Birdman

Birdman:http://www.birdman.ne.jp/main_en.html#/portfolio

I chose Birdman for this post because of the really cool animation used in the portfolio. The site seems to be entirely done in Flash with minimal loading time.
Birdman is a design company based in Japan. I especially like the portfolio section and the animation used to present it.

Using Flash in interactive videos

This Saab website was done animating a video using Flash.
http://www.lowetesch.com/showroom/saab/animalvision/GLOBAL/en/index2.html

Starry Night (interactive animation video)

This is an interactive video of Vincent Van Gogh's famous painting Starry Night. This video is an incredible tribute to the impressionist painting of the Milky Way and night sky over Saint Rémy in France.

Starry Night (interactive animation) from Petros Vrellis on Vimeo.

The brush strokes of the painting swirl and rotate with the flow of the painting. This has been developed for touch screens. When you touch the painting it moves the brush strokes! Then the painting will slowly return to its original state. The sounds in the video respond to touch also.

This is just a video at this time. It appears that the designer is currently working on converting it to apps for the iPhone and Android.

Actually, this wasn't even made in Flash! It was made with a program that I haven't even heard of called openFrameworks. openFrameworks is an open source C++ toolkit.

I'm actually taking a painting class this semester with an emphasis on impressionism, so this was particularly interesting to me.


-Rose

Puzzle Fun

There are so many good sites to review and since we will be exploring gaming soon, I thought it would be interesting to check out Machinarium an independent puzzle / adventure game by Amanita Design.

http://amanita-design.net/games/machinarium.html

There are a few things I like about this game. First, I like the low tech anything but simple graphics, very fun and they are layered to give you dimension without the 3D look. Secondly, I like the complexity of figuring out what to do and how to advance through the game. They give you game hints if you need them, but its more rewarding if you can figure out on your own. There is no need to blow things up or rack up points. which I find a little refreshing. This game keeps you involved as you figure out how to move along the character.

FontStruct Lets Build a Font Today!!!

Fontstruct - Create your own font today!

Fontstruct is a website that has a web application called the FontStructor.  Which enables anyone to create a font!

 

         "FontStruct is a free online font-building tool, devised and developed for FontShop International by Rob Meek.

The heart of FontStruct is the FontStructor, a web-application that lets anyone quickly and easily build fonts using basic geometric shapes in a grid — just like tiles or bricks. Fonts created with the FontStructor are called FontStructions. They can be downloaded as TrueType fonts and used in Mac or Windows applications.

More than a tool, FontStruct is a vibrant online type-design community. Type-design enthusiasts from all over the world use the FontStructor to experiment with letter shapes and to design fonts, and who give each other comments online on the FontStruct website. They are the FontStructors, the soul of FontStruct.

For non-FontStructors, FontStruct is a source of fresh fonts available under flexible, liberal CreativeCommons licenses.

Finally, for educators, FontStruct is an ideal environment to teach the basics of type design. The brick principle and the simplified, easy-to-use interface of the FontStructor help students to overcome the complexity inherent to type-design and focus on the most important aspects first."

Fontstruct is an incredibly addicting program allowing you to create your own fonts or maybe just something to make your own wingdings in.  It's very simple to use, the more you use it the more you begin to understand it.  It works on a grid and every letter, number, and symbol has its own area for the user to create, edit, view their creations.


This is an amazing web application and I see it opening many doors in hte future.  The basic joe shmo wont have to always look on the web for that awesome font and then be disappointed because they have to pay an arm. leg, and their first born for a font.  Now they can make it themselves.

If anyone has any questions about FontStruct just let me know and I will try my hardest to answer your question.

~ Amber B.

New Media Exploration: JibJab: This Site is Too Much Fun!

http://www.jibjab.com/view/3TPgn8VOhRVTbfr0YrlM

www.jibjab.com is a digital media company which produces comical animated ecards.  The user can personalize the ecards by uploading their own head shots into readymade animations or static images. The cards and animations can then be downloaded, emailed or uploaded to Facebook, Twitter etc.

A generous amount of material is available free on JibJab but to access all of the animations you have to be a member and pay $1 per month, (1yr minimum).

Jib Jab was founded 1999 in Brooklyn, by brothers Greg and Evan Spiridellis. JibJab began by producing high quality ecards for other web-based businesses.

Staying Current

The JibJab story is one of an evolving business changing with the times, the product developing in response to the now. By understanding and reacting to current social media trends and technologies JibJab found a way to take their animations and make them into a business that people would pay for.

Building on Success

The business enjoyed national media attention after a highly successful video went viral in 2004:

http://www.jibjab.com/originals/this_land

The video, a parody featuring Bush and Kerry was tremendously successful.

During the previous election in 2000 JibJab had already achieved notoriety with a different viral video:

http://www.jibjab.com/originals/capitol_ill

However, the success of the second video dwarfed the first.

During the ensuing popularity the company was offered and accepted financial assistance from investors and has now grown to a team of about thirty with a multi-million dollar annual return.

If you want to know more about JibJab  please visit:

http://blog.jibjab.com/history/