New Media Exploration

There has always been advertisement on the radio, during your TV shows, bilboards when you drive down the street even on the internet. But advertisements today are much different than they use to be. Advertisements use to be simple and got the point across easily, then they went to funny but you didn’t know what the commercial was for till the very end. Today we are all into design, and making something that is unique but also odd and strange but in away that people like.. If you watch TV today and wait for a commercial (which isnt very hard as it seems more time is spent watching commercials then your television show) anyways if you wait for a commercial most likely you are going to see one of these commercials that are all into design, and making something unique but also odd and strange but in a way that people like.
One commercial that is different but memorable is the Guinness commercial. This commercial is very unique I have never seen something like it. I like how they have created the look of people being thrown at drums and playing a theme. They had to time this very accurately because if one person hits before the sound it would not seem real.

In the HP commercial with Vera Wang the incorporate computer animation with real life. This video shows that. By making real life interact with the computer animations you are giving the effect that Vera Wang is actually doing those things. That it is magic and she can pull things out of thin air aswell as make them disappear. She is saying that she did these things with an HP and that causes a viewer to believe that they can do these incredible things as well. This is the finished video.

New Media Exploration: Online Applications

From the examples that Karl showed us in class and from what I have seen online, I think that web applications are going to gain a stronger presence on the web. The two sites that I thought were interesting are very different from each other. One is very basic looking site that has some cool creative features and the other is more of an online application for editing images and more.


The first site is called TYPEFLASH, it is a cool site where you can create customized text or even a whole letter and send it via email to yourself or anyone. The level of customization is amazing, and surprisingly easy to use. The application of sorts, allows for customization of style, color, background,... I think it really shows the power that Flash has to offer web users in any field of use.


Picnik is the name of the second site. I don't know as much about this site as I would like to, but I know that it is an online application, built in Flash, that allows you to edit digital photos. I have used it briefly and I know that it is powerful and is basically a web-based Photoshop. It is extremely powerful, from what I can tell, I think that I would use it for creating cool emails or notes.

All I know is that the web is going to change, I think for the better. Online tools will become more powerful and websites will be more interactive and engaging. I also think that we are just starting to explore the potential for web-applications. I have learned a lot from this class and I definitely want to learn more. Thanks for all the help!!

Silly Sammy by Jana Pierce

If you want to get away from it all, you should check out http://www.hungrysuitcase.com/ . Here you will find a site full of fun and great design. The main part of the site is their "Vacation Fun-A-Lyzer"where you pack different items into "the hungry suitcase." Based on the items you choose to pack, the program will come up with a destination the Carnival Cruise Line offers as a vacation. The artistry is excellent. Everything is top notch as far as design and functionality. As you are deciding what to pack, you go from room to room. There is a neat effect of the room spinning to the next. If you are idle in one room, the suitcase will prompt you to keep packing. Once you have chosen 10 items, you will click on "show my vacation" and then it will analyze your choices. You will have a somewhat personalized song at the end inviting you on your dream cruise. As an added touch, you receive a little fortune at the end that says what type of suitcase you are and why. Each of the items you pack have a value related to them such as relaxin', action, and culture. This site is very interactive and really leads the player through the process. Sometimes it does take awhile to load each stage of the game but the humor and interactivity makes it well worth the wait. I kept wanting to see what Sammy the suitcase would say next! While you are browsing the room, as you hover over an object, it will get bigger and a little dialogue will appear with a witty little comment. Sammy will usually pipe in, too. Of course, you can mute it but then you would miss half the fun.

Another fun part of the site is "Make A Date" where you can make up a suitcase for Sammy. You choose the color style, accessories, etc and then, you are off to whatever romantic scene awaits! (we got to go skinny dipping in Bermuda!-) Try it ! it's funny! Of course there is a tab on the site to fill out an email form but they make that fun, too and say "lets be pen pals. I'll send you my news." The whole site is geared toward a younger crowd of cruisers. It is put together to keep you on the site and ultimately get your info so that they can target advertise to you. They know your interests and see a slice of what people are most interested in for vacation. it is a really fun way to get free marketing census information.

