Fluidesign Blog

LOL DOUBLE DROPS!

Being a recent graduate of Ringling College of Art and Design, I of course have to mention the long-awaited launch of the school’s new website. The complete re-design was done by two of my classmates as a project in the design center, the school’s in-house design studio.

In my opinion (totally unbiased, of course) the new site is pretty amazing. One of the new features that’s particularly impressive is the video section. Here, students give viewers a glimpse into their creative minds by sharing their personal sketchbooks and studio spaces, all while talking candidly about their experiences at Ringling.

If facebook had only made a movie like this one, my previous post would have been much easier to write. While a great design is suppose to be transparent, my confusion with the redesign of the simplest website (next to our own) delicious.com (bah, the old url was cooler) makes me feel today’s user has no patience to figure everything out on their own. I definitely see the value in editing screen captures and animating layouts to show the features of a site. The time spent seems to be a good trade for increased usability. Too bad delicious didn’t make this video the most accessible thing on the site. As a sidenote, Flickr video may become an interesting platform for pecha-kucha-like content.

If you want more snazziness than simplicity, check out the videos from Good magazine. This one I particularly like. The music is well integrated, and the animations illustrate the rather exhausted information in a refreshing way.

I’m not suggesting this is the future of distributing information. I’d still prefer a wiki. But if it’s something that you want to share with many folks, then why not make it a fun and exciting experience as well.

The video title is “why america is fucked”. I don’t geographically agree because the issue is not only american, alas. In France (for example), I can’t stand those ads using Comic Sans. No, really. The solution is obviously not to use Helvetica of course (btw, watch the movie), but please think about the future vintage !! Will we have to send a terminator to erase Vincent Connare’s mother ?

Big Ideas (don’t get any) from James Houston on Vimeo.

I rediscovered (even if it’s not that old) this impressive video, made by James Houston.

Beautiful Losers film trailer from beautifullosersfilm on Vimeo.

This is just the trailer and I didn’t see the movie yet… but I’m quite sure it must be obviously interesting.

Especially after I’ve seen their exhibition 2 years ago in the north of France and after I’ve seen Geoff McFetridge exhibition at the Red Cat a few months ago.

No comment.

Carrotmob Makes It Rain from carrotmob on Vimeo.

Great idea. Long video.

Chronotopic Anamorphosis from Marginalia Project on Vimeo.

This got my synapses firing this morning.

The experiment was made within the context of Marginalia Project where you can find more info, including source code.

I love when a brands are immersive and astounding, making the viewer/consumer/user want to be a part of it, live it, spend time with it, be it. That is what the UK-based brand Agent Provocateur is all about. Buy into their lifestyle and you will no doubt, be oozing sex appeal in no time.

Their store and website have been a favourite of mine for a long time. They are known for their high-end lingerie, made famous by controversial advertisements, racy window displays, pushing sexual innuendos, making men want to loosen their collars and older British women fume with fury over the AP store window they pass on the way to have their afternoon tea.

Their brand is one of the most cohesive and well-orchestrated I’ve ever experienced…from their store experience (sales women in fitted short pink lab coats sauntering about in their fishnet stockings and stilettos) to their online presence (photographs of women wearing AP lingerie, encouraging viewers to fantasize they are voyeurs in an erotic cult club in paradise).

Take a visit on their new site and play the peeping-Tom game. To drive sales and word-of-mouth, they also created a smart ‘cloakroom’ feature allowing users to drag items off the models and store them for purchase, while any part of the party could be captured, downloaded and used to create customized wallpaper.

All of this ruckus has built up quite the talk around town, has kept their brand in the spotlight and attracted massive international media coverage, making them the only truly credible lingerie brand on the fashion map.