Perhaps you have noticed that we have once again updated our website. As the old adage goes about the cobblers children having no shoes, this analogy is perfect for why we go so long without updating our web presence. Like the cobbler we are usually very busy producing cool stuff for our customers which means to do our own work we have to tell someone they will have to wait for their cool thing until we “zhoozh” our own coolness.
This time out we decided to not only start from the ground up technically, we also decided it would be neat to undergo a minor brand image upgrade. Kind of a toxic receipt for all kinds of technical and creative fear and loathing. The design challenge, aside from working with engineers, is not only “what” to show people…but also “how” to show them your capabilities in a way that is unique, easy to use and does the work justice. I really wanted something that was easy and fun to use and yet was interactive and functional…not to mention intuitive, which is a web design buzz word for “Click here Asshole”.
We have found that it is always best to let our client work speak for itself, and like most agencies our portfolio became a core metaphor for how we tell our little story. How do you present work that inherently has lots of moving parts and pieces as well as components that are non-visual and very technical in nature? We were pretty tired of the standard page and picture method which we employed for years and ultimately landed on the same metaphor that music sites use to present content. I just want to put a plug in here for a great book on interface design which has been around since the primordial days of the web. The author is Clement Mok and the title of the book is “Designing for Business”. Clement, if you are listening, I have personally given away 30 copies of your book in the last 13 years…so you can always count on me to carry your bags, my friend. In his book he does a great job of outlining and describing the importance of matching display metaphor with information type. This is a very critical decision in any interface design process and one that challenged us for many years.
By substituting the concept of Album with Campaign we were able then to also substitute Element for Song. This hierarchy works very well for the way we wanted to present collections of work in context to all of the parts which make up the sum. Our portfolio viewer is based on the Ipod interface for organizing content, which “plays” our samples as media files rather than displays static pictures. We felt our target audience would readily identify with and accept this method for search and display. As it turns out this is a very flexible method for storing and displaying all types of visual and audible content.
The real challenge once again becomes dedicating the hours necessary to generate the media assets needed to populate the bloody thing, right? I’d love for those poor little kids to have their shoes but in the “big city” client work always comes first.
Posted by MJ Anderson at 11/20/2007 03:55:57 PM |