By Jana Pierce final post

Kinetic By Jana Pierce

Kinetic Singapore is a design company in , wait for it... Singapore! In a word, flair! They've got it.






http://www.kinetic.com.sg/main.html







They don't take themselves too seriously and yet manage to hook clients including Lotus: http://www.lotuscars.com/ This site, I love, as supercar sites go. The only problem is that when you click on a menu item at the top of the page, the whole page refreshes. Maybe we should shoot them some code for a dynamically loading movie clip...





Nike: http://www.nike.com.sg/niketribes/page2.htmlOn the opposite extreme, They have today's trendy grunge/paint splot design nailed. This site really hits the target so to speak.
motorola : http://motorola.theadventus.com/merrymoto/Since it is Holiday themed, I though it appropriate to highlite. cute holiday animations, very simply done and short but you can still appreciate the clean vector look that stays fresh even three years later.
With all this high profile publicity, they still find time to do what seems non-profit org work. I find that fantastic! And there are actually quite a few projects.
what noise?: http://www.whatnoise.org/An interactive site that attempts to raise funds for hearing impaired children from disadvantaged families through a series of games and opportunities to donate.


I found this design company through the webby awards. They were nominated in 2006 for the best use of animation or motion graphics.Their site is out of this world. As self proclaimed design team not of this planet, the site is themed around robots from outer space who animate each transition. One critique I have is their style of animation is that which never stops moving (like you spun around the tire swing for too long in one direction and then tried to focus on the robot's squiggly arm.) It distracts a little from the content of the site but navigating around the site (from scene to robot scene) as you learn about the company is really the fun of it. And you can tell that they had fun making it! Anyone who uses their creativity to make a living can probably relate that when you get the chance to make something your own without the constraints of a client, things can get really out of control and quick. Take it from Kinetic and Keep the creative juices flowin'!

by Jana, two!

web graffiti by Jana Pierce

And no, I'm not just talking about blowing up someones website by dropping bombs on it. This could be the next level of the free flow of information. It adds a sort of z order to the whole free-flow of info.

I found a great overview of some of the top contenders at

http://www.techcrunch.com/tag/stickis/

Diigo

http://www.diigo.com/ is a research tool that allows you to share bookmarks and annotations.

Fleck http://fleck.com/ is basic and lets you post public or private notes on a page.

ShiftSpace.org a bunch of nerds! I watched some of their videos on the way their plugin works (boy could they use some of the creative minds in this class!) Anyway, the way it works is the plugin allows you to live edit any web page by pressing Shift + Space (clever ;-) and then the modified pages are called "shifts" and made available on the SSwebsite. The team plans on implementing "trails" which are hyperlinked collections of related shifts. With linking becoming the #1 traffic ranking draw, this can prove invaluable.

I think that this is the idea behind trailfire http://trailfire.com/ where you post notes on a webpage and string them together with hyperlinks making "trails."

This article goes into much more depth (and of course is linked to even more info!) and is definately worth checking out!

p.s. ShapeShift update...I think they heard my plea from the start of the semester. Their site is much more stylized since my first introduction. They even have a cool logo!

By Jana (not pete!)

Web 2.0 and bandwagon design.

I get it, I really do... Its just that I hate it.

Anytime creativity has a price put on its head and designers are pressured into a "fashionable" because someone defined it as "NEW!" and whats "in" or "c00l" or whatever (I ran out of quotes) I want to bleed from my eyes, throw my computer out the window and focus my creative career on painting with mud on cave walls. At least in my cave there wont be some monstrous corpulent corporate entity thats so large it cant see where its going wont have the power to influence and subjugate those ache to do something different.

I get that web 2.0 is supposed to be all about some new magic software that makes the web more seamless, interactive, and aversive... but its not. Its just a bunch of old dogs that have been there wanting to play all along except someone has tied them together and painted them with fluorescent stripes and said HERE, I have brought you a eight legged zebradog from mars and it cures cancer!

