Donna Ackermann

Lunchtimers

This is a interactive game site. I love how simple the site is. It is very easy to use and kills lots of time when you are bored. You can play different games in real time with other people all over the world.
Some of the games are just for fun with no point to them at all. Like Letters and Scratchpad. With these two games you can ether play around and do what the game is intended for or you can just mess with people. You can draw over their drawings or you can move their letters around while they are trying to spell a word.
Some of the other games you can play with just one other person. Such as 8 Ball Pool, Checkers and Tetris.
You also have the choice to play single player games. Those ones are Extreme Heli Boarding, Elite Base Jumping, Base Jumping, FWG Knight II, Rodent Tree Jump, Mini Golf and Crazy Cone 2.
The last game is my favorite game. I can play Jigsaw for hours. They have three different levels you can play Easy, Medium and Hard. The puzzles also change every day. They have about ten different puzzles that will rotate throughout the day. Then the following day those ten puzzles are all different. So the more dedicated players are not doing the same puzzles over and over. Most of the time people just play the game, but every now and then you will get a person that wants to take the puzzle pieces and move them around and mess up everyone's hard work. If they do this for to long then the can be blocked from the game for three puzzles.
There is an option to have an account with Lunchtimers. But the only difference between a member and a nonmember is that you can have a cute little avatar.

Infamous

http://www.infamousthegame.com/#/en_US/home


Well I am a pretty big gamer and i have recently been playing this game called Infamous on my Ps3 platform. So i decided to check out the web site for the game and the first thing i noticed about the site is that when you scroll over any of the tabs you get a lightning effect which is the main power of the hero in the game. The site is done in a graphic art style that the game is also built around instead of using 3d animation for cut scenes. I cant get the pictures i got of the site to get on here so Ive posted the link. But what i also noticed that was really neat was that it was entirelly build in flash. It even has a built in mini game that was really fun to play which is basically a flash version of the game in a fun little game.

Design Exploration: Sonny Sachs

1.) Ferrari California.com

I am a Lover of Exotic and Luxury Cars, so I decided to Explore the Design of Ferrari's Website for their new take on the Classic Ferrari California.

The first feature I noticed was the clean Showroom kind of feel, with Navigation Tabs that Include, Downloads, Register, and the Main Ideas which are Hear, See, and Feel.

In the Feel Tab or Configurtor, the center Image which you cant miss, of the Ferrari Red California has buttons that let you click to view the front, back, and sides of the car, and Tabs located at the bottom right that pop up to let you put the Top down, view the interior, choose a colour for the car, the trim of the car, and wheels for the car, making the website have a more Warm feel making you feel like the car is yours and you can choose what you like. This had to be one of the most time consuming parts for the designer as, he had design it where you could make the car you like.

Hear

In the Hear Tab, You will notice what looks like a Ferrari California Hidden in the Dark, and you will see Four Different Tabs Labeled, "Awaken The Soul", "Release The Spirit", "FeelThe Rush", and "Embrace The Thrill." When you click Play on each of these you will notice diffrent Sounds from the Ferrari California that make you feel as if you are driving the car yourself.

See

The See Tab, I thought definitely Described the Car as it looks as if it is in a showroom or Garage somewhere in California with the sun setting and Tranquil music. See features a Slideshow of the car, and another Tab labeled Equipment which opens into more navigation features, Design, Performance, and Innovation, with more features for each of those.

I thought this Website Has tons of information, but at the Same time the Designer made everything so Neatly Organized, and clean with not to many crazy effects, and easy to navigate around when you roll over Tabs the Designer made more of an Accordion type Navigation to let you know what your on and add Clicking Noises to show Links are active. I think some goals and objectives the Designer was trying to get out was to show that this Ferrari is a classic and at the same time trying to give you a personal experience of what it would be like to own this Car. The Designer definitely made the website feel warm and welcoming.

2.) Gatorade

I found this website off of The FWA website, and have always been a fan of Gatorade, as it keeps me hydrated, "metabolizes energy," "helps protect your body," it has a "crisp clean flavor," has "less calories," and many more reasons to Keep Me Drinking it when looking for something other then Water.

The page loads with a Gatorade Bottle Slowly being what looks to be consumed with different Actions being said, and when its finished it says "Thats Gatorade." Which had to probably take the Designer a little more time to make it look realistic.

Products

The Product Page is in Black and White with all the Drinks lined up horizontal and when you scroll right or left over the drinks, They turn into their liquid colors, with a description of what your about to click on. When you click on a Drink there is a widescreen video of athletes, description and benefits of the drink, and other flavors with colors to pick on.

