Of course, screen sizes do still matter when browsing the web. Since many web sites will be longer than your screen is tall, the less user interface we put vertically, the better. But most screens today are widescreens, so why are we not putting the left- and right-hand sides of the screen to better use, instead of forcing everything into a bar on the top of the window?
This week, the ESPN Creative Services department held a development day giving employees opportunities to share, learn, and develop new skills, techniques, or ideas. One of the sessions was an all-day creative development session called “Layer Tennis.”
Layer Tennis mashes-up the excitement of organized competition with the skill and precision of graphic design. Participants volleyed with an opponent throughout the day using Photoshop and wit as their equipment. If you haven’t seen the real Layer Tennis, check out Coudal Partners http://layertennis.com/.
The ESPN Creative Services Layer Tennis proved equally creative, funny, witty, and full of smack-talk.
Sarah Biermann, Torsten Strer, Felix Meyer, and Pascal Monaco simplify 35 movies into their most basic visual representation and pack them into a slick, two-minute motion graphics piece. Brilliant:
Using three colors and a minimal approach, Olly Moss created a posters for each of the films scheduled for the 2010 Rolling Roadshow tour. Terrific work. Check them all out here.
Russian photographer Sergey Larenkov has captured ghosts of World War II haunting the present-day world. Well sort of. Larenkov overlayed and blended WWII photos onto modern-day photos of the same location and perspective producing a hauntingly powerful result:
I’ve talked about the music of ESPN’s World Cup coverage, but what about some of the graphics? Motionographer recently posted a montage of Prologue’s graphics package for ESPN. Great stuff. Check it out!
Back in January, I wondered why there was no web-app that transformed a photo you upload into a Na’vi character from Avatar. While I still haven’t found one (although I really haven’t been looking), I did find these fantastic instructions to Photoshop yourself as a Na’vi. The example the author walks you through creates a Tom Cruise avatar:
This short film by H5 is nominated for Best Animated Short Film at the Oscars on Sunday. “Amazing” doesn’t begin to describe the creative achievement in LOGORAMA.
In a world made up entirely of trademarks and brand names, Michelin Man cops pursue a criminal Ronald McDonald.
Google Maps have hit the slopes. You can now see ski slopes in Street View.
You can check out the Olympic slopes in Vancouver, too. I think my favorite part of this new feature is the little character you drag along the map to see Street View. In normal maps, he looks like this:
But on the slopes, he looks like this:
Nice touch, and another great feature from The Google.
To play different games, you use your mouse’s scroll wheel (or trackpad) like you would scratch a record. Very inventive and beautifully designed and executed. This kind of stuff makes me jealous.
