Mauricio Guimaraes is a web designer and illustrator from Brazil. His online portfolio at mauricio.art.br demonstrates this in a unique way by creating an immersible environment that shows off his world.
It is not a very complex site, only having 4 sections in total, but it more than makes up for depth with rich visuals. The drawings are detailed, animations smooth, and overall is just down right fun to explore and poke around. Flash is the perfect medium for a site of this nature as the non-linear layout is hard to translate in HTML. Plus, Mauricio avoided many of the things that depress the user experience of a Flash site like music blaring, lengthy load times, and an non-interactive intro screen.
So if you are ever thinking about doing a pure Flash website, take a good hard look at your requirements and make sure the medium supports the desired user experience.
The following is a brief synopsis of information reported to the Prince George’s County Police:
INCIDENT: Attempt Bank Robbery/Note OCCURRED: February 29th at 12:40p.m. LOCATION: 7406 Baltimore Avenue/Chevy Chase Bank PGPD case #: 08-060-0765
On 02-29-08 @ 12:40p.m. the suspect entered the Chevy Chase Bank located at 7406 Baltimore Ave. College Park, MD.
The suspect approached the victim teller and passed a handwritten note to the victim. The victim advised that the note stated “$3000 NOW.” The victim advised that she acted confused by the suspects note and asked him for his account number. The suspect advised that he did not have one and in a low threatening tone stated “just give me the money.” The victim then asked the manager to come over and assist. The manager/witness came over to assist and asked the suspect some questions. The suspect then changed his story and advised that he wanted a cash advance. The suspect walked out of the bank and turned left, fleeing on foot.
I spent a good chunk of today re-jiggering the look and functionality of the comment system here on my blog. Using the WordPress Thread Comment plugin readers and myself can respond directly to other comments complete with e-mail notification. Gravatar is a globally recognizable avatar plugin giving everyone who posts their thoughts to my blog the option to show an icon representing themselves. If you don’t have a Gravatar account head on over to Gravatar.com to register your e-mail address. Finally, I installed WP-Chunk which simply minimizes long URLs posted in comments and prevents them from breaking my layout.
But most importantly I re-designed the look of comments making them easier to read. I hope this will encourage more discussion on my blog and if you have any feedback, please leave a comment!
P.S. If you need a smattering of comment designs for inspiration check out the comment design showcase at SmileyCat.com.
Went to the CompUSA in Columbia for the last time tonight. After this weekend they will be closed forever. I used to go to this store whenever Kristina needed to go to Jo-Ann Fabrics next door. CompUSA was always too overpriced to buy anything that wasn’t absolutely necessary right away so I would use it to get a feel for things then buy online. Now the shelves are bare as they try to ditch the utter crap that nobody wants. There were a couple of laptops including a black MacBook but the rock bottom price was still too high. It’s a shame to see the store go but there is no way a big retail chain can compete with online ventures in the hyperactive technology industry. R.I.P CompUSA.
This seems like something Nintendo should have come up with but Petri Purho of Klooni Games from Finland came up with an interesting game. You solve puzzles by drawing shapes on a screen. The goal is to get the ball to touch the star but the twist is the shapes you draw are affected by physics like gravity and collisions. Draw a fully enclosed shape and it will drop and bump into other shapes on the screen. The video below gives you a better idea of how it works.
Klooni Games is an experimental game play project where every month Petri comes up with some kind of experimental game. This is a great project to build fresh life in to the gaming world which has a habit of copycatting succesful titles instead of innovating.
Hopefully we will see more exciting things Petri comes up with in March, which just happens to be tomorrow.
While watching video podcasts on my hourlong commute to work this morning I saw a short interview with Gerri Sinclair, the executive director at The Great Northern Way Campus. Located in Vancouver, Canada, The Great Northern Campus offers a Masters degree in Digital Media backed by four leading academic institutions: University of British Columbia; Simon Fraser University; Emily Carr Institute of Art + Design and the British Columbia Institute of Technology.
I graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Digital Media from the Art Institute of Philadelphia not too long ago. While A Masters in Digital Media has a nice ring to it, the courses sound rather hokey. Improvising Story and Character? Building Virtual Worlds? Classes grounded around real-world skills are more attractive to me. I don’t really see how this curriculum could prepare someone for the challenges and obstacles of digital media in the real world. Where’s the emphasis on up and coming web technologies? Online video distribution? Interface and usability design? These are the types of things I would like to advance in.
Digital media is still in it’s infancy and unlike the business, law, or medical fields, experience far outweighs any kind of degree. Plus technology is changing at such a rapid pace that it is a real challenge to nail down a curriculum that doesn’t become obsolete by the time students graduate.