The masses look and say hey wow... that seems familiar... like something I used to like... but I've never had a zebradog from mars! I'll take it! Soon everyone is trying to keep up and the poor dogs cant run so well with half their legs in the air and all tied together but people need something new. Even if its not.

O.k. I get it. Vista with its triple glazed "glasstic" (I just made it up TM!) look has all the hallmarks of something new, I mean look, its glossy! Right? Reflective! Yea! That means its clean like a new car or a clean window, just be careful you dont walk right into it. The interface can get in the way when its compromised.

Art and creativity are ripe for compromise and even corruption. They are by definition what people perceive them to be and will be judged as such. So when you are creating, writing, cooking, doing anything that involves part of you in the process... every once in a while... dont draw from what is fed to you, look away from the neon and the commercials, look within and pull out something that is uniquely you. Its a great way to grow.

-Peter Ochabski
http://www.ArtScientific.com

The art of life with the internet.

My tech exploration is of something that may seem so obvious as to be done to death. However I really dont think people are aware of the unique moment in time that we have the privilege of experiencing. Never in all of human history has so much information been so available to so many people, not even close. Information and knowledge have found a radical catapult in the seemingly infinite web of computers and people. This shift in the control and flow of facts and fiction has stripped many of those who once used information for their malevolent gain.

With this unique freedom comes the responsibility to defend its uncontrolled and uncensored use with zealous and religious fury because I know that this interconnecting of human beings will be the most significant milestone in our evolution since we noticed our oposable thumbs.

We have not even begun to feel the effects of what happens when we are all able to learn any skill, research any location, any action, learn any history, find any cure, and solve any problem with a simple question to a virtual library of knowledge that eclipses anything we can currently comprehend. Scientists will solve all problems faster, artists will find inspiration and technique at will, and humanity will swell with empathy, unity, and enlightenment.

Its all about the whole being greater then the sum of its parts but NOW those parts can finally become one on a global scale. With each individual carrying unique insight to the world as a lone and isolated puzzle piece we now have a path into the future that offers us a way out and a way in at the same time.

Of personal interest to me as an artist will be the ability to present my creative concepts without the filters and shackles of reality.

Watch for it, the next giant leap will be the direct connection the the brain, bypassing the warm but heavy flesh. Once the electric pulses that currently pump information across the world on cold hard steel and plastic can be interacted with directly by the electrical impulses that carry our thoughts and feelings the full potential and our future will be realized.

See you then,
-Peter Ochabski
http://www.ArtScientific.com

Design Exploration: Rapp Collins Worldwide & Schematic

I chose to do my Design Exploration on Rapp Collins Worldwide and Schematic. They are both marketing companies that have major companies for clients. They focus on creating branded experiences; and both their websites are just that!

I have some nice screenshots of the websites to show, but for some reason Blogger won't upload the images...??

I really like the design of the Rapp Collins site, for its originality, consistency, and attention to detail. The design strays from the template style for most websites, by using an interface that is not only unique, but also clean, artistic, and visually interesting. It does this while still keeping the possibly less intuitive user in the loop, with the option to use a more conventional nav menu.

The layout is very clean. In the intro, we are introduced to our site guide, a little humming bird, who is actually the result of the animated preloader. Then we head into the main site, which does not seem like a standard website at all, but more of an exploration of artistic expression. The site is still easy to navigate because it presents you with the nav menu from the beginning, which gives you clues on how to navigate the different locations. When you go to a particular location either by moving the mouse down the page or via the menu, you are greeted with a nice animated preloader that loads the visuals for that location. The visuals for each location are playful animations that are just awesome. Then if you choose to enter that location a really cool thing happens. The main page blurs out into the background and flowing vines of cables, coming from the main page, connect you to a new window with more info on that topic.

The feeling that one gets is that you are never really leaving the main page, all while still getting the info you want. The whole site and the windows themselves are an awesome combination of crisp raster graphics and stunning 2D vector illustration. THE CONTINUITY IS AMAZING!!!! This site is a brand experience in itself. It is inspiring design work! The amazing thing is, is that all this does not overpower or detract from the goal of the site, but only lends to the experience.


