I’m proud to announce that I will be joining the team at ACHTUNG! in Amsterdam.
I have loved working freelance the past 1.5 years, but now it was time for something new and better.
ACHTUNG! is one of the absolute best digital agencies around, and I’m really excited about becoming a part of their amazing team.
Check out their work here
And follow them here
I will start fulltime at the end of august, which also means that I don’t accept new freelance projects.
Today we finally launched the new website for the talented guys Nicolai Villads and Peter Ammentorp – aka. VplusA. Their site showcases their fantastic work, go have a look for yourself.
- Design by VplusA. Flash animations/development by me!
Beside that I have also been involved in the album cover design for Danish band Dreamville. I did art direction, Nicoline Graversen did the layout and illustrations and Morten Germund took the amazing photos.
Take a look here
2010 is well on the way. I’m busy as always (and I’m very grateful for that), but I have had some time thinking about the future of interactive webdesign. I don’t want to comment on the whole Adobe (Flash) vs. Apple (Ipad) battle, I just wish they will work things out ’cause I’m a huge fan of both!
Below are a few things I personally think will be the “next big thing” or at least something we will start seing a whole lot more of in 2010.
1: Interactive video.
Recently I saw this amazing 360 degress interactive video. I must say I was amazed, so if you haven’t seen this yet, here’s your chance: http://www.immersivemedia.com/haiti/
Another cool use of this (made with Flash) is this interactive music video made by Barcinski and JeanJean
And another cool website with interactive videos: Wrangler Blue Bell.
2. Multi touch websites and applications.
I have already had the pleasure of developing Flash applications for muti touch screens (with Infogalleri). This is something that will soon be much easier when Adobe releases the CS5 collection. Multi touch events are now handled inside Flash just like mouse events etc. so I think we will be seing a lot of portfolios and creative websites using this as the main navigation – imagine for instance a photographer’s portfolio in which each image can be enlarged with two fingers (just like the Iphone). See a demo made by Lee Brimelow here
Obviously this is only possible if the user has a touch screen, Appe Magic Mouse or something similar.
3. Iphone and Ipad applications.
The release of CS5 will also boost the production of Iphone apps enormously. I think we will see a lot more Flash designers and developers putting time and effort into this relatively new media.
4. Augmented reality
It’s been around for a while, but I’m sure we will continue to see a lot more of this when it becomes more “mainstream”. Personally I’m no huge fan, because often it requires the users/visitors to print something (or buy a catalogue), and I still know of people without webcams! But hey, it’s fun so I wouldn’t mind doing a project with this.
A great example of augmented reality can be seen here.
5. Social media
Again this is nothing new, but for the last year I haven’t had one single project meeting without someone saying “and we want Twitter too…”!!! Many companies still don’t know what this whole concept is about and how they can (or should) use it. I’m no wizz at this at all, but I think the use of Twitter and Facebook is only the beginning of social media integration with classic website content. Surely we will also start seing a lot more Facobook applications, just like the ones here.
6. HTML5.
Someone has named this the “Flash killer” which obviously is a bit of an exaggeration. But HTML5 is another great tool, which probably, within a few years, will make the internet an even more interesting and “rich” place to be. Read more about this here.
7. Unity 3D.
I while ago I thought 3D in Flash was the coolest thing in the whole world. Then I discovered Unity…
I’m sure we will be seing a lot more games made with Unity in the near future. 3D in Flash is not dead at all, but for games I think Unity really is taking over the market.
8. Physics and inverse kinematics.
CS5 will add even more tools to this area of game and web development. So far Physics Engines have been pretty hard to use and understand, which is also one of the reasons why we haven’t seen a lot of websites using this. Box2d and JigLib have been around for a while, but they are difficult to use unless you are an advanced developer (correct me if I’m wrong).
I’m very proud to announce that today my website for Kenneth Elgaard receives the Favourite Website Award.
Kenneth Elgaard is a young Danish artist. The design for his website was created with his art and graphic style in mind. I wanted to create a small world with some of the same elements used in his art pieces. The navigation is intuitive, simple and still somewhat different.
Here’s a couple of navigation tips many visitors probably won’t even find out:
- Double click images in the galleries to reset them to 100% size.
- Use keys up/down and left/right for navigation in the 4 subsites.
- Click the small symbols below the logo to go directly to another subsite.
- Reload site intro to see a random symbol.
- Move your mouse over the corners of the images in “contact” and “curriculum vitae” and they stick!
All 3d elements of the website is created with the native 3D support in Flash Player 10. This is something that proved difficult, but very beneficial for the overall performance and appearance in this project. I’ll soon write a blog post about the some of the technical aspects of this site, with focus on the 3D elements (z-sorting, scaling, shading etc.)
- You can have a look at the site here.
- And check out www.thefwa.com to see many more great websites.
Have a merry christmas and get in touch if you can use me for freelance Flash projects in 2010.
Finally we have launched the new website for InfoGalleri – see it here.
InfoGalleri is a company specialized in interactive experiences. I have developed many projects for (and with) them since I went freelance – many of these are present at the website too.
For the 3D experience, I used the away3D engine and as3dmod – I can highly recommend this to other developers.
The talented and always lovely Nicoline Graversen (and yes, she’s my girlfriend) just launched her portfolio. Check it out, especially if you’re an agency from Amsterdam looking for an enthusiastic illustrator.
See her portfolio here
I just launched a small website for my good friend Stinne and her new business. Go see what she is all about here: I-Sing – Sangundervisning
There’s a new kid on the (crowded) block. Another 3D engine has been released, but this one is worth a serious look. It’s a new lighter version of Awayd3D called Awayd3DLite. I have been playing a little around with this engine, and for my purpose it’s just as good as Papervision, but compiling time and filesize is reduced tremendously – so I’m probably using this in the future! The engine has primitive objects such as cubes, planes and spheres, so unless you are doing really heavy/advanced 3D development, this engine is highly recommended.
Note that you must publish for Flash Player 10 to take this engine into consideration (but you are already doing that I hope…)
Here are some other links for my favourite engines – or at least the ones I’ve tried 
Five3D
Papervision
Alternativa
Btw. my next project is using my own “engine” for simple 3D stuff like cubes and z-sorting.
For the first time since I started checking out the FWA reguraly (like every other webdesigner) the award has been given to a website NOT made with Flash! Is this a good thing you might ask, and why do I write about this? – well the answer is simple: use the right technology for the right project and everyone’s happy!
The site awarded was a 3d Robin Hood game made with the “new kid on the block” Unity3D. The performance, graphics and everything is so much better than what Flash is able to do currently. Maybe someday soon Flash will be able to do this, but for now Unity3D is a serious competitor and hopefully something we will see a lot more in the future. I don’t plan on learning Unity, because Flash is still my web tool #1, but for game developers this should be something to check out.
Also check out this post from Bartek, if you’re not convinced.
I found this through Kriss and had to share it. No wonder IE is still dominating. – BTW I use Firefox and Safari…