Between 1997 and 2001 I was creative director of a boutique interactive shop called Angry Monkey. We had an interesting mix of high profile clients. We did pretty much everything online for Star Wars.. actually we did a bunch of high profile entertainment projects. Blade, Pleasantville, Lord of the Rings. We did a lot of early DVD menus, some experimental interfaces for interactive TV, as well as interface work for an online financial advice engine for portfolio management. Below are a few screen captures of some of that work... from the early days.
Pleasantville Site
We did a promotional site for the movie Pleasantville. The concept? The more you used the site, the more it changed... from black and white, to a full color site... and the content of the articles changed in tone simultantiously... mirroring the theme of the movie. It was understated, as we didn't announce that it did that at all... you just had to notice while using it. Heady, maybe. Fun, totally.
Gone with the Wind re-release
We did the Gone with the Wind re-release. Pretty straight forward, expect for the "as directed by". We were _super_ early on the fan created and mashup bandwagon... actually, it wasn't really a bandwagon then. Anyway, we set up a constest for users and fans to cast their own updated version of Gone with the Wind, as well as re-write a scene "in the style of". Fortunately, we had a great client who pushed the concept through a very reluctant legal department. The results were awesome.
For each of the winning submissions we designed/illustrated a poster of what it would look like. This is one of them... a mashup of Gone with the Wind and the Truman show starring Molly Shannon. I know, right? Awesome.
another great mashup. I would pay good money to see this.
another winner. I love the painted bizzaro poster.
This was an internal favorite... but for those who have the patience, its real genius is below... a excerpt from the winning submission.
DIVA, on demand TV.
There was this cool newish thing hitting the web... it was called Flash. While we'd been playing with the flash pre-cursor "future splash", this screenshot is of some of the first full site animation we did for an on demand TV startup.
check out the specs needed to even see it... back in those days.. that was cutting edge.
Web TV interactive prototype
OK, another blast from the past. Web TV. We did a pretty extensive prototype for what interactive TV could look like using an episode of the Late Show. What is nuts... is that we still don't have this basic level of TV interactivy over a decade later.
This opening screen allowed you to toss "ham" at Dave when a joke from the opening monologue bombed. Ok, in case I didn't make it clear, this was also designed to collect viewer feedback.. you know, for data driven editorial development.
speaking of data driven and crowd participation, here is a screen with another audience reaction interactive element. In this case, it was also designed to give you a sense of other people watching simultantiously.
and here, user submitted comments... although for anyone who ever tried to use the keyboard with Web TV would tell you.. this wasn't happening. Way to cumbersome.
One of the big focuses of the brief (heh) was to help crack the commerce code. In this case, we were talking about integrating into this hot new thing called ebay, and online auctions. That said, in this case, there was only a no-thanks button, as it was a joke.. but one that could have easily turned real.
A big part of our focus was to keep the interactivity "thin" during the broadcast. Quick yes/no stuff, one touch stuff, and allow the user to tag additonal content for later viewing. This was an example of that.
and here, the most obvious of commerce integrations. Obvious good, not obvious bad.
So, here we introduced the idea of the in-app purchase about 10 years early.
After the show, you would be presented with a screen where the various elements that you'd checked during the show for later persusal would show up, and become actionable. All the gratification of "instant" without the cumbersome distractions of busy interactivity.
Lost In Space
Remeber that Lost in Space remake? We did a ton of work for it. Partially because there was a big marketing push behind it, and partially because one of our team-members was a HUGE life-long fan of the franchise. This is the home screen for the website. Its a litte misleading, because the planets were draggable in 3d. Each planet represented a different area of the site. Maybe I can go find a better screenshot.
OK, looking back, this is cu-reepy. Basically, it was a diary and threaded discussion board... you know, back when the number of people online was small enough to moderate this kind of stuff in a reasonable way. It was, as most of the discussion boards we did for entertainment properties, very popular... and surprisingly, no problems.
So, we did a ton of great, very strange, work for LIS. The most magnificient of which was a 6 part flash animated series. We did the character design, storytelling, voices, etc etc. I think it was online for a few weeks before the legal department had a field day with it, and pulled it down. Sigh.
It was hysterical, dorky, and full of true love for the franchise. These days it would have been a monster hit. Apparently we got to the branded content party a decade early.
As if a full flash animated short was enough, each episode featured an animated gif comic strip of the Doctor being a total asshole. Another mashup, another trend where we showed up a decade early. I mean, look at it... its awesome. The best part.. its just not funny. Its just mean. That cracks me up.
So, another in a long list of getting there early, this is the touch screen kiosk interface we did. Based on the site homepage, it had to be greatly simplified for touch.
The touch screen interface for chatacter info. I seem to remember that the touch points were HUGE.
Oh, I forgot to mention, the kiosk was embedded in a giant robot.
A giant robot with a monitor in its belly, sponsored by Sun. Classy baby.. classy.
American Century (circa 1998)
As much as the entertainment projects were fun to work on, so was doing complex (for the time) information and interaction design. In this case, we worked with American Century on an "advice" product. A complex portfolio management tool. Our job was to make an incredibly complex process (with a butload of regulatory limitations) accessible and brand consistent.
I wish I could find some of the "before" images. Part of what I like about this kind of work is the extensive usability research one gets to design. For this, and other AC work, we did regular usability studies, constantly refinining the work, and the process of usability itself, as this kind of testing, and the web in general were still new.
So, this was one of the information and interaction documents we used to help simplify the fund advisor product. It was primarily presented in printed form. In this case, it was meant to be displayed about about 3ft by 8ft, so that the details could be read.
Project Managment Tools
Again, we showed up early to the party. This was an early prototype web based interface for an internal project management tool we were developing, allowing for a more matrix style of team and resource managment.
here is another example of some information architecture documentation we did to support development.
Blade, the DVD.
So, we also did a whole bunch of DVD menus. Blade was the first. I can't remember why, but we actually had to completely redo the entire delivery 48 hours before the deadline. It was brutal on all fronts... but went on to break all sorts of sales records, and that kind of stuff.