The website for Schematic is just as well designed, but with a completely different style. The whole website is on one huge page that the user navigates, one tile at a time. So, when the page loads, you start at the Home tile, but you can see that their are more tiles surrounding it because they are partially visible and are allowed to run off the screen. They still give you a nav menu that travels with you to each tile, but its content changes to suit the current location. Going to main categories of the page is a cinch, and going the home tile is just as easy. You also have the option to zoom out at any time to see all tiles/pages that you can navigate to. THIS IS AWESOME!! I am amazed at how easy and quick it is to move from page to page. On each tile you can read the written content, admire the graphics and design, or you can view videos/images that are present on that page. The attention to detail and level of consistency, which is very important, is top level.

Both these sites are amazing! They are an inspiration for new and cutting edge design. YOU HAVE GOT TO CHECK THEM OUT! I can see now, why Karl wanted us to do these explorations. Thank You Very Much.

New Media Exploration:Andy Howell and Converse

Today I think multimedia has a big influence on the interaction of visuals and people. Just by the different colors,images,audio,and other elements of a multimedia product affects a persons reaction. Subconciously or not a person reacts to a product based on its advertising. A good example would be converse.com. This website gives you a lot more than just shoes. The different types of flash based interactions and the graphics are amazing. When you enter the page there are several people standing holding letters that spell out HAPPY HOLIDAYS. When you click on each one a different type of shoe is presented. There are several different types of interactive media in this page, and all of it "pursues" the consumer to stay longer and actually check out the shoes, rather than just clicking next to see one shoe at a time.

Multimedia not only helps agencies promote their products but it also helps artists show their work in interesting ways. For example, in Andy Howell's website andyhowell.com the flash based website helps his sketches and paintings come alive. In the intro he has one of his main characters which is a colorful monster randomly running around the screen while his other flying character is slicing the monster to pieces. Then a city pops in and out of the screen and his table of contents suddenly appears. All that just gave an animated, interesting look of what his art is like. He continues the excitment in his website by making the buttons animate the city when you click on them and also by making slide shows for his different types of art and more.

Overall, multimedia is really the future in advertising and art because it is the ultimate way to present "art" and you can use it to express or portray any other media.

Design Exploration

Neostream creates compelling interactive media designs for many companies using flash. Their clients include Samsung, LG, Fujitsu, Unchs, Volvo, OXO art, New Pencil, James & Taylor, Cilek, KOCCA, Dead Game, Botany Bay Council and KITA. I chose Neostream because when you enter the site they immediately engage your curiosity with a flash developed cartoon character. The character then tosses flames around his head each flame then directs you to a different page. The first flame takes you to the client’s page. The second flame redirects you to the showroom page this page images you by allowing you to pick where you want to go you then need to click on the word of where you would like to go then drag it over to the character where he then smashes the word to pieces and you are redirected to where you would like to go. The other flames take you to the company skills, news, future products and more. I like how they have made a very simple looking but extremely complicated character that interacts with your mouse. The site is very simple and does not take away from the main focus of the site, which is the animated character. The animated character is very appealing and just asks you to see what it can do. The character engages you in the site and its activities.


This site is not only clean looking but it is also very easy to navigate. This site is consistent but also very different on every page. Every page is simple and has as little distractions as possible. On every page there is the cartoon flash character along wit some other flash design that is not used on any other page. For example on the clients list the page opens up with a tree, the clients are spread all around the tree. When you click on a client leaves fall off of the tree.


I believe that the artist idea was to create a simple way for people to explorer what Neostream can do for its customers. The artist wanted to make the site interactive and fun, to cause you to want to explorer every page. For every page to be as different as the next. The artist accomplished this idea very well. The site is very simple with a plain white background; the only color, visual, or animation is the main display along with the animated character.

