Winner of several prestigious awards (most recently winning SXSW's "Best Online Entertainment" website, 2002), Toronto-based Unplugged TV certainly doesn't need the help of a review here on DT. But we just can't help ourselves. Biting much of their interface from such online entertainment pioneers as Heavy.com and Atom Films, UTV offers quality cartoons and games, a best-of-breed GUI, and pretty decent merchandise, all for free. It's as simple as that. "No need to reinvent the wheel," is their mantra we suspect. Unplugged Studios just concentrates on making it smoother. If your cartooning toolbox is running low on inspiration, take a look at their animation style for a bit of fresh air. It's all the best elements of Flash's limited animation capabilities, wrