Working Title Films - Frost/Nixon

This design exploration is about a Flash companion book for the recent Frost/Nixon movie by Working Title Films. This studio has used their website to publicize their film in a reading-book style with Flash page-turning capabilities. They tell the film's story as well as the background information about the director Ron Howard's filming strategies, historic locations, production stories, and actors and cast members' backgrounds. The user gets the feeling like they are reading a script and production set design while paging through this companion book.

The Flash site is relatively simple and uses a page-turning script. The idea was to highlight the film and not to overwhelm the users with too much flash animation and complicated navigation. The movie is historical and tells a compelling story; the website does not have to add to this event and keeps the Flash to a minimum effect.

Red Interactive Agency

This studio/website exploration is about Red Interactive Agency and in particular a website they created for Honda Fit. Red Interactive Agency is a design agency that I discovered through The FWA website, a website the features awarded websites. Red Interactive Agency has a pretty cool website that you can navigate through their content and interact with other users and see all their work.

After I spent some time messing around with their website, I started to explore their previous work and I picked the Honda Fit website to showcase to you guys. The website is very interesting and fun, with a mix of a lot of stuff to do. You have plenty of interaction getting to know the car to choosing the options as you were buying your own. It was fun to learn about the car's features by playing a interactive game/story. Check it out:

Studio Exploration: ENTHEOS

www.entheosweb.com

ENTHEOS is a an online design studio based out of Bangalore, the Silicon Valley of India. It creates Ready-made Web, Flash, E-commerce, CMS & Blog templates as well as offers Custom Web and Print Design Services & Free Resources.

Founded June 7, 2004 by Rachna Kingston, web developer and entrepreneur, ENTHEOS site offers over 100 template categories for you to browse including: 3D style, Dynamic Flash Photo Galleries, Entertainment, Games, Online Casino & Shopping, PHP and XML Flash site's to name a few.

ENTHEOS offers a wide variety of Low Cost Solutions including Dreamweaver templates, Fireworks Logos, Flash Photo Galleries, Illustrator & Corel Draw Logos that can easily be purchased, downloaded and edited to fit your client's needs.

My favorite part of the site is the Free Website Design Tutorials & Resources page. Regardless of what skill level you may be, your sure to find a tutorial that will not only interest you but greatly enhance your design skills.

Some of the Free Resources available include: Free Tutorials for Flash, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Photoshop CS, Web Design and Promotion. Website templates area also available along with Free Flash Add Ons.

This site is a great resource for beginning and/or advanced Flash Developers and would be a  great addition to your browsers bookmarked pages.

Halo 3 Believe

In september of last year a little game by the name of Halo 3 was released. It quickly became the best selling video game for the Xbox 360 game console. Now, I'm not much of a gamer and I don't even have an Xbox. But I was visiting my cousin one day at his house. All he wanted to do was play Halo 3. So I sat down and gave it a go. With it's ease of gameplay and outright fun, I had a blast. It really is a game that pushes the creative capabilities of the industry. 

A week ago I ran across a website for Halo that seems to push the envelope on creativity. Halo 3 Believe is a highly interactive site that gives fans an opportunity to get to know the world of Halo in a new way. You can take a virtual tour of the Halo 3 battlefield. The images are frozen in time. There are many places that you may interact with and learn a bit more about the characters, enemies and world.

I was fascinated by the interaction the site offers. The imagery is simply amazing. Whoever created this website must be a patient man. The fine details of the layout are what impress me the most.  Take a couple of minutes out of your day to try and navigate through a truly   remarkably website.

Free Flash sounds

FYI, this website has a number of good free sounds.

2ADVANCED STUDIOS

I initially found the 2Advanced Studios (2A) while surfing the Web for "Cool Flash Sites". They were listed as having a top rated site so I took a look. I was not disappointed. The site has the sci-fi/futuristic look and feel. The navigation is well thought out and makes it relatively easy to access the massive quantity of media available on the site.

Click Image view this page

2A is located Aliso Viejo, CA and in Tokyo, Japan. Their client list is quite impressive and includes the likes of LUCASARTS, Adobe, Ford Motor Company, Motorola, and Nintendo.Their portfolio is available for viewing on the site and includes work dating back as far as 1999.

The majority of the work produced by 2A involves high-tech products. Their futuristic styling is clearly stated by the images and sounds of the sites they develop.

