The holiday season is all about giving and caring and all those warm and fuzzy feelings, but for the Humbugs, it’s a time to be grumpy, greedy and downright rude!

Zehnder Communications, an American design firm, is using Layar to bring their latest creation, the Humbugs, to life. These fun-hating killjoys are featured on a set of free printable paper Christmas tree ornaments that spring to life in all their nastiness when scanned with the Layar App.

“These crude-rude, seedy-greedy creatures slink about in mockery of this most joyous season. And now it’s time to take a stand,” Zehnder’s website declares. “This year, Zehnder has devised a new way of exposing the Humbugs by adding a little cheer to the holiday at their expense.”

You can even battle against the Humbugs in a side-scrolling adventure game! But the real fun comes from seeing the paper ornaments come to life when you scan them with the Layar App. Enjoy!

About Zhender: Zehnder Communications, a full-service advertising agency, was one of the first agencies in the U.S. to venture into Augmented Reality in 2009 with its Voodoo Music Experience app. The app, featured in Fast Company, was one of the first of its kind — innovative apps for brands like Sony and Disney parks soon followed. Zehnder serves clients across the country from its offices in Baton Rouge, Nashville, and New Orleans. The agency was founded in 1996.

Gamers around the globe have been anticipating this week’s release of the next saga in one of the world’s most popular videogame franchises - Assassin’s Creed 3. For those in the Netherlands, a new ad campaign from CBS Outdoor Advertising and Bol.com provides a special discount for anyone who scans a new billboard ad and buys the game.

As seen in the photo to the right, the ad has begun popping up in Holland’s many train stations. Eager gamers can scan the ad to see a video trailer of the game and instantly buy the game with a €5 discount on Bol.com, the largest online retailer in the Netherlands and Belgium.

This summer, we announced that Bol.com had hooked its database of product packaging (books, DVDs, games and more) into Layar, enabling users to shop for products online by simply scanning them with Layar. Now, Bol.com is taking part in a new kind of Layar campaign, one on a much larger scale!

This is a great example of the versatility of the Layar Creator. Whether your print is as small as a business card, or as big as an outdoor billboard, the Creator can quickly and easily add engaging digital content on top. By offering a discount, Bol.com is enhancing the viewer experience and providing valuable engagement with their advertising - a concept we heard Nissan discuss recently at our Toronto event.

Perhaps the best aspect of the Assassin’s Creed III campaign is the large and clear call-to-action. Translated, the text reads “Scan with Layar for discount!” The capitalized red text makes sure people see it, and the Layar logo lets people know they need to download the app to scan it.

Many world travelers can probably relate to the following scenario: You get to the airport two hours early (as is generally suggested) for your international flight, but end up spending most of that time sitting at the gate, twiddling your thumbs while waiting for the airplane to arrive (still beats being in line at the security check all that time, but still).

Naturally, your mobile phone gets a workout during this wait, but you can only update Facebook so many times before it loses its luster, and your friends already saw that you checked into gate C-16 and are “Sooooo excited to visit NYC!” 

Thanks to KLM and a group of creative developers and designers, you can now channel that excitement into a simple, fun AR trivia game that’s targeted to your travel destination.

The Ready For Boarding layer was created for KLM (Royal Dutch Airlines), and based out of Amsterdam’s Schiphol International Airport. It keeps live data of Schiphol’s flight schedule, so you can choose the exact flight you’re taking and answer trivia questions about your destination that appear as 3D objects in AR.

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Throughout the summer, we’ve covered some of the highlights of Bruce Sterling’s Layar-sponsored AR design class at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California.

As all good things must come to an end, so has this class, but not without some impressive final student projects! Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll be sharing videos of these projects as well as footage from the class presentations with Layar strategist Gene Becker making a guest appearance to offer comments and feedback. You can read all our posts related to the Design Class here.

This next concept was created by Riccardo Valerio and showcases his location-based AR game called BitHunt (there’s also a BitHunt layer currently in testing). The game is centered around real-world exploration, clue finding, puzzle-solving and treasure hunting (with BitCoins that you can turn into cash!). 

This video will make you want to rush out the door with nothing but your phone and a Tintin-like sense of adventure—check it out!

Giant Rabobank safe marks the spot [for game play] at the Efteling.

In fact, the Walt Disney Company was the first to rake the AR plunge, producing layers for both Disneyland and Walt Disney World last year to help guide visitors around the parks’ many attractions.

Yesterday, however, the Netherlands’ own [fairytale] theme park destination, the Efteling (in cooperation with Dutch bank Rabobank), took its augmentation to the next level by creating an AR game experience for visitors to play on their mobile devices.

The layer, Feetje en de Kluis, aka “Fairy and the Safe” in English, includes an interactive game where you have one minute to collect and save as many coins as possible while avoiding the witch, who will steal them from you if you run into her. There’s also as an interactive audio fairytale about teaching a witch to save money (presumably so she won’t have to steal anymore).

You can launch the fairytale from any location, but in order to play the game you must be in front of the giant Rabobank safe/ATM near the entrance of the Efteling.

Check out this video (in Dutch) that illustrates the Efteling’s magical Layar integration:

Longtime Layar Partner TAB Worldmedia worked with the Efteling and Rabobank to create the Feetje en de Kluis layer. You can check out other cool projects from the folks at TAB Worldmedia on their blog, or follow them on Twitter.