I was playing today with creating a brand texture out of icons. Currently this test uses a stock icon set called Whitespace and a palette I found on Adobe Kuler. I randomized the grid of icons using three sizes and randomized the colors within the palette.

Next stop is to finish the unique icons and apply the brand colors. Much like the Roundarch Idents I explored a few years ago, the output of this work is meant to programmatically (but within predefined parameters) generate unique brand textures for use in various collateral.

I spent some time last night tweaking my drawing toy. I still need to work on adding a script to isolate areas of the composition to add definition to. So that I can get areas with more abstract lines and areas with more detail. But in general I’m happy with where it’s going.

The original:

I’m a little late to the party here (like 4 years!), but nonetheless I’ve set out to do some generative art work with photography, flash and painterly randomness. These are the first few outputs from the new program I’ve created. Still tweaking things, but you can see my first stab in motion below (it may look done, but the final rendering takes upwards of 5 minutes – if you want to stay ’till the end).

Barbairan Group, Fantasy Interactive, Huge, Big Spaceship, R/GA and Organic all have non-flash sites.

Why isn’t Flash the best platform for an interactive agency to present their work? If you look around these days it seems that all of the leading interactive agencies (from my perspective in NYC) are switching over their Flash sites to rich-but-not-flash sites (AJAX, XHTML, etc.). I did it. A lot of my designer friends’ did it. But why? Have we, as rich-media/interactive/digital designers, fallen out of love with the once dominant platform? I kind of have, and I think my reasons are the same as the interactive powerhouses pictured above. It essentially boils down to the ability to tell and share your story.

With and all-Flash site you can certainly tell a story effectively. The level of interactivity and immersion draws the user into the experience like no other rich media platform. But doing so asks a lot of the user from a time perspective: transitions, load times, learning to interact with new paradigms, etc. Now with all of the open source javaScript tool-kits out there you can achieve a decent level of immersion and interactivity with little negative impact to the user from a time and learnability standpoint. So with an HMTL portfolio site you have most of the immersion with little or no negative impact. It’s a safer choice.

Because of the fragmented-by-design digital footprints we leave, aggregating posts, shouts, tweets, images and videos into one filtered and cohesive experience is extremely important to tell a story. It’s beneficial to share not only your experiences (as an agency/agency employee) but also to show the impact of your work (think CP+B). Flash does not do this well. If I want to fire off a quick news item or blog post highlighting a YouTube video of someone using a product I designed or a testimonial of customer-impact of a campaign I executed, I’d have to write that explicit use-case into the framework of the Flash portfolio site I’m executing. Not so with HTML – the web 2.0 APIs are already there by design. Therefore executing an agency’s portfolio site in HTML assures that no matter what new platform or API takes hold, snipptes, widgets, blogrolls and cross-links can always be sucked in.

I also think that how something is executed should tell a lot about what the thing is. It has to do with tone-of-voice as it relates the platform (not just the design). And with a Flash portfolio, seeing the load bar, the user’s first impression is to prepare for something. It’s loading. Wait for it. It’s gonna be dope. But portfolio sites should be simple and easily understandable. Your work should showcase all of the richness you claim to be able to deliver, the site need not be a portfolio piece in of itself. And while the user is waiting for the thing to animate and initialize itself, the user has to make a mental commitment to go on the ride that you’ve prepared for them. You’re asking something of them. Whereas an HTML site doesn’t carry with it that sense of commitment. I never thought I’d advocate this, especially considering the numerous Flash portfolios I’ve executed for myself over the years, but right now – where interactive is at – Flash is out.

I think this is brilliant. Davis has really captured the frustration that I’ve felt with Flash as a platform for artistic and interactive experimentation:

Flash has matured incredibly in the past decade, but it has done so in a way that has blocked non-developers from even getting started. The simple fact of the matter is that with older versions of Flash you could learn the tool and how to program ActionScript almost entirely through creative play. With the latest iterations, unless you have a background in object-oriented programming, that method of learning by doing is simply not an option.

So they’ve set out to create a framework that sits atop the Flash IDE which allows for the artist to use a simplified set of commands to accomplish their goals.

I’m currently kicking the tires and will have some experiments posted shortly. Way to go Josh and Branden!

Enjoy!

Not being sarcastic. The Zoomable interface I first saw on sofake in 2003 has been tweaked for a scientific purpose, Cell Size and Scale. It’s korny to say, but it really puts things into perspective. Yuk yuk.

Check out this awesome new site about the Apollo 11 mission. It’s the reason why microsites should exist. There’s tons of little interactive elements to explore and learn about the Apollo 11 mission. The coolest part is that to commemorate the anniversary, the entire mission including the timing of events will be recreated online. I can’t wait till it “launches” so that I can follow along as well.