Alonline » design

Wim Delvoye – weird artist, clever website

Al — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 21:41:08 +0000

I’m not sure I like this guy’s art, although some of it is definitely more to my taste than the rest, but I rather like the way he has designed his website. He’s built a nice orthogonal 8-bit town to provide meaningful links to various aspects of his work. His Art Farm is clearly visible as a farm, and his more scatological pieces are hinted at by having a toilet to click on. Definitely a clever way of presenting your work to the viewer.

Virgin’s stunning news feed viewer

Al — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 20:23:30 +0000

This is a beautiful piece of Flash animation, that polls various Virgin sites and projects the newest and latest feeds from those sites into a bejewelled radar effect. I really like it, it seems usable and responsive. It could do with a zoom option, although saying that, it does tilt slightly towards your pointer as you move around. Very pretty indeed.

The flip ship – very strange indeed

Al — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 00:56:33 +0000

Here’s something you don’ see every day – a ship which can partially sink its stern to leave its bow standing vertically out of the water. It’s all for a good purpose, as this pose makes life more stable for the scientists on board, but is looks very strange and slightly scary.

FLIP Research Vessel – Watch a funny movie here

Uniqlok – strange dancing web clock

Al — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 21:56:32 +0000

This is wonderfully quirky, has very catchy music, is blessed with pretty ladies dancing in an interesting, and completely safe for work manner, and made me smile. Turn the volume up, sit back and enjoy Uniqlok.

Bayou – a beautiful online comic

Al — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 02:20:47 +0000

Wow! That’s all I can say to this piece of web design. Not only does this work well as a comic, but the whole deign behind it is just amazing as well. I love the way the pages blur as you move from one to the next, I like the individual designs for the loading messages, navigation is simple whether you are in full screen (recommended) or not, and to top all this off the drawings themselves are wonderful. There’s also a good story behind it all. Go and read it and hope that more comics are released using this, or a similar format.

Get The Glass – best looking Flash game ever

Al — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 23:52:55 +0000

And finally, to finish off my burst of Flash related posts, I’d advise you to have a go at this game from the California Milk Processor Board. It’s stunningly well made and beautiful as well, and I still haven’t worked out the last question yet.

2 great Flash music animations

Al — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 22:43:01 +0000

Flash is one of those applications that the Internet could not do without: which is why Microsoft are currently working on their own contender for the multimedia browser plugin market – Silverlight. They still have a long way to go, however, and in the meantime here are 2 great examples of what can be done with Flash.

Firstly, have a look at the video for a song called Plantage. You might well recognise the style and atmosphere as similar to the Samorost games that emerged about 4 years ago. That will be because this video is produced by the same people.

The have a look at this simple animation from Cookiedough Records. It’s quite clever for all its simplicity.

Exoskeleton meets motorbike

Al — Fri, 23 May 2008 22:01:07 +0000

Now this is a design concept that deserves to make it in the real world. Too often fantastic designs remain just fantasy, and stand as an example of what a company could do if they wanted to/dared to/had the courage to, or felt that they would recoup their investment. In this case the outline is good: great presence, it’s electric, it’s fast, dangerous and sexy and you have to throw yourself forward to accelerate. I’m sure that would sell to young males everywhere – with the only downside being the lack of passenger space. I’d love to see these on the road sometime soon.

Folding bicycle wheel

Al — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 00:11:40 +0000

Another clever invention that will allow collapsible bikes to fold up to a reasonable size, and still manage to be comfortable when ridden. What most impressed me is the way the designer has looked at the one component that nobody else has managed to do anything with, yet is the sticking point for how small a bike can fold, and has then managed to come up with a very simple solution to the problem. I’d expect to see bikes featuring these wheels in the next year.

Giant mechanical animals roaming Nantes

Al — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 23:19:32 +0000

This is taking steampunk to an entirely new level. The creators of these marvelous inventions have managed to use metal, wood and hydraulics to make wonderful animals that are also working vehicles. One of these creatures, an 11m tall elephant, is large enough to carry around 30 people without any problems, albeit very slowly. There are loads of pictures here, and a video of the elephant can be found here.