Click Image view this page

Thank You Begins With A T

http://thankyou.thisisgrow.com/



-Design Exploration-



I found this website while searching for a flash site. Its an interesting interactive website. The creator added features to when you click on a T-shirt the person wearing the T- shirt writes on the screen with a sharpie and then either it turns into an animation or an interactive animation. Where you could play Tick tack toe, move a balloon,move an arrow, and play ping pong! plus much more with each t-shirt . I thought it was an interesting way to show off the T-shirts too expressing a almost green look to their designs. I would most definitely buy a t-shirt from this website :)



-Allie Whitehurst

I was on the web trying to find some cool Flash studios when I stumbled across this cool web page, Flash on the Web. Since it had dozens of studios I didn't know where to begin, so I started at the beginning with 4 eyed animation.

The first series that caught my eye was the Pets series. This appealed to me because it was episode based and I kind of liked the characters.









The next series I looked at was the "Frankenellos" Being a Munsters and Addams Family fan I've always enjoyed this type of humor. This, too, was episode-based.



Probably the most appealing thing to me about these animations is that I didn't see anything violent or gory. I found other sites on the web, but I'm not big on chain saws and gratuititous violence. I also liked the episodes so I felt like there was a reason to come back and see more were available.

So, if you're having a hard time finding a studio, just go to Flash on the Web, like I did and you'll be good to go! The only caveat, at least for me, is that seeing all of these cool animations makes me feel woefully inadequate when it comes to Flash.

Studio Exploration: N.Design Studio

I was browsing Google to looking for some Flash Sites and I came across this site. N.Design Studio (flash / html) was founded by Nick La, a Canada based freelance web designer and illustrator. He is also the author of many popular blogs. He has recently created a site for stock icons (the type of icons on your windows desktop), which he has for sale and for free.

I first found his Flash site. Which doesn't have many works on it and is no longer updated. I'm not sure why because I think its a really cool site. It has a oriental theme to it. All of it is bitmap imagery which he created in by hand, then imported to Illustrator, and added effects by Photoshop. Each time you click on a new location in the directory, it opens you up to a new scene and a bunch of cool images pop in.
Though I'm not much into Bible stuff, he did create a site themed pretty cool for a "god clothing company" called Flaunt The Faith. It is all flash and the layout is on top a passage in the Bible.

Another project he created was for a sushi bar called Akita. It has pretty fun layout, and even though it is sushi, it is pretty cool. I think the most interetsing thing about this one is that the navigation buttons are the little pieces of sushi on the plate at the bottom. It took me forever to figure that out.

Above all, I was interested in the design. Nick La's portfolio also consisted of many illustrations that were rad looking. Great illustrations for flash stuff. I really liked the flash site he created for his design studio over his other works.

Almost like Mr. Potato Head!

I was surfing the web and found this site. I used to love playing with Mr. Potato Head as a kid, and I also love art, so when I found this Site Mr.Picassohead, I was overjoyed! I am not too sure if this is using Flash, but with it's interactivity, I would assume so. Give it a try, you can come up with some crazy things!

Studio Exploration: DreamSoft

Located in Chicago, DreamSoft was founded in 2001 developing and selling web based services. They offer web design, 3D design, programming, domains, architecture and a lot more. Their company consist of over 70 developer and managers and they strive to develop the best quality products by always using the best, up-to-date technology and software.

I first found DreamSoft through an artists named Sergery Tyukanov site. I was extremely intrigued by how they did their flash, color schemes and the overall appeal of the site. After looking around the site I found out that DreamSoft did their website. The site is appealing because you view if how you would view it in real life. The artwork is on walls and you click on them to view them larger. You can also change rooms and view at other artwork. I thought the website showcased the artists work very well.

Another great website made by DreamSoft is for garagetown which is a condominium storage ownership in Arizona. They use flash to make the site more interactive and intersting. This is a car that drives back and forth whenever you click on a link. The only problem with this is if you were just trying to quickly look over the site it would get annoying to wait for the car to drive back and forth.

Overall, I found the Dreansoft's work simple but classy. They didn't over do things but would use the technology wisely. I really liked all their sites and style.

Red Bull Flight Lab

Red Bull Flight Lab captured my attention for it's look, functionality and it's over the top addictiveness!

