As part of some recent client work, my colleagues at Electric Artists have compiled a list of six best-of-breed creative screensavers. If you think that screensavers are still limited to geometric shapes bouncing across your screen, be sure to check out the ones below.
NEC's screensaver (PC only) asks users to click and create messages that serve as the “leaves” on an interactive tree. For every 10,000 clicks NEC plant's a tree. In 2007 they received 117,101 clicks and therefore planted 1,171 trees. LINK
MSN developed a data visualization screensaver that incorporates multiple RSS feeds in the form of
a rainbow of colors that then allows the user to customize their settings of their news preferences. LINK
Uniqlo showcased their minimalist clothing by filming quirky Japanese dancers in a library, interspersed with animations of a countdown clock. It utilizes both video, as well as XML data of the current time. LINK
Graphic designer Simon Heys created the “Word Clock” screensaver that is now translated into 18 languages and has its own Flickr page. This page utilizes Flash and an XML feed of the current time. LINK
PixelBreaker has created a dynamic “Polar Clock” that animates the date and time in expanding concentric circles. This utilizes Flash and an XML feed of the current time. LINK
Digg developed several data visualization tools to showcase their news stories based on which ones are getting more attention than others. Each screensaver uses Flash in order to animate the data and an XML feed of their current stories. Link
