Remstar Corporation plays a big role in cinema, music and television entertainment in Canada. This full flash corporate web site is rich in content (each film has a trailer) and easy to navigate with quick, and fluid animation. This site also includes a content manager so the client can update its content. Nice and clean.... More
Nike Plus is a pretty amazing new technology for runners that synchs with your iPod and brings the interactive feedback of a treadmill right into your ear as you run. Simply stick a chip into your special Nike sneakers, and it wires information to your iPod as you run, tracking distance, calories burnt, pace and time. The site then allows you to track your run, compare it to other peoples' progress, or download their "power songs" from iTunes. The technology behind this site is pretty mind-blowing, and even though this author rarely engages in such sweat-inducing activities, we can see how runners would enjoy this interactive empowerment for their workouts.... More
Set up to promote events during Birmingham's Black History Month celebrations, find out about Birmingham's Black past, which has contributed to Birmingham's present and future. As quoted from an Afrikan proverb: "A people without a history are like a tree without roots". And these roots (the site) has plenty of color (literally) in a nice, clean presentation.... More
The ultimate collection of awarded designs, the AIGA Archives are the recorded catalog of annual juried selections in design excellence. Featuring 3,269 hand-picked entries (at this posting) from the '365' annuals dating back to 1994 (issue no. 15), the entire site is a graphic designer's goldmine. The best part is the Flash-built interactive navigation which allows you to browse and cross-reference entries by publication date and category—to reduce 3,269 down to 24 specific entries in a matter of three-four clicks... and even lets your lightbox your favorites. (It's only really missing the best selections in interactive design, but that's why you are here, right?) Pretty... no, very damn cool.... More
Novo Nordisk is a healthcare company and a world leader in diabetes care. They have a nice subdued pinkish-grey website—featuring appealing rounded edges on their tabs and borders. Above all, we really enjoy their logo, which is a stylized reproduction of the Apis bull, one of the sacred animals of ancient Egypt. This choice follows an old European chemist's tradition of identifying pharmacies by an animal symbol. Smooth and sophisticated.... More
Distant Air is an illustrated interactive narrative in five parts that tells a story of a young man's memories of birds. Some hazy truths, some exaggerations... but most of all some good stories – coupled with eclectic illustrations that emulate a hazy dream-like state. Reminicent of childhood interactions with nature, but presented with an artistic and grown-up philosophical perspective.... More
the truth is a subversive anti-smoking campaign that raises anti-smoking awareness through staged marketing activities – which are then broadcast globally and spread infectiously. What you may not know about this campaign is that it is indirectly funded by big tobacco firms themselves, who settled huge tobacco suits in the late 90's and were forced to pay the 46 suing U.S. States – who set up the The American Legacy Foundation in 1999, which in turn funds 'truth'. Therefore the campaigns you see are the product of the industry's fangs biting its own tail—the same campaigns that use creative marketing installations to spread calamitous truths about the harms of smoking. It's a very interesting paradox... and very well-funded... which means it's very well designed. So spread it!... More
Where would the bikini be without Brazilian babes on sun-burnt beaches? Well, to answer that rhetorical question, Hope – a Brazilian company with 40 years of experience – brings us a sexy Flash site showcasing their line of lingere, bikinis and accessories. Surely, when working with such photogenic subjects, half the work is already complete... But through the use of light curved lines, smooth transitions, and (our favorite) the 'dial-a-nipple' navigation wheel, the site elevates the subject matter into a dreamy state of sensuality.... More
Hunh? What's this? A new MTV.com that's all about music and the videos? What a concept! Actually, the site is extremely well conceived... A one-stop black metallic video playing jukebox that lets you view more videos during lunch break than are aired on MTV over the course of an entire month. Real simple (and smart) navigation lets you search video and TV content by subject or category in a single click, while the show news and extra content (also all in video format) is neatly tucked away. After 10 years of trying to muck around with the web making content appear "cool", they finally got it... It's all about their ultimate content; the music videos!... More
A highly creative fantasy mixture between a unique mint companies' real factory and a sophisticated virtual playground. Oral Fixation's immersive 3D world offers more explorable pieces than most sites of the genre. We liked how you can re-skin the atmosphere and time of day, which is normally based on the actual conditions at the real company; located in an old chocolate factory in New Jersey. But besides the high-end graphics and addition of skins, Oral Fix is a company interested in true involvement, which consists of (for one example) giving 10% of profits to the Free Tibet Movement*. Perhaps the only 'draw-back' is there is too much to explore—at this point, we haven't found half the stuff they claim is hidden in the site. Which only means we'll have to come back and get our fix at another time of day.... More
With a bit of nacho-on-tongue-in-cheek showmanship, Doritos beings us into their immersive virtual 3D hollywood production set, which doubles as a slighty apocalyptic-hued fantasy secret lab. Again, the detail in these animations is certainly beyond the scope of reasonable spending, but the results are really impressive. There is more than enough eye-candy to go around—down to the randomness programmed into little ant-like people on the ground... and it's only 2/5 complete as three more sections are due to be released in the near future. As a big childhood fan of original Doritos, I'm personally not sure why they need 15 new flavors, but evidently these guys have more time on their hands than you can shake a spice rack at.... More
Featuring funny animated clip-art, flourishes and purely mystical landscapes, the immersive Nestea Ice site comes off as a funky cross falling somewhere between Monthy Python and an animated version of the North Pole on Zoloft. Currently hosted live only on Juxt's site, this fantasy world of Nestea Ice hopefully lives on—it's a perfect case-study of a dream design for any illustration and interactive Flash animation team.... More