It looks great. It is perfectly designed to appeal to a fairly wide range of audience. It is stylish enough to engage a designer and bright and colorful enough for kids.


It is fun. Really fun! I spent a long time on the site. I really enjoyed building planes. I never mastered the flying part of the game. I can't blame the site for this, I have no patience for gaming. But considering that, I played with it for longer than usual.


I found the complexity of the site intriguing. It inspired my to learn more advanced flash animation as well as the massive amount of scripting I suspect this site has.



More that anything I found some of the functionality to spark my imagination for ways to design sites in the future. I love the customizable user experience components like the changeable work surface in the design lab.

I also found the integrated help/tips to be really well designed. Much more user friendly than going of to a separate help section.

The bottom line is that a fun, well designed web site will keep visitors [or at least me] hanging around, looking at the logo and building brand awareness for quite some time.

Studio Exploration-the Woo Agency

A few months ago my wife and I were contacted by the Woo Agency to discuss using some photographs from our photography business, OH MY DOG! Photography, for an ad campaign they were going to pitch for a large veterinary hospital organization. We had not heard of Woo, so we instantly went to their website and were pleasantly surprised. Woo has an impressive client list containing Intel, Samsung, Good Guys, DISH Network, Lucky Brand Jeans and many more. The Woo Agency has an excellent site that consistently communicates their purpose by using different elements, including Flash, to create a fun and entertaining site that makes you want to learn more about their company and what they do.


It all starts on their splash page when you are greeted with the simple, yet striking Chinese dragon symbol that accompanies the agencies namesake throughout the site. Upon entering the site you are greeted by a landscape which contains little Chinese styled scenes and boats, of which when clicked, will navigate you through the site. Of course, for simplicity they have provided a list at the bottom of the page that does the same thing(good design). Each section of the site is loaded with little Chinese themed cliches. You can start by learning a little something about the mysterious Mr. Woo in the Why Woo section of the site and find all of the different ways the agency will try to "woo" you to covet their services. You can follow their theme all the way to to contact page where they inform you that they are looking for "a few enlightened souls to ad to the feng shui of Woo.....including Flash developers.

The Woo Agency uses Flash and interactive elements on their site in very simple but effective ways. Every different section of their site has some sort of movement or sound that keeps your eyes and ears open to what can happen next. Check out 'The Tao of Woo' section of the site. Notice how the pages of the book create the feel that you're turning the pages. What a cool way to emphasize the philosophies of the company. Be sure to go to the Woo Work section to see some of the projects the company has done. They seem to be doing a lot of work with interactive media and advertising in the cell phone industry.

By keeping the site fun and entertaining, the Woo Agency makes it easy for visitors of their site stick around and explore the different areas of the site. Animating the boats, trees, dogs and little people on the home page just makes you want to mouse around and find out it there is anything you've missed. The silly Woo puns and terminology give you the feeling that the people at Woo like to have a good time and do not take themselves too seriously. I am especially fond of the Chinese Zodiac on the menu, in the Woo Hoo! area of the site. However fun and creative, the functionality and purpose of each little gimmick let's their visitors know that they mean business.

It was very timely that the Woo Agency contacted us when they did. My wife and I had been arguing with one of our friends, who is an SEO specialist. Our friend was chastising us for having a website that uses a lot of Flash and telling us that we would need to redesign our whole site to satisfy the needs of the search engines. Then came the Woo Agency, with their fun and functional Flash site and their impressive list of customers. Creativity and good design will woo the masses eventually.

New Media Exploration Blog

 

Sony XEL-1

OLED

(Organic Light Emitting Diode)

