Rushing around Austin this morning depositing my children to their individual houses of learning my mind wandered, as it always does, to the tasks ahead of me. I have a few big projects going on and one of them is heavily story based and if you know me or read me you know I LOVE STORY. I believe story is what makes people engage with our messages and how they get to know and like us. I tend to shy away from being “cool” because cool is subjective and short lived.

After a few moments pondering how I was going to tackle this massive story project I switched my attention to a smaller project that is going into the executional phase. It does have story but in a more “this is who we are and what we’re about” way. We’re looking at web vendors to help bring it to life and I thought, “Damn, I need to look at all those sites before my meeting.” I dreaded the slog. I shouldn’t have.

This site, built by STINKDIGITAL for ASOS Urban Tour, a clothing company, blew my mind away. It’s so freaking cool and smart and well crafted and how the hell did they build this thing? Is it cool? It’s undoubtedly cool. Story? Kind of if the story is “this is who we are.” But really, this is just freaking cool and smart.  Best of all, it inserts the brand squarely in the culture of the people it’s selling to. I’m so jealous and impressed and inspired.

I guess cool can win if it’s cool enough.