I came across an interesting site the other day that I thought was worth sharing. Coltex I believe is a Japanese advertising company (please feel free to correct me if I’m wrong). I found their site on FWA and I was struck on how unusual the navigational system is.
Instead of using a conventional navigation with hierarchy they have opted to use a story telling navigation. I found this to be quite interesting but also universal. I understood without any words what I was looking at and how it was meant to play out. This site definitely goes against the archetype of interface design.
However when saying that I found a few things wrong with the site which could be annoying in the long run. There is no real navigational structure where you can go back and forth. You have to go where the interface takes you. Which can be confusing and annoying.
The site itself is beautiful and would be nice to see it translate into a western audience.
This has been going around the youtube circuit for quite a while now. Though this is pretty clever especially if you have a cat. If you don’t have a cat they pretty much act like this except more annoying, come to think of it your probably lucky.
This animation works so well because it is simple and based on real life experiences. From my understanding it is done in flash and is possibly frame by frame animation. Simon Toefield is simply a wonderful animator.
I have added in my character designs and storyboard. One of the most difficult parts of the storyboard was to actually get the hand wrapped around the hilt of the knife. I’m happy with my characters as shown:
I haven’t done a full character board design (showing the characters from all sides) due to time restrictions. I felt that these characters were strong enough to continue on with. I wanted the characters to be old, cine the target audience is over 18+ and could identify them. After a talk with the lecturer we decided it would be more appropriate to have a third mouse character instead of a shadow. I have drawn the third mouse character and I think the last character is a mixture of both.
I believe this character is a little more pround than the other two characters. Even though she is down and out she still tries to maintain a proud look. I felt this rounded out my characters nicely.
Sally Smart is one of those artist whose work, either inspires or scares the hell out of you. For me, she does both. Her work has a theme of horror around it. However I have noticed themes of childhood popping up in her work. She exhibits at Greenaway gallery in Kent town quite regularly. I think it could be a good style to take notes from, for the character animation.
