Turn Toward The Sun

Joseph and I recently designed and developed a portfolio website for Heliotrope Architects, a firm based in Ballard, WA. The project itself was quite a change of pace from the things I've typically dealt with as of late. Most significant of which is a personal interest in what it is they actually do.

If I go back and look at all the projects I've done in the past, without a doubt the ones that I am most proud of, or at least enjoyed the most are the ones where I've had a personal interest in what it is the client is trying to do. The clients themselves could of been exceptionally difficult, or the timeline could of been ridiculous, but if they were trying to do or create something that I felt even remotely interested in, that just resulted in a better deliverable from me (us), and a better impression of how the project actually went. Not in the "save the earth" sense, but in the "I just like what they do" sense. Vague I know, but it's that extra motivating layer that can really make a difference in whether I view a project as "good" or not.

Anyway, here are a couple of my favorite projects of theirs, and be sure to check out more of their work.

Hornall Anderson Blog

We relaunched the Hornall Anderson blog I designed last week. Read my post about it here.

Create Your Rainbow

Really enjoy the concept, content and execution behind this site for Radiohead. I just wish my connection was faster.

Just Start Typing

When I was first hired on as a designer for the then named, Hornall Anderson Design Works, the first thing I really wanted to do was redo the old website. It was tired and dated in that it did not at all represent what the interactive team has become over the past couple of years, in terms if aesthetics, user experience, technologically, nor did it meet the very necessary requirement of easy update-ability for a design firm as large as us (100+ people now!). It also did a poor job of representing the most well-known segment of our business, identity development.

A little more than 6 months ago, with those challenges in mind, we set out to provide ourselves a framework to show off the integrated branding firm—print, interactive, strategy—that Hornall Anderson is today. We finally launched the site a few days ago, and I think we achieved our goals. There's plenty of room for it to grow, as the company continues to grow in size and capability. So check it out and tell me what you think. When you get there, just start typing!

FWA People's Choice Award

Be sure to get your vote in for the 2007 FWA People's Choice Award.

I spent sometime going through each of the nominees to determine my vote for Site of the Year, and noticed that many of the sites are absolutely gorgeous, have high production value, and make heavy use of 3D and video. But really, they're just a big movie. It's pre-rendered cut scene, click a button, pre-rendered cut scene, click a button, so on and so forth. There isn't a real distinction between the interactive models used across many of the SOTM nominees.

Some websites, such as the Get the Glass done by North Kingdom and Goodby, Silverstein & Parters, add an extra layer of richness through the board game metaphor, doing a much better job of disguising the scripted user path. Others, not so much.

Therefore my votes (the judges get to pick their top 3) tended to lean towards the more app like sites, that enable people to do what something that they might have been difficult or impossible to do before. I'm curious to see what the results will be for the next round of voting.

SkyQ: Map Station

Here's a video of another one of the stations we did for Space Needle. It was focused on "extending the view" for Space Needle visitors to the neighborhoods of Seattle via photography, narration, videos, and articles.


SkyQ: Map Station on Vimeo

SkyQ

For the past year or so, I've had the pleasure of working on a project for the Space Needle, a Seattle landmark. For me, this was one of those dream projects where I got to be involved with almost all types of design, including interactive, industrial, environmental, and even a little bit of identity.
The goal of the project was to extend the 360 degree view of Seattle for visitors by use of an engaging interactive experience. The interactive team which I am a part of, at Hornall Anderson here in Seattle, came up with five experiences.

HD Camera Station

camera and housing in the skunkworks shop
one of two HD cameras on the roof of the space needle
Users are able to control a broadcast quality (same kind they use for NFL games) HD camera mounted to the roof of the Space Needle. The video feed is sent to a 1080p LCD where they can zoom in REALLY close to things miles away. There are two camera stations, one facing North and the other South, with the ability to pan the cameras nearly 180 degrees. I'll post more pictures and a video of this in action later.

Map Station

my workspace
capitol hill neighborhood view
The first time we see the a built out station with final hardware
South facing station shows neighborhoods south of the Space Needle
international district history view

Adjacent to each of the Camera Stations are two Map Stations (four total). These provide a richer amount of information as to what you can see with the camera, as well as the things you can't see. Major Seattle neighborhoods are featured along with brief descriptions of things outside of metropolitan Seattle. The interface is built in Flash and it's hooked up to a centralized CMS using Django. It's also hooked up to a couple of live webcams, and we built a custom cloud generator that reads in an xml weather feed that determines the density, speed, and direction of clouds on the maps.

Voices of Seattle Station

Vignette Station Prototype on Vimeo
Early prototype
Space Needle employee watching vignettes of fellow Seattlites
first time viewing for some of my coworkers who weren't working on the project
This station consists of a 42 inch 1080p HD LCD, custom 42 inch touchscreen and two directional speakers mounted overhead (pictures below). We filmed real Seattlites in HD and asked what they loved about Seattle. I'll post a vid of the final version later.

360 degree Time-Lapse Station

SkyQ: Seattle 360 degree Panorama Time-Lapse on Vimeo
Jamie, Dan, Joe
the knob allows by-the-minute control of the time-lapse, the touchscreen allows people to jump around in the 24 hour period quickly

center console for controling time and pan
Twelve 10MP cameras mounted on the roof of the Space Needle took photos every minute for 24 hours to create this. Users can pan and control the time via a central touchscreen and knob.

360 degree Factoid Reveal

SkyQ: Seattle Factoid Reveal on Vimeo
prototype in the skunkworks shop
hand movement revealing illustration and factoid button about Boeing 747 underneath photo

Another panoramic station, but for this we commissioned illustrator James Jean to create a 360 degree panoramic illustration that, well, illustrates interesting facts about Seattle. Each of the five displays making up the station has a touchscreen and a camera mounted above it for motion detection. Users wave their hands over the screen to reveal James' illustration hidden underneath a regular photo of the Seattle skyline. Next to each of the dream-like illustrations are buttons that users can touch to find out what James is drawings are about.

The displays, touchscreens and camera controls are all hooked up to custom server enclosure via fiber optic cables to here:


Sound is output through these crazy directional speakers. This is the type of technology they use for crowd control when riots break out! They literally output a cone of sound. But we're using it to keep the ambient noise on the observation deck of the Space Needle to a minimum.


I'll post more pics and photos of the project as we put the finishing touches on the installation, but you can see the photos I took through the entire year long project at my flickr account or at Adrien's (our developer) account.