Andy Ellis and Piers Buckle, the award-winning editors of Men’s Health and Men’s Health Living magazines have joined to form an independent creative agency called TypeFace Media. Andy & Piers approached Stonewall with the brief to create a completely unconventional website reflective of their approach to business.

Working in close collaboration with them, our approach was to develop a Flash-based website that incorporates a Typeface character created from the typeface lettering, as well as a navigational mechanic designed to illustrate the fact that Typeface Media provides you with “any type of face you need”.

The finished product features wild, quirky animation and hilarious sound effects designed to entice the user to explore and discover some of the sites hidden gems. I like it. I like it a lot.

• Check out the website
• Check out their blog

I’m flabbergasted. The Eco Zoo (by McCann Erickson) is quite possibly the most amazing Papervision 3D website I’ve seen to date. Roxik (aka Masayuki Kido) is a Papervision 3D guru and he’s really broken the mold with this site.

To be honest, I’m not really sure what the site’s objective is. From what I can gather, the characters that live in the websites’ virtual zoo are meant to give you tips on living in a more eco-friendly way. Even though the website doesn’t seem to feature a strong call-to-action or a clear message, it’s just incredibly beautiful and engaging and entices you to explore.

There are so many intricate little details that one barely notices that all add up to form this amazing experience. The environment’s physics is insane - the falling leaves, the trees blowing in the wind, and not to mention the flag that you can actually pull and stretch and manipulate.

And please, oh please don’t forget to check out the Pop-Up Book… INSANE!

Ladies and gentlemen - the digital landscape is changing rapidly. The sky is really the limit … isn’t it exciting!?!

If there’s one media site that’s been in desperate need of a makeover for quite some time, it’s the BBC. It’s trademark old-school content grid with left column navigation can still be seen within lower levels of the site, but the main site has been completely overhauled in favor of total user customization, executed absolutely perfectly.

EVERYTHING on the home page can be customized. While this is nothing new, few have managed to get it right, and BBC manages to allow complete customization of color, layout and content without sacrificing aesthetics.

The BBC offers an incredible amount of content via their website - promoting this mass of content and providing a means of customization and predictable return experiences to the user poses a significant challenge. With the new interface and user-centric features, I think they’ve achieved something truly remarkable.

Be sure to check it out.

One of the biggest challenges a designer faces if simplifying the complex… creating order out of chaos. It’s our job to present data in an effective, visually elegant manner. More often than not, this can be accomplished with conventional methods of displaying data - paragraphs, tables, pie charts and the like, but from time to nature of the problem calls for a solution that’s far more creative and interesting. Add Flash to the mix, and throw in some Papervision 3D and you get Spectra Visual Newsreader.

It’s essentially an online RSS feed reader created by MSNBC.com in order to present masses of content in an interesting and engaging way. It allows the user select news channels grouped in categories and sub-categories, and then displays the headlines in a 3d space that can be explored.

As awesome as Spectra is, there method of displaying this data is one possible solution to the problem of presenting headlines in an innovative, non-linear way. The field of Data Visualization fascinates me, because the options are really limitless.

Here are a few links to get the juices flowing:

• Smashing Magazine’s article ~ Data Visualization: Modern Approaches
• Digg Labs
• Visual Complexity

An agency that never ceases to amaze me is Goodby, Silverstein and Partners. Their ideas are groundbreaking, and their work is top-notch - definitely a company who’s work I check out regularly for inspiration.

Since 1993 they have been working with the California Milk Processor Board, and were responsible for developing the Got Milk? slogan, credited with putting life back into milk sales after a 20 year slump.

They’ve done some incredible work over the years, from print to TV to direct, but the stuff that really blows me away is the interactive work. Over the last few years they have produced a number of award winning digital campaigns that really set the benchmark in terms of (a) generating outstanding ideas for marketing a relatively bland product, and (b) pushing the medium (and the budgets by the looks of things). I could talk about each one of their amazing campaigns for hours, but I thought it would be good to give a short(ish) overview of their most recent online work… so here goes:

Cow Abduction & Brittlactica

In 1996 they launched a website entitled Cow Abduction that details the mysterious disappearance of countless bovines going missing from dairy farms across the globe. The site includes a whole host of features like eye witness accounts, photos of farmers’ messages to aliens, and even a catalogue of products like decoy cows, UFO traps and ‘Cowoflauge’. Watch the eye witness accounts, and prepare to laugh your ass off.

At the same time, another site launched - Planet In Need. The website centers around a planet called Brittlactica, whose citizens suffer from a range of ailments and who live in regions like ‘Insomniastan’, ‘PMStonia’, ‘Papau Hairthinny’, and ‘Cavitopia’. In a recent visit to Earth, they stumbled upon a ‘miracle elixer’ that fixes all their problems. Genius.

Get The Glass

In 1997 they launched a beautifully executed 3D board game called ‘Get The Glass’ that centered around the Adachi family who are afflicted with a genetic condition. They also happen to be thieves…. on a mission to do whatever it takes to steal a glass of milk located in ‘Fort Fridge’. The board game features a number of micro arcade-style games to keep the user entertained - just try and avoid landing in ‘Milkatraz’. Be sure to check out the case study on Goodby’s website.

White Gold is White Gold

Their latest campaign (2008) focuses on a musician (glam-rocker) called White Gold (and his two band mates, ‘The Calcium Twins’) who rates milk above any other white substance. The site features White Gold in all his milk-tastical glory, and allows the user to explore the White Gold world, unlocking various widgets and freebies along the way. As always, the campaign is complimented with a strong presence on Facebook, Myspace, Youtube and even iTunes. Serious follow-through.

The Latest: Got Milk? Brand Site

A few weeks ago, a brand new mother site launched - Got Milk?. It features a stack of games and quirky characters highlighting the many benefits of drinking the beverage, for example testing your milk IQ or head-butting milk cartons. The site is highly engaging and interactive, and is bound to keep you entertained for quite some time.

I can’t wait to see what Goodby will come up with in 2009.

Fantasy-Interactive (Fi) have just launched their highly anticipated new website. If any of you know Fi, you’ll know they are famous for creating highly engaging Flash portals and microsites. They were also the first company to enter the highly acclaimed FWA Hall of Fame. I must admit - I’m over the moon with the fact that they have opted for a non-Flash website. Here’s an extract from their website regarding the decision to use HTML:

Our sites used to reach out, grab the user, shake them vigorously and scream, “Made by Fantasy Interactive!” Fi was notorious for developing everything and anything in Flash, Today in Fi, you will only find Flash in places it needs to be and fits. Looking back over the past nine years, the average website has matured substantially. Choosing the correct technology is imperative for a company’s goals.

We’re just about to kick off the redesign of stonewall.co.za, and we’re also opting for an HTML-based website, but it’s taken some time to reach this decision. Sure, nothing can beat the fluidity and energy of a Flash website (provided you get it right), but gone are the days of “Flashmania” - Flash for Flash’s sake.

A short while ago, the anti-Flash argument usually went something like this:

Flash websites take ages to load, and search engines cannot read and index their content.

These days, this is totally untrue. If a Flash website is built right, it can be SUPER-fast, and search engines will index their content without any issues. That said, there is still a strong argument against using Flash purely “because we can”. The choice of technology should always be based around the requirements.

If the requirement is the rapid browsing and delivery of content, HTML simply can’t be beaten.

I could seriously talk about Flash vs HTML for hours, but rather than bore you, check out the comment chain on Fi’s blog (Think Swedish) in response to the new website - it’s far more juicy!