BrandArt

CS5 is out and it has fully adopted Cocoa, which means it should perform faster than CS3 or CS4 on a Mac, but there are non-Adobe options for image editing and web development that been running well on Macs for years.  I have tried Pixelmator and Coda and I am impressed with both.  Although Pixelmator lacks some important Photoshop features, it’s a much faster and leaner image editing application.  Coda vs. Dreamweaver is a completely different situation.  Coda is leaner and easier to use than Dreamweaver and I don’t think I’m ever going to go back.  I’m particularly impressed because Coda incorporates Webkit into it’s preview mode, a property inspector that resembles Firebug and also provides built-in language documentation. And for $99 (Coda) and $59 (Pixelmator) they’re worth considering.

This site is truly amazing. Wonderfl is an online ActionScript compiler with an interface that encourages code-sharing. It’s an online community for ActionScript developers. The game above is as sophisticated as the old arcade game that inspired it and you can peek under the hood at the code that makes it work ( to play us the move;arrow or wasd/shot;ctrl,z,n/slow;shift,x,m). The projects on Wonderfl currently shared range from simulations, experiments to games but there’s no limit to the kinds of Flash apps that could be collaboratively developed on the site.

E-cards can be kind of cheesy and paper cards are a little…flat.  That’s why I created a web app called 3DeeCards that lets you create a card with a 3D augmented reality object inside that you can print out and send to a friend.  I came up with the concept, developed the logo and designed and developed the website. I used  CS3, Flash and Flex 3 using Papervision3D and the Flash Augmented Reality Toolkit and got a lot of help from tutorials on gotoandlearn and Miko Happoja’s blog. Right now there’s only one card design but if anybody reading this has got an idea for a 3d card I’d like to add it to the site. Drop a comment or send me an email. Check it out and send somebody a 3DeeCard!

We go into a store, we get what we need and then we’re on our way.  Very few of us stop and get to know the people who help us behind the counter.  Corner Store is a documentary that tells the story of one particular corner store in San Francisco and its proprietor.  I created this little mircosite to help promote the film.  Hopefully it will be on the film festival circuit soon please check it out.

Sometimes art isn’t a tangible object but an experience. Since installation and video art emerged in the 90s, these artists have embraced digital technology. Toby Joe explains how the frameworks for animation are evolving in a cross-posted blog post Toward the Bare Metal: From Flash to Processing, OpenFrameworks, and Beyond, “A lot of people moved from Flash to Processing – a great Java-based framework and IDE – as their interests moved away from wide distribution (via the Flash player) towards lower-level access to the hardware.” OpenFrameworks is a C++ library for creative coding. An artist collaborative called Field showcases the video above with some information about their processes. Code has created art, but coding is an art in itself.

I blogged a while ago about Follow Your Instinct shortly after it came out.  It opened up amazing posibilities because it was the first creative use of buttons embeded in Youtube videos.  BooneOakley’s new website is another example.  What’s incredible is that BooneOakley has completely committed to Youtube as their format.  Their youtube site will reach people browsing youtube who aren’t in advertising and demonstrate that they understand the power of social media sites like youtube.

Two of the web development techniques that together account for many of the improvements to the appearance of our favorite sites on the web over the last five years are Image replacement and CSS sprites.  Behind the scenes, both of them creatively use existing code like <span> tags and CSS in new ways.  Image replacement lets websites display type in fonts that may not be available on your computer, while CSS sprites create more efficient and attractive roll-over effects.An article in CSS Tricks discusses image replacement and one by David Shea explains how CSS sprites work.

Nike’s Kick Creator in Papervison3D is a great example of what can be done with this technology.  Papervision3D itself is a big development for the Flash community because it dramatically increases the program’s technical capacities.  It’s been around for a couple of years now.  Last year Papervision3D projects for Absolute and Sony Bravia won several awards including a Canne Lion.  There are good tutorials out there now and I’ve found learning to use Papervision3D is easier than I thought.  These are the one’s I’ve found helpful:

Tutorials:

http://www.madvertices.com/

http://www.peterelst.com/blog/2007/07/07/papervision3d-in-5-minutes/

http://www.everydayflash.com/blog/index.php/2008/08/26/using-the-bend-modifier-with-collada-objects/

http://www.everydayflash.com/blog/index.php/2008/03/01/from-blender-to-papervision3d/

Papervision3D project:

http://code.google.com/p/papervision3d/

http://www.papervision3d.org/

http://blog.papervision3d.org/

I’m looking forward to learning Papervision3D, but as a future marketer, I have been a little skeptical about Papervision3D’s efficacy as part of a campaign.  Bandwidth is still an issue with larger Flash sites, and so far Papervision3D has mainly been used to improve navigation.  Papercritters was the first site I saw that used 3D in a way that made it more than just eye-candy.  Nike’s Kick Creator does this too.  RG/A has used Nike’s site to demonstrate how Papervision3D can be a strong marketing tool. Online 3D technologies will take off when normal people can create, send and print 3D models they make online.

UPDATE 6/12/09:

Since I started experimenting with Papervision I tried out Away 3D and I found this tutorial really straight forward. That’s how I ended up with this.

The same technique used in a campaign that won a Cannes Lion this year is available online.  This ASCII-O-Matic program is part of a whole site called t.y.p.o.r.g.a.n.i.s.m. that is devoted to the idea that type is alive.  It’s one of seven different typographic experiments.  They’re working in a place where type, graphics, motion, sound and web design meet.

This site has been up for about a year.  I thought this was a pretty remarkable site when I found it today.  Eliminating the mouse click is an inspiring idea for web design, but I think everything should be built this way.  It’s just a more pleasant experience to navigate a page without having to click or drag anything.  There’s a lot invested in clicks because they are how financial transactions are closed and how marketing efforts are measured.  Click-less web design can’t become reality until web surfers become more accustomed to navigating without the click.