Exploration In Design: Storming Juno Interactive Docudrama

Storming Juno Interactive Docudrama

http://www.stormingjuno.com/

Site design: Secret Location

This website is a companion piece to the popular docudrama 'Storming Juno', on History TV in Canada. It is an interactive account of actual veterans that stormed Juno Beach, Normandy during world War II.

First of all, I love the pre-loader. A lot of important history is explained with documentary style graphics while waiting for the content to load. Once you enter the site, it is as if you are drawn in from the establishing long shot into an in-your-face you-are-there-up-close-and-personal-shot of the action at Juno Beach. There are brief instructions of how to enter a 360 degree view of the image which gives you the feeling of being there in the action. The image scrolls seamlessly as it follows the mouse. As the action is portrayed in the image, an icon appears which is available to click on to hear the corresponding story of the event that occurred at that location by that particular veteran. If you’re not up for working that hard, you can go to a menu that has a list of the same stories.

One feature I found to be a very nice design feature was the 'Behind The Scenes' section in the 'About' menu. There are several videos that are available for viewing that are a scrolling overlay over the home page graphics with a clean scroll bar that is unobtrusive.

As a history buff that knows a lot about the history of World War II, I found this site to be very intriguing. I’m not in Canada and don’t have access to the show, however I have access to this site that mirrors the information. The site is also a great marketing tool because it not only parallels the show, the design of the site creates curiosity about the product it represents. There is a long list of credits of writers, photographers and other talents for the site, it was almost like watching the credits at the end of a movie. The web audience wants to be entertained and ‘Secret Location’ is providing the entertainment in a Cross Platform/Transmedia neat design package using Flash as the transporter