Studio/Artist Exploration

Screenvader has created a very compelling website using flash. The site is very simple but creative at the same time. There is a white background with black lettering. When u move your mouse the main menu moves allowing you to look through the many different sections that you can visit. when you role your mouse over one of the navigation buttons a picture pops up showing a small thumbnail to the page that you would be redirected to once that button was clicked. In the music navigation is a similar thing; pictures do not pop up rather the name of the song that begins to play when you roll your mouse over the button. The contents of the buttons that link you to other pages are a variety of things. The section is called media and algorithms, some of the links take you to images of blueprints all jumbled together. When you click on the picture the view changes, there is never the same view twice. The rest of the links take you to flash videos, which seem almost as if they are those types of videos that Hollywood always depicts as a brain washing video. The videos are strange and don’t make sense but you just don’t want to look away, you want to know what comes next. I like this artist style there is something different about his way of expressing himself. Each video or picture that you go to is never the same. The pictures when loaded every time you click are tossed around to random areas giving different designs every time. When the videos load the sequence of images that appear are randomly selected, it never starts the same. And on the left side of the screen you are shown which pictures are being loaded and mp3s all in random order every time. I think that the artist made everything so random because life is random. Things go by so fast that you need to pay attention to what is right in front of you because you may never see that image again.

Design Studio Exploration - Preloaded

Finding a really impressive design studio can be a bit daunting, as you swim through the sea of “award winning” designers producing something akin to what we learned our first month in class - good for a laugh, if nothing else.
Somehow (Flash Forward?), I found Preloaded Studios (http://www.preloaded.com). According to their website, Preloaded aims to push the boundaries of creativity in order to fulfill client goals and users needs ("We do nice things, we could do them for you, too"). I found the studio after researching the origins of a game called CDX (http://www.cdx-thegame.com/). The game is compelling and well put together - although I didn't have nearly enough time to explore it. Preloaded’s website, however, was stunningly understated. For a company that pushes the envelope of creativity, this website seemed somewhat underwhelming – at least until I used it. It is a clean and effective site, even if it seems to understate their work.
Under the company’s clients (“what we do”) page, the clients were laid out as “case studies”. Visiting a study not only introduced to the work, but the reasoning behind the design. “Cases” can be searched by client, market, platform or service, allowing for several options to see why and how they do what they do. Within each case study, they outline the Goals of the project, followed by the studio’s “solution” and finally the result of the campaign/site/project. Of course, you can link to the project from the case study, as well.
From these case studies (there were many), it seemed evident that Preloaded,works very closely with its clients to meet their goals and visions. They focus heavily on branding and on creating the vision set forth by their clients, then going beyond that to impress the users of the site. Preloaded focuses very much on user impressions and interactivity, with a goal of keeping users coming back. The idea of creating a site that immerses the user and makes them a part of the site seems paramount to this group.
Preloaded seems to excel in user interactivity. Several of the sites that I visited invited the user to participate, rather than just watch. A fine example is a site that they created for a BBC espionage drama called “Spooks”. In the site developed for the second season, they created a Grid Ops (http://www.bbc.co.uk/drama/spooks/. The site invited users to participate in “missions” (games) and tracked their progress. New missions were rolled out over a 10-week period, inviting users to come back. The site looks like a police station, using video clips and Flash to give it a realistic feel. To make the site even more compelling, the site tracked users’ progress and gave them scores based on several dimensions. At future logins, those scores were used to determine which tasks the user might do better in, etc. This not only made the website interactive, but personalized as well. According to the “case study” this site ended up achieving double the target user registrations desired by BBC.
Another really fun site created by Preloaded was for another BBC series http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/interactive/games/death_sakkara/. This was a historical drama taking place in the 1920s and dealt with the fad of Egyptology and the discovery of the tombs of Egypt. The site was created to go along with the site, but to be a stand-alone narrative in its own right. This ended up being a game, called "Death in Sakkara", that follows the same subject matter as the television show. The site asks the user to log in a they are given a “secret code”. This allows their progress to be saved, again encouraging users to return to the site. Because the site is historically accurate, the game provides both “value added” content to the TV series, and is an educational experience.
Looking at these (and other) sites, it is apparent that Preloaded Studios excels in user interactivity with their projects. Their goal is not only to meet clients’ expectations and advertise a product, but to give users reasons to return to the site. This makes their clients’ websites not only informative, but actually exciting and immersive. In many cases, users may only return to a website once, to gain or clarify information; in the case of many of the sites by PreLoaded, the user has good reason to return and interact with the site (and ultimately, the product) over and over again

