lightning strikes a landing page
the makers of wunderlist rise from the ashes to ask for your email address in extraordinary fashion
welcome back to the american product institute.
last tuesday, we published the moscow method, the institute’s guide to ruthless prioritization. you could read it. maybe you should read it. in our opinion, you must read it to gain consciousness of what you do and why you do it.
then on friday we published the sunset of wunderlist, an essay on the integration effects of the microsoft suite and the digital lobotomy undergone by the defunct application’s former userbase.
today, in a sequel to friday’s essay, we discuss the spectacular delights of a web form on which you can do little more than input your email address.
lightning strikes a landing page
productive people and productive teams have many options for systematizing their productivity into a second, digital brain. at some undetermined point in the future, the digitally productive will receive yet another option. the makers of wunderlist saw the sun set on their creation, but they don’t appear to be afraid of the night. instead, they’re spreading word of a new dawn.
enter: superlist.
or rather, enter a stylish and highly enticing superlist landing page.
with a quick spin, the page begins to load.
a lengthy blink and you could miss it.
by the makers of wunderlist.
they’re back. like a phoenix rising from the ashes. what is to-do can never be done.
if you didn’t already, go experience it for yourself.
the page loads in pitch blackness with the stillness of a movie theater caught just after the last trailer has ended. the audience frozen at that moment between inhale and exhale. just before the first light of the projector flickers into life.
then comes the flicker. the opening credits. silky smooth. in a perfect circle, but counterclockwise. against the grain.
by the makers of wunderlist.
the makers matter and wunderlist lives on. many of these makers came by way of microsoft, who acquired wunderlist in 2015, announced the impending sunset in 2017, and finally killed it off last wednesday. the unborn superlist application was fathered by wunderlist founder and former ceo christian reber. the birth of the landing page on the same week as the death of wunderlist is highly conscious and clearly intentional. a signal of reincarnation cast into the cloud. a statement that the creative force is more powerful than it’s destructive counterpart, as long as the creators - the makers - still draw breath.
just as crisply as they unfurled, the credits swing shut. on to the plot.
from the depths just south of the edge of your monitor springs forth pure chaos.
in the form of things to do.
a notebook, a phone, a keyboard, a pie chart, a pen (or maybe it’s a pencil), a text bubble, a highlighter, a pair of headphones, and a star that might be gold but the for the fact that every one of the objects is rendered in monochrome. in matte black.
this chaos is all the things you need to do. in all the mediums you do need to them in. monochrome because the proverbial “to do” exists agnostic of medium. no matter where you do it, the task only matters because it needs to be done.
the chaos does not swirl unabated for long. just as quickly as it sprang forth from below, a black lightning bolt emerges from a different angle. from behind you, the viewer. no… from within you!
a subtle but stunning optical feat that pulls the passive viewer onto the page to become an active participant.
now we have landed.
the matte black things are now interacting with you. following you around. bending to your will. transfixed by the you that has been transmuted into a computer cursor: part nonphysical body, part digital index finger.
seconds ago you were a viewer in the back of a theater during the opening credits. now you are the star up in lights. top billing for this bright and bold page with a solitary call-to-action that invites an active sense of presence with the click of a button.
notify me.
and how could you turn down that notification, after what has just transpired?
the lightning bolt has brought order to this chaos of things. the lightning bolt is superlist, the supercharged bringer of productivity. the lightning bolt is you, the viewer, because a deft transition animation has goaded your ego into life. you will heroically bring order to your chaos and superlist will be the weapon you wield.
or rather, it will be at some point in the future. because it doesn’t yet exist.
but superlist isn’t for the past or the present. it’s for the future.
the future is the realm of the landing page. the future is where promises made will be kept. the future will see a new creation born from the ashes an old one.
and if you input your email address and click a button, you’ll be notified when the future arrives.