Get Smart

For Milt, doing right by his clients means assembling the most capable group of full-time and independent developer talent he can find -- and to do so long before a contract for a particular project has been struck. "On the day we signed with Citibank," he says, "we started production."

The full-time, in-house staff at interActive Publishing -- a talented trio in their 20s -- includes Brook Jones, video editor; Eric Scuccimara, programmer; and Meghan Pistorino, office manager. What the Milt's home team lacks in experience, its independent contractors have in spades. Jerry Kaufman, a former creative director of the Ted Bates advertising agency -- and the mind behind the infamous Palmolive ad campaign in which Madge the beautician tells her incredulous customers, "You're soaking in it!" -- is the head writer. The project's creative director for print graphics is a long-time Manhattan design consultant with ties to a major media company.

The art director, Eric Reinfeld of Brooklyn, is a Photoshop and digital-video artist for Time and some of Madison Avenue's top agencies. He is also the author of Real-World After Effects, a popular how-to book published by Peachpit Press.

CitiGold Live's primary design interface resembles an ATM, albeit one that, with its embossed gold casing, concave lettering and photo collages, could exist only behind the protective wall of a computer monitor. This upscale, yet familar, grid frames the entire program. Reinfeld approached the design from a slightly less hip vantage point than he typically works from. "To me, it was a little on the heavy side," he says. "Intially, I'd proposed something much thinner, with a cleaner, more high-tech look and feel. But Victor said, 'Remember: Bigger is just better for certain folks.' So we kept it pretty simple and tailored it to those people who don't touch their computers very much."