Design Exploration

  

  I have decided to research Twix.com as well as Billabong.com for my design exploration. Starting with Twix.com, I choose this site because of it's large scale high def video game experience. 

 

 While visiting another site I saw a banner ad that intrigued me to check it out.  I had remembered the goofy ad of the dorky guy who runs into the good looking girl at the party and has to stuff a twix in his mouth while he came up with correct answer to give the good looking girl to get her back to his house.  I thought it was kind of funny so I clicked the ad and entered the Twix.com website.  When I arrived I noticed that there was an interesting preloader of one of the main characters chewing a twix.  I found that to be funny and somewhat entertaining, the downside is that you have to watch him while the game loads for about 2 minutes.  Once the game finally loaded the video begins and puts you into a situation of getting the girl back to your house.  At a certain point the conversation leads to a question of saying the right thing in order get the girl home.

  The Designer faced a few issues while creating this production.  Number one they had to display a large scale high definition video on the web, this causes long loading times, and in some situations freezing.  The overall design of the site was very simple, using various movie clip pre-loaders and stop actions to achieve the goal of this game.  I found it to be simple and effective but difficult to load for those with out a fast internet connection.

  Billabong.com uses flash to represent their entire line of products and media.  The design is very complex and uses various movieclips and background images to spice up their presence on the internet.  I would imagine that the designer had a lot of brainstorming and an entire team of designers to complete the production of this website.  The general design of the site remains the same throughout the site but new movie clips and pre-loaders are engaged when navigating through the various pages.  

  In conclusion if I were to choose between the two designs I would choose Billabong.com because it seems to have more effectiveness.  I felt like I wanted to purchase Billabong products after visiting their site which makes it a success.