The new TV generation has just stared. Sony has just introduced the very first OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) TV to the market. For New Media Exploration Blog, this new TV kept my interest and I wanted to know about it. I have read a lot about this tiny OLED TV from Sony and I found out divided opinions. According to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia “An Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED), also Light Emitting Polymer (LEP) and Organic Electro Luminescence (OEL), is any Light Emitting Diode (LED) whose emissive electroluminescent layer is composed of a film of organic compounds”. I have read that Organic material has been used on cell phones and some other music player and now Sony is the first company to present it in a TV screen. The Sony XEL-1 is an 11-inch display that is only 3mm thin and weights two kilograms. The XEL-1’s picture is so colorful, vibrant, natural and high in contrast. Also the Sony XWL-1 has a resolution of 940X540 but takes input resolution up to1080p and it offers picture quality with amazing contrast, outstanding brightness, excellent color reproduction, and a rapid response times for smooth and natural reproduction of fast moving images like in sports and action movies. According to Sony “OLED technology can completely turn off pixels when reproducing black, resulting in more outstanding dark scene detail and a contrast ratio of 1,000,000:1”. Also Extremely energy efficiency; in an O.L.E.D. screen, each pixel generates its own light; there’s no need for backlights. Its back panel has a coaxial cable input, two H.D.M.I. cables, a headphone/digital-audio output jack and a Memory Stick slot (to play photos of the memory card from a Sony camera). The XEL-1 comes mounted on a flat tabletop base. The screen floats above it, suspended by a chrome arm on the right side. Also Sony guarantees the XEL-1’s screen will be good for 30,000 hours. That’s 8 hours of watching each day for 10 years. On the other hand, there are also negative opinions regarding to the size (11 inch screen), price ($2,500) and there are no component-video inputs and no analog inputs for things like VCRs. 

New York Times

Studio/Artist Exploration - Cmd9.com

In my search for an interesting Flash Design Studio, I was looking for two main feature that separated itself from all other flash design websites, and that was in the area of site navigation and also to see Flash Design from a foreigner perspective. I wasn't too concern about the graphic design layout since most flashed based websites I perused were top of the line. However, there seemed to be a trend I was noticing with some of the sites: I was having difficultly in reading it, understanding what I was looking at, and having a hard time navigating.

One of the challenges I believe in designing in Flash is balancing content with design layout. With Flash it is tempting to be too 'Flashy' and the end result is that content is overlooked or not even seen. You can throw in a lot of great artwork and animation but it needs to be put together well in a way that is legible and makes sense to the user. There were times were I felt frustrated trying to figure out how to navigate through some of these sites. In a few instances I had to play around with the mouse to figure out what needed to happen next.

I found one site that was unique in how it presented its navigation and the content was fairly easy to grasp. This studio was created by a Japanese Graphic Designer, Junichi Kato, who named his company, Cmd9.com . Junichi offered a unique and interesting navigation layout by attempting to using 3 dimensional navigational menu sets, with the main hierarchy appearing further back as each new link and subsequent link were open (as seen above). This was pretty unique compared to the conventional method of opening different pages of each new link. The main page could still be seen in the background regardless of what link was clicked.

One of the strongest points about his design was he doesn't get too flashy immediately. His main page contains current examples of his studio's artwork and past clients. It was no nonsense. No guessing. Just Boom! Right there for the world to see. (see pic below)


Let's Look at some his Flash Portfolio. Here is one were he did one for Beyes.com which is a a showcase art gallery. One of the interesting thing is he uses the Alphabet for a navigational menu set to link to each artwork

Toyota Rush - Video
Uniqlo - Navigation
Halloween Show - Video
Vertical Garden - Hands On Navigation

Amazing site

I ran across this site, Adobecards.com, and just had to make a post. It's really remarkable. I'm not sure how much Flash is in it (I imagine it's a combination of programs), but I love it nonetheless.
Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, out of San Francisco, created the project.

ekiongfx.com

As I was browsing around for some flash websites when I stumbled across http://www.ekiongfx.com/. This flash site was created by a person in Paris, France named Steve E. Morel. He discovered Graphics Designs in July 2003 and said it to be his passion ever since. He is a self taught graphist and flasher saying he will never cease experimenting in hopes of becoming a high level graphic artist.

In august 2007 he was hired by a agency called "Mediagong" and is currently working in a worldwide company known as "Proximity BBDO" since January 2009. He also works as a Freelance Graphist Flasher since April 2007.

1. Mediagong site
MEDIAGONG%20-%20Global%20Online%20Challenges.htm

2. Proximity BBDO site
http://www.proximity.bbdo.fr/

I found his works/site quite amazing that it shocked me. I seriously felt like I entered the matrix when his webpage loaded onto the screen. The site looks simple if you just glance at it but he uses lots of flash for minor things making his site complex and fun to look at. I think that Steve E. Morel is a great Graphic/Flash artist and would recommend people to check out his webpage.

Animator Vs. Animation

I found this animation done by Alan Becker. It is an animation that I found to be very interesting. It takes place in the Adobe Flash Program that we have been working with. Many of the concepts that we are learning are demonstrated in the animation such as creating symbols, brush tools, and creation of keyframes.

The animation is displayed on the website http://www.deviantart.com/. This site is a place where artist can come and upload their work to a server where people can view and comment on the animations.





















I found this animation to be very impressive. The way Becker incorpoarted the program Adobe Flash as an active background in his animation was ingenius. There are a total of two animations with the same theme of Animator Vs. Animation that were done in Adobe Flash.

Check them out. Very funny and creative!

My personal favorites out of the 3 are one and two.

Animator Vs. Animation 1:

http://alanbecker.deviantart.com/art/Animator-vs-Animation-34244097

Animator Vs. Animation 2:

http://baileyrivers.deviantart.com/art/Animator-VS-Animation-2-DS-95216973

Unique design studio...

I found "Bitter lix" design studio from Poland that does awesome job in designing unique pages. They love playing with flash. Some of their artwork is simply amazing. Websites they have created so far, have been awarded in various rankings and competitions around the globe.

They were also featured in British .Net Magazine, Web Design Index album, reserved for the best projects created in 2007.


www.kostry.net built by Bitter Lix was selected as an Official Honoree in Best Visual Design - Aesthetic and Self Promotion/Portfolio categories in The Webby Awards in New York and received Silver Award at W3 Awards in Los Angeles.


I also like their another project that they did for one of the Polish production companies- check this out...





I like how navigation was used on both sites. It requires user's interaction and it's pretty unique and entertaining at the same time. Both of the sites were built in flash. I wonder how long it took them to create these masterpieces. They're definitely cutting edge sites. Check out more of theirweb sites by going back to http://www.bitterlix.com/en/

New Media Exploration: PROJECT 7-7

www.protect77.com

PROTECT 7-7 by Photographer Wim Teller

Site Design: These Days Brand Interaction Company

Media: Online Experience & Shop

PROTECT 7-7 is a powerful story created by renowned Belgian Artist and Photographer, Wim Tellier about nature, humanity, art and the infinite paths to the future as scene through the eyes and by the hands of children throughout the 6 continents.

The site incorporates the use of video, sound, motion, interactivity, informational documentation and store front merchandising which uniquely classifies this site as a New Media Exploration. It was created by These Days, a brand interaction company and is hosted by Terremark.

In 2006, Wim Tellier stunned the world with a giant baby picture on a background of rubber ducks, called project W-WISH.

In 2008 PROTECT 7-7 also known as PROJECT 7-7 was launched as a virtual gallery with a crisp and clean design, smooth animations and an atmospherical sound track, it offers a simple yet powerful submersion into PROJECT 7-7, and would become one of the largest art exhibitions ever held.

Wim explores the extremes of a complex equation, the balance between past, presence and future, each equally as important and vulnerable as the other. Wim captures the balance

 of surface, depth, individual, collective, young, old, past, future, art and nature in each of his images to achieve his goal of making us think about our responsibility and our legacy towards the earth and future.

Upon entering the site an original composed sound track begins, submerging you into a contemplative experience of a child drawing sketches which then come to life. 

You then can enter the exhibit which collectively consists of 6 collages of the inheritance, dreams and aspirations of a single continent: Africa, North America, South America, Asia, Europe and Oceania. Each collage features an elderly native (3 men, 3 women, ages 77, partially clad) " surrounded" by 700 images of children with superimposed colorful drawings that depict their dreams and hopes.

Each elder image gives users the ability to customize their viewing experience online and allows user to identify each of the 700 surrounding child images which may be added to a shopping cart  for purchasing. Part of the profits will be donated to the International Polar Foundation to assist in scientific re

search.

Site menu navigation options are used to display and document the artist process in the creation of PROJECT 7-7 with a photographic and thought overview of the different stages of creation throughout the different continent locations.

Site navigation includes:

• About
• Making of 
• The Instillation
• Exhibition
• Books
• Supported

The final project will consist of 6 enormous blow up images measuring 800m2  and weighing some 250 kg each, mounted on a low-reflective plexiglass and canvas will be anchored by a specially designed and tested system to ensure the blow ups will withstand the heavy Antartica winds.

This online experience and documentation of the project has allowed the artist to share and spread his overall message to the entire world. Check it out!