Athletes

The Athletes Page and Player of the Year Page, are also in black and white until you roll over a person and their description shows up and they are in color, but instead the Designer gave these pages a Carousel feel instead of just horizontal. Each Athletes has their own page when you click on them with a video and description.

The Designer again had to take a lot of information from the different Drinks, and Athletes and figure a way to make everything easy to navigate through and also be easy to get back to something else. Also, making an effect on each word or thing to show that it is active to click on. Gatorade.com is another clean website with lots of information but kept well organized.

Blog One: "Luovo"

(Sorry but my screen shots seem to not be working, but here's a link to the site: http://www.luovo.com/eng/mainPage.html)
I chose a website called "Luovo" for my first blog. "Luovo" is a website built for an Italian animation film directed by Dario Picciau. I find the animation of the film very interesting. This site gives many interesting facts on the filmmakers and history. The design is rather simple and very easy to navigate through so users of all levels can use it. After you get passed the splash screen, there is a slide show of images from the film and what seems like light snow going across the screen. At the bottom of that, there is an arrow repeatedly pointing to the left side of the slide show and when you roll the mouse to the left a menu comes up. There, you can view the trailer, news, read an introduction of the film, learn about the author or director, and they even let you view information on each of the animated characters from the film.


They also allow you to view drawings they did for the film.In the background there are very interesting abstract designs. Above the slideshow, there is a list of awards they won and were nominated for. The background music is very beautiful and plays well with the website design, giving the site a mystic and surreal mood.

DAFFY'S website!!

Daffy's website is interesting. It uses allot of flash functions and a variable cuser function, that tracks your mouse curser on the web page. The main web page has a large image of a person modeling one of there latests clothing outfits. In the center of the main web page has seven
small rectangle menus of radom sizes. As the curser moves over one of menus, it automatically
expands by approxiately twice its orginal size and displays more information about the next
web page like a context page of a text book without actually selecting the menu. The back ground page also changes to an image that fits the subject matter of the menu. When you select
one of these small menus by clicking once, the web page jumps to a new set small rectangler
title pages with more information. After this there are the standard set of web links around the web page. I though how that menu page is presented was very attractive to the visitor and displays the most common that weman are insterested.

Design Exploration: Becca Patterson

The website I chose is http://www.starbuckscoffeeathome.com/. I found this website on FWA and was drawn to it because I'm an avid coffee drinker. Starbucks brings in all types of customers and can really appeal to just about everyone. That's where this website comes in.

The site is very clear and organized, incorporating the chalkboard feel as if you were in a Starbucks coffeeshop. The first three choices are: "Explore our Coffees", "Find My Perfect Coffee", and "Visit the Barista Gallery."

As you scroll over each option, the text animates itself and becomes a lifelike drawing. The sounds include chalk on a chalkboard as well as coffeehouse chatter. When you select your option the current screen erased as a chalkboard would, even leaving a little hint of the most previous artwork. Starbucks gives you an interactive way to decide what coffee fits your personal taste. It goes through 5 steps, asking thinks like how much acidity:

Everything about this website is very uniform, you know that it belongs together and you know that it belongs in Starbucks. If you don't want to chose any of the three options on the start screen there are always the blends shown below that you can click on to discover more information:

This website is a great link between the customer and the store and provides necessary information without having to go in and inquire. It also builds a fun relationship between the consumer and their coffee.

Studio/Artist Exploration

I chose to explore the studio Dvein and their site. Dvein is a multimedia and interactive studio that has worked with clients such as HP, ESPN, etc. and has worked on project such as Spiderman 3, The Invasion, etc. This company certainly has a portfolio to back up their incredible flash site.

This site intrigues me on a number of levels, not just the flash aspect. The colors used in the basic layout are some of my favorites; black, dark gray and white. The initial logo for the company really tells a lot about what they do. The intricate ribbon with highlighted waves shows that Dvein is a more modern company.

The most prominent feature is the wheel of images on the left. This is their form of navigation throughout all of their works. As you mouse over each one the image pops up to enlarge and give a preview. Dvein has organized their images by company/client. Every image belongs to a specific family that is highlighted in the middle of the page. You can also use the center list to navigate which photos to look at. The center list is a very clever organized list with buttons, within movie clips, etc. to have specific titles change alpha brightness when others are selected. This simple but effective trick is one of my favorites used.

Once you click on a specific image or the title, that objects series of images pops up like a stairway spiral. As you mouse over the stairs grow/shrink. This beautiful technique grabs your attention and is great eye-candy. After you click on an image, it straightens out the circle, then jumps to the center of the page, darkens the background and enlarges to a full view. It also tells about the image a little, and like a normal slideshow, lets you go back/forth through images. To get out of this view you simply click outside the picture.

