Design Exploration - Monoface & Get the Glass

Monoface

Monoface is a New Year’s e-greeting produced by the Mono design firm, based out of Minneapolis, MN. As soon as I figured out what to do (nicely explained in the “What Do I Do?” section), I saw that this is an incredibly well-executed play on the common game of swapping out facial features. It reminded me of the first time I put a third eye onto someone’s face in Photoshop. In this, you swap out the features on actual Mono employees. The degree of skill displayed in prepping the switchable features is impeccable – in all cases there is no evidence of the edge of the graphic. Hints of airbrushing are visible, but not overwhelming. The programmatic interface is actually quite simple – it likely utilizes the use of an array for each feature. This array simply advances to the next item in the series on each mouse click, and resets when done. This process is also possible through the use of a movieclip, though with not as much finesse.

Additional flare is added through the random loading of a face on startup, visually pleasing animated transitions between informational pages, and the ability to shuffle the faces, load finished works, and also load a screensaver.

As a professional graphic designer, I especially loved the concept behind this work. Firms are often very professional outfits, and to produce something that lets you laugh at the designer working on your project adds a real human aspect to the company. It also speaks a lot for the employees as people that they were ok with this, and that they appeared to get into posing for the project.

Get the Glass

Get the Glass is a 2007 work by the California Milk Processor Board as a marketing tool to encourage people to drink milk. This work is so complex and well produced that pages could be written on it. The concept is that of a game board with several regions: Adachi Home, Iron Vines, Lush Lokes, Apple Orchard, State Park, Lucid Falls, and finally Fort Fridge. The gameplay centers around the misfit Adachi family and their quest to break into Fort Fridge for a glass of milk (the story says they’ve been deprived). But, they are constantly just steps ahead of Fort Fridge Security, who will toss them into Milkatraz with no hesitation.

This work could stand on visual merit alone. There is extensive and detailed 3D work – wooden beams show age and wear for example. The vintage visual theme is carried through all aspects, including the preloaders that run backwards. Video is used to develop a backstory to encourage the player to feel a personal connection to the Adachi family and their plight.

One of the strongest merits of this work is its heavy integration of user input to control the gameplay. You advance through the game by rolling an animated die (the resulting number appears to be generated at random), which then advances your pawn. Where you land on the game board then determines the course of the game – you may be granted shortcuts, have to draw from a Fortune, Misfortune, or Mastermind card, or may be faced with a mini challenge.

The mini challenges are relatively simple in execution, utilizing Flash’s drag and drop, hitarea, mouse commands, and button functions. But, they are well produced so the simplicity of the code is not a detriment.

The work achieves its marketing goal by cleverly disguised links to email the site to others and through the use of integrating the benefits of milk into the story. In one case, the mother’s ratty and non-milk fortified hair breaks her hairbrush and you lose two spaces while you buy a new one.

All in all, this is a fantastic work that plays differently every time.