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The following is a great example of successful interactive media for Nintendo’s new release, “Wario Land: Shake It!” I am not going to write anymore and allow you to experience the wii on youtube for yourself.
If you are a fan of the Favourite Website Awards, you may interested to know that its founder Rob Ford has recently compiled a list of dos and don’ts of web entrepeneurship in a book aptly titled “Guidelines for Online Success“. Ford offers advice and lots of real-word examples of successful and award-winning websites to help you improve your personal or business website. The book is co-edited by Taschen’s Julius Wiedemann.
One of my interactive design projects, a video microsite for the UK band Spiritualized, was recently selected as Communication Arts’ webpick of the day. The site acts as a retrospective for the band as well as a promotion for their new album, tour and video. The main objective of this project was to introduce their music to a younger audience while providing an online experience for their die-hard fans to enjoy as well.
I recently created an mp3 e-card for pop rap artist Tyga. His debut album, No Introduction, is being released by Decaydance Records on June 10th.
Tyga is the cousin of Travis McCoy of Gym Class Heroes and achieved his first recognition opening for Fall Out Boy and Gym Class Heroes during the Young Wild Things Tour in late 2007. He’s also received much acclaim and admiration for his top notch performance with Lil’ Wayne at the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards.
You can listen to several songs on the e-card, including his first single “Coconut Juice”, which samples the chorus from Harry Nilsson’s 1971 hit, “Coconut”. As you may know, Tyga is certainly not the first to channel his/her inner Harry Nilsson.
Tyga E-card | Decaydance Records | 2008
I am a large proponent of creating all designs, whether it be print or web, from my own code and image resources. However, I also have to be realistic with business deadlines becoming increasingly strained both in full-time office environments and the freelance world.
As a designer, is it right to purchase images or code to use in your own projects? After dealing with many different types of clients and designing a vast variety of projects, I have to say, “yes, but…”. And it is a very important “but”. If you are going to purchase code or stock resources, do so for the right reasons. Use the functionality that you need and then make it your own.
I’ve had some recent conversations specifically about Flashden. The site allows users to sell and buy stock flash, video, audio and font files. There are some extremely high-quality files and some not-quite-so-good files, but all are priced accordingly by Flashden. Have I ever downloaded anything from Flashden? Yes, I have, but…I also have made sure that I only use the code if it complements my own existing files and that I have left all credits to the coder intact. In no way, should these downloaded files replace your own work. Passing someone else’s work off as your own, even if you paid for it, is deceiving and is not representative of your personal work.
I liken the use of stock flash files to stock photography and Drupal/Dot Net Nuke modules, but the main difference is that while some stock photography and Drupal modules are allowed to be used as is, I highly recommend using your own design for the face of your flash projects. Your designs will only be better if you alter your photos or actionscript specifically for your project and put your personal design stamp on it.
Designers are encouraged to use all of their own code and image resources for their projects, but Flashden is a great resource for learning actionscript and for pleasing that one client that only wants it one way. I have found their forums and blog to be helpful at times as well. There is only one catch with using Flashden…you have to be honest about it.
So what is Hyper Island? It may not be a physical place, but the two-year university course in Sweden has created a fully interactive and creative learning environment for students focused in digital media and business management. It is one of the most credible schools for Digital Media, Interactive Art Direction and Business Management in Sweden and they’ve recently opened their doors to the English-speaking population.
Their students constantly prove why the program is so successful by winning the latest digital media competitions. I’m certainly interested in how developed the projects are and it is evident that the projects make an immediate impact on the community around them. For example, in the video below, a Digital Media student discusses her latest project - Arvika DJ Camp. Arvika Music Festival is one of the largest music festivals in Sweden and the students were asked to create an intensive, interactive site that is a great example of real-world experience.
Here is the DJ Camp site for you to experience first-hand.
This video is one of ten videos being streamed across multiple blogs as well as on Hyper Island’s blog. I recommend checking out the independent student blogs as well which utilizes Yahoo’s Pipes.
Hyper Island is now recruiting to their Diploma Programs for English speaking people. You can visit their homepage and blog for more information.
I was lucky enough to have been invited to a party celebrating Creativity Magazine’s annual Creativity 50 last night in New York and had hoped to bump into a few of the honored guests. Creativity’s list “represents the biggest innovators of the year, who—through repeated demonstration of sheer brilliance or even just one spectacular feat—brought new spark to their respective fields of advertising, entertainment, marketing, technology, design and beyond” and included such names as Radiohead, the Coen brothers and Yugo Nakamura.
With that in mind, I had conjured up a brilliant conversation between myself and the Coen brothers about their use of postmodern visual art and techniques in Miller’s Crossing. Of course not all of the honorees could make it, including my new best pals, Ethan and Joel, but nonetheless it was a great party and led me to discover (and re-discover) a lot of amazing design in the work of the Creativity 50.
So, as you may have guessed, I did not actually find Yugo Nakamura at the party, but I did revisit his work. Yugo P, as he is also known, is a brilliant web designer who has researched and developed both experimental and consumer projects dealing mainly with interactivity. Read the rest of this entry »
Now that everyone is back from Austin and has returned to their normal sleeping patterns, we can take a closer look at all of the web award winners this year. One of the cooler sites, which I’ve already found useful, did not win but it was a finalist in the Experimental category. After first seeing Issuu on the web-resource-heavy Go2Web20.net, I decided to spend a little more time with it. Issuu allows anyone to upload a publication to their site in the .pdf format and create an online library of other publications, including magazine, portfolios and articles on just about anything. I discovered it to be another great place for design inspiration and networking, as well as a great current events resource.
Now for the winners (definitely check out the Passive-Agressive Notes blog for a laugh)…
