Studio Exploration - Devin Cox

ICREON STUDIOS

I have decided to explore through the website belonging to a design studio called ICREON. I found them a few pages deep from a Google search. I enjoyed the first reaction to the website. It mixes HTML elements with Flash Elements. The main text navigation is in HTML while there is more fun/playful elements to navigate with in Flash. The impression I first receive is that the design studio is more graphic design first, usability second. The reason I feel that way is because you see flash elements that serve as links, but from a usability view, they are pointless links or unnecessary. For instance their is a paint tube that says portfolio on it by you cant tell it is a link at first.

Another nice feature of the website is the footer. They have all of their Services offered in a very space effective manner. Another great feature I realized as I browsed through the website more was that each time you reload the page the background color changes. That's a really neat feature that I don't know requires Flash or HTML, but is something I definitely want to learn. There is also a Flash version of the website by flipping the light switch.

The idea of a flash version is neat but the flash site is completely irritating. I can't find a sound option anywhere and the sound effects are so loud and annoying. The navigation is controlled by clicking leaves. Again there is no real usability but very nice graphical features. The animations that roll in and roll out in between buttons are very nice and it has a clean look. The theme of the flash version doesn't really fit. They have cartoon drawn images but then there are incorporated photographs, which don't really flow well.

There are some really nice things about the website but then butting up against it are some unfitting elements. They do have nice graphical work, but the functionality of their site could use some assistance.