Lebowitz Discusses Big Spaceship’s Voyages into Uncharted Territories
by Craig Schlanser
You can call Michael Lebowitz almost anything you like. But whatever you do, don’t call him a web designer. Speaking before a large audience at Moore College of Art & Design, Lebowitz, the founder of Brooklyn-based Big Spaceship, set the record straight that his agency is more than just a “web design shop”—they’re a “digital creative agency”. Why all the fuss over a few words? For Lebowitz, this title better reflects the type of work that has come to define Big Spaceship: unconventional and experience-driven.
Throughout the course of his lecture, Lebowitz described how his agency creates compelling, interactive work that transforms online viewers into active participants in the web experience. One example of this is a campaign Big Spaceship worked on for Epson Printers called Epsonality.
With all their cryptic model names and tech-heavy jargon, purchasing a printer can be a daunting task. For the Epsonality campaign, Big Spaceship managed to make the selection of a printer—gasp!—enjoyable. “It’s fun to take something incredibly boring and arcane and make something fun out of it,” said Lebowitz. Through the use of interactive sliders, web viewers can match their printing needs with an appropriate Epson model, a process made even easier with the assistance of a cheery, British-sounding narrator (think James Bond’s gadget man, Q).
How is the Big Spaceship crew able to produce such work? The answer comes back to how Lebowitz avoids pigeonholing his agency as a web shop (or for that matter, a full-service interactive agency, an ad agency, and a production company). “Instead of talking about all the services we provide, we talk about focusing in on all the things in this [digital] sphere where people and brands interact,” said Lebowitz. “We create experiences people want to interact with.”
Big Spaceship’s high level of work is also made possible by Lebowitz’s ability to foster an environment where creativity is not the exclusive domain of a select group of people. In fact, because Big Spaceship’s work requires a considerable amount of collaboration, creativity isn’t just an option—it’s a requirement. Put more bluntly, “If you’re not creative, you can’t work here,” said Lebowitz. Big Spaceship’s creative culture isn’t all serious business, though. As their foosball training montage on YouTube demonstrates, Big Spaceship works hard, but they play hard too.
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