Monday, February 21, 2011

Design Exploration - Chinese Soul





This website is found on FWA.com. This site is a promotional site for the jazz album “Chinese Soul”

by Werner Tian Fischer. Fischer is a guitarist based in Bei-Jing, China. The album is made up entirely of his original compositions, and features vocals by Sophie Dunér

http://www.chinese-soul.com/


The site opens up slowly with a little introduction in a plain white background. I like the simplicity of it, so the user can enjoy the music and the intricate line drawing that is to come. A fine horizontal line appears in the middle of the screen and pulsates as the music begins to play, and there are only two buttons remain constant on the page the whole time. There is the Stop/Pulse, and the “Squiggle” button. As the songs play, Flash based line drawings are scribbled on the screen for the duration of the composition. The user can choose to go to the navigation by clicking the “Squiggle” button, at which time the drawing would immediately be finished and reveals draws the navigation system. The user can also allow the music to go on from one tract to the next, and the drawing will continue once it’s finished with one drawing.


The drawings for each song are quite random, which I find it very intriguing. The selection is often related to the Chinese theme, but not in the traditional sense. It keeps me guessing what each drawing would reveal. The lines in the drawings pulsate to the beat of the songs is very nice design element I find captivating.


For tracks which contain lyrics (e.g. Lazy Afternoon, East bound) they are scribbled out at the bottom of the screen as the song plays, but I wish the font it uses is more legible. Another thing I think it can improve is that the title of the song can be display somewhere on the page when it is being played.


The different section of the navigation is well design. I especially like the section named ”Xie Xie”. It’s “Thank You” in Chinese, and thought that was a nice touch. In addition to music downloads in the “Download” section, I like that items that were kind of hard to read can also be found here. In the “Concert” section, it mentions of the plan to project the drawings from the website on large screens, and having them react to the music live, is a wonderful lure.


One item I find disturbing is that when the Resume/Travel section is selected, the animation comes to a halt. I am not sure it’s intended or a bug in the website. Finally, I like that the site gives you additional social media options to share this site with your friend in the “Tell Your Friend” section. It includes many other choices other than Facebook and Twitter.


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