One of my ex-colleagues Husani who is the former Head of Technology at RSCG New York and now Director of Technology at EVB San Francisco has just launched MakeMeSuper.com for Kodak. I went in and tinkered around with it and made myself super!

HOW TO MAKE YOURSELF SUPER

You start by selecting your gender and entering your name (there are some preset names for your selection), and if it is available for selection you then upload your photo. If your name isn’t on the list, you can choose a generic identifier like mom, girl, dad, or the like.

The next step would be to browse and upload a photo of yourself. After you have done that, you’d need to adjust the photo to fit in perfectly within the face frame of the character. There is an option to scale and rotate until you’re happy with it. When you are satisfied with the way your face is framed you can then make yourself into a super hero or a super heroin!

You are then presented a video of how incredibly super you are with your own theme song. Below is an example of what that looks like.

POSTER OF SUPER “YOU”

The system also generates a Super “You” poster which you can download for free, but what would be the whole point of it if it didn’t have a business case to support its creation? As such, there is merchandise you can buy of your own superhero character. The choices include a mug, mousepad, deck of cards, t-shirt and a tote bag, and although as of my writing the super product section doesn’t seem to be enabled just yet, it looks similar to a Cafepress.com service.

TECHNOLOGY

Strictly technically-speaking, MakeMeSuper.com is like a lo-fi version of Schick‘s revolutionary website Hige-Chen.com, which is able to go one step further in transforming a 2D picture into a photo-realistic 3D animated sensation. The website is in Japanese, and if you are not comfortable with Japanese you can watch this video which talks about what JWT did for the Hige-Chen project.

Makemesuper.com is an entertaining website that is good for a laugh, gives the option of personalized gifts and would probably do well with the younger American demographic and those Gen X folks who secretly have always wanted to be a superhero. Do check it out if you’re in need of some entertainment, and in the meantime here’s Super Jacqueline!