TASTEFUL SITE DESIGN Chipotle.com

Chipotle.com
This little burrito manufacture has created a very tasteful flash site. I never gave this fast food joint much thought, but after visiting their web site. I wanted to make weekly visits. So it scores high on an effective marketing plan.
The sites design is crisp, clean and well balanced and hip, just like their food. I was as inspired to check out every link to see what creative flash surprise was hidden behind it. Very entertaining. The site has a great sense of humor, interesting photos, strange and humorous sound bites on each page, a link that featured artist, Bruce Gueswel who design the art in the restaurants, a radio station, which plays the eclectic world music that is piped into their restaurants, a live cam on the food preparation, video contests that utilizes youTube, allowing you to watch the finalist from the commercial contest, free downloads, an apparel store, a pen tapping page, an employee pet dog page, and more.
You learn so much about the company, their architecture, the art, the tribal music, and the food. They are a green restaurant using organically grown vegetables and meat. Fast food with integrity.









The location, design, www.chipotle.com/#flash/restaurants_design

the Art: www.mayatekinc.com/,
Bruce Gueswel artist for Chipotle restaurants





and the music, www.chipotle.com/#flash/restaurants_music, of the restaurant.

The use of human video in flash site gives you a connection to the restaurant, you feel like you know so much about them. So you are happy to spend your money there. A very entertaining clean site that I find my self going back to and wanting to share with friends. Their Fash website gave me a newfound respect for a restaurant I may have never visited.
(although architecture of the Chipotle in Vista looked nothing like the restaurants shown on the web site, the burrito was still fresh and delicious.)
bryn best
site design blog

The New Generation of Marketing

For most of all of our lives, traditional advertising has been set up to essentially to catch our attention while we are going about doing *other* things in our daily lives-- watching TV (commercials), driving down the street (signs and billboards), reading the newspaper (classifieds), listening to the radio (commercials), and more recently while surfing the web (popups, banner ads and spam).

Traditional "interruption" advertising is far from going away. It seems that the space between commercial breaks is shrinking, commercials themselves are getting longer, and in places like myspace and ebaumsworld you can usually find three times more sponsored ads and links than actual website content. However, we are seeing more companies making a subtle shift AWAY from "interruption" marketing to actively ENGAGE consumers in surprisingly positive ways. The new generation of marketing is no longer about distracting consumers from their destination long enough to ingrain your brand in their brains; the new generation of marketing is to BECOME the destination.

The New York Times released an article in October that underscores this exact shift in Nike: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9503EFD81E3CF937A25753C1A9619C8B63.

Stefan Olander, the global director for brand connections at Nike, sums up their new marketing goals pretty well: ''We want to find a way to enhance the experience and services, rather than looking for a way to interrupt people from getting to where they want to go" (qtd. in article above). They're allocating much less of their advertising budget to traditional marketing (like television and billboards), and more of it in very nontraditional marketing, like creating a fitness-centric social network (Nike Plus) that may someday give Weight Watchers a run for their money. (I don't think anyone here will be surprised to see that nike.com is developed almost exclusively in flash.) http://nikeplus.nike.com/nikeplus/

Other companies are taking a page out of YouTube's book and creating websites that seem to be dedicated to just to entertaining consumers. We've already looked at Altoids.com, and this is really another great example. You're not going to altoids.com to actually buy altoids, or even to look at the nutrition content. You're going to altoids.com so you can send your buddy a singing telegram, watch funny videos, and play games. The altoid brand is firmly established in their mind; but because he is being entertained, the consumer really doesn't mind this one bit.