The navigation bar the top is very simple with a cool look to it. Once you click on the title the background darkens and the text flies in from the bottom. This is a very unique and aesthetically pleasing way to view their information. they used a simple tween with the text moving in and they used an "S" curve easing to start the movement fast and end smooth and slow. Overall I think this site was created beautifully and with a modern view on a great portfolio. It definitely inspired me to take my personal portfolio to the next level.

Design Exploration: Sean Wilkinson

www.sketch.odopod.com
For my site, I chose Odosketch. This is a very interesting flash site I found on the FWA. The site itself seems very simple; when you first open all you get is a button that says "New Sketch" and thumbnails of various pictures. The various pictures were drawn by everyday people, but with the help of the digital canvas their images have a certain look to them that allow each picture to come out different.
Odosketch, created by the design company Odopod for Adobe says, "Odosketch seeks to recreate the decidedly non-digital experience of working with a sketchbook. Its papery textures, variety of brushes and intentional imperfections make you forget you're working on a screen." And coming from a company that has worked with Nike, MTV and Playstation it is nice to see a project that is not commercial.
When you first go to Odosketch, it is recommended you make an account and from then all all of your sketches will be saved, and if they come out well they could be featured on the homepage. Now, the use of flash and what I think is the best part of the website is the recreation of every image drawn. You can click on one of the thousands of sketches and see from the very beginning exactly how the person created it; which not only helps you learn the process but give you great ideas.
The Finished Product:
The Process: www.sketch.odopod.com/sketches/60418
So, this is a site that from the start doesn't look like a very heavy flash site, but once you get in the finite details of it you find a wide use of flash. Not only does the site record every stroke that goes into a painting, they also allow the artist or fans to copy and paste the html code that allows for the process flash to go on your own site.

Design Exploration :: Sean Ashcraft

1 :: Vitamin Water :: Consumer Site

This is one of my favorite consumer-oriented web sites. The design is very crisp and modern, the site is easy to navigate, and there's just enough interactivity to make you want to explore further. Vitamin Water isn't even the healthiest of flavored water drinks available, but the site gives you the feeling it is.


For starters, I think what this site does very successfully is to give you the sense that you're interacting with a 3D object in 2D space. The way the bottles fly in, then re-orient in a twisting, vanishing perspective is very effective. That, coupled with the use of scale and selective focus really gives you that sense of dimension. Although this can never replace the sensation of holding the bottle in your hand, it puts the consumer squarely in the metaphorical aisle and allows them to explore the product.


The site has a very organic feel even when you're just looking at, but when you start to mouse around, it becomes even more organic in nature. The way the top nav moves when you mouse over it, the vignettes in either corner, the way the bottles react as you move the mouse over them, this all encourages the consumer to dig deeper. I found myself moving the mouse back and forth on the bottles just because it was fun to make them move.

You can click a bottle for more info, click the "go for more" button, scroll through the flavors, there's just so many ways to get what you want out of this site. Once you click in, the transition of the bottles flying at you is a nice touch, furthering the notion that you're delving into the site. When you get to the page of the chosen flavor, the addition of the design elements reinforces for the consumer what the flavor is all about. Plus, you can dig even deeper and find out how the particular flavor benefits you with the various vitamins it contains. Pretty cool.


I could go on and on but you should give the site a spin, you won't be disappointed, even if you don't like sugar water, I mean Vitamin Water.

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2 :: Inglorius Basterds :: Movie Site

This site really gives you a sense for the gritty nature of this movie from the moment it loads. The weathered and scarred bat with the helmet hanging from it, the textures in the the type, the little splats of blood, all clues as to what's going on with this flick. And let's be honest, who wouldn't like the idea of a bunch of Army guys wasting Nazis for sport during WWII?


But I digress... the site makes really nice use of layering and depth with the foreground, mid-ground and background images, and the way each of the various elements loads in keeps your interest and encourages you to dig for more.


One pretty slick feature is the customizable wallpaper generator, or "Basterds Builder" you can explore in the downloads section. It gives you the ability to select from different backgrounds, characters, objects, etc. to create a custom wallpaper. Super cool use of Flash that I can't wait to figure out how to do.


Check out the site, check out the movie. They both rock.

Blogging Exploration: Silvia Lopez

http://www.zunejourney.net

I liked this website, zune journey is very unique creative. It has many different colors and shapes. The menu is the hand with the zune on it, that takes you through different directions inside the scenarios. It's very simple but nice and fun. I enjoyed clicking it through the animals and takes me to a different island. While you're moving it you can enjoy the music, actually the song goes together with the scene because it talks about island and animals. The first scenario is colorful and then it takes you to black and white graphics. I really like the graphics and I think everything is illustrator or photoshop. The colors are interesting that makes the audience want it to watch it.

Zunejourney.net has six scenarios that you can view and explore the scenes of each one of them. Each menu link is related to a scene. It's interesting how you can move the cursor and that the hand is the main menu. The designer drew the characters in a dynamic form. This can be use for teenagers to explore the different elements of the colors and shapes.

Zunejouney.net is a very well done website. It does what a website should do, which is to grab your attention for more than a few minutes. Artistic graphics, good music and a feeling that you're traveling through different dimensions makes this website in my opinion a very good website.

Blogging Exploration: Sean Dianda

Blogging Exploration: Cloudraker

I love branding and advertising agency sites. There are some truly great ones out there. Cloudraker is...well not the best I have ever seen but fun and interesting none the less. I liked their use of a simple color palette (mostly black and white) and the use of hand drawn images with roughly clipped bitmapped images. The site it’s self doesn’t offer a whole lot of interactivity but what it does offer is displayed in an engaging way. Information isn't overwhelming. It’s succinct but informative. The site can be navigated by the simple clean menu at the top or by using your keyboard arrows.

One aspect of the design I really like, is when you reach a destination, text drops down from the top as though it was on strings and gently swings, then comes to a stop. It also uses background and foreground elements that move at different speeds to convey dimension.

It’s not the greatest site in the world but it does a good job of conveying it’s message as an agency. I think it did a good job of not falling down the hole of OVER interactivity. They kept it simple and in my book, simple is often a very good strategy.

My second site is Magnivate

Magnivate Is a small boutique agency in Jakarta Indonesia. The site, although a bit busy and chaotic at times, still managed to be pleasing. With the non threatening music and graphics, I thought they conveyed the message in a fun and fresh way. I liked the use of the simple graphics. There wasn’t a whole lot of detail and all the shapes were pretty simple but their use of color was nice to bring it all together. Also the use of “paper style” graphics gave the site some dimension in a very simple way using layers and basic drop shadows. This is a style of design I like very much and have used in my professional career. What was also cool, was that you could customize your little character before you enter the magnivate world.

When your Browser is maximized, the site will take up the whole window and uses the principle of “white space” which is something I also like. All in all, it was a fun and interesting site that draws the user in to learn more about the company, and that’s a key part of marketing.

Site Exploration #1

This is a website I found quite interesting to look at, and it retaught me some physics as well.

http://www.msichicago.org/fileadmin/Activities/Games/simple_machines/

As soon as I clicked the link to the website, I was greeted with this little robot dude bumpin to it's music. I found that was an interesting use of a loop to keep the audience entertained while the flash site/game loaded. I saw examples of useful animations for the buttons when it loaded all the way, and liked the color scheme that the programmers used. I especially liked how the environment around the flash game was connected to it, how the blue guy outside watched little Twitch perform his tasks to reach his goal, and told the audience how to function with Twitch using the keyboard. I also noticed how the banner "Simple Machines" had it's own animations going on while you played, making it interesting and more lively. I also like that the level select was an etch-a-sketch pad and there was an animation that showed Twitch walking towards the next level "box".

While waiting for the section/level to load, I was very much amused with the preloader game you played with Twitch, turning your mouse into food that Twitch would chase after around the screen. I liked that I could torture poor Twitch by holding the lovely morsel of chocolate right out of his reach, and that he jumped up to try and grab it. I liked that part of the mouse stayed behind afterwards, but most of the food was savored by Twitch who gobbled it up. It was still interactive enough with Twitch to almost feel like you really were feeding him so he could have enough energy to accomplish the next goal.

Upon finishing the game, Twitch comes out from the middle of the screen and comes into the outer environment to return the items he collected on his quest.I found that quite creative because it really broke the boundary you held within the game quite well enough to notice the boundary again.

All in all, I found this little site quite amusing, and found myself playing it again and again to use as little force as possible to achieve the end result, seeing as a grade came up after the game was finished. I liked the style the designer went with, it was simple but the use of real objects in the background of levels made it seem quite believable.

(Also, use the Leaning Tower of Pisa on the first level. Even if Bad Twitch looks a little devilish.)

Design Exploration: Gangs of New York

I'd write post. I'd include links to whatever.

Studio Exploration: Big Spaceship

Big Spaceship is a digital creative agency that develops extensively using Flash. They serve a number of high-profile clients, like Sony, Miramax, and HBO. Often, they create branding experiences for movie studios.

A couple great projects from their portfolio include:

30 days of Night
They created an interactive site for this vampire movie complete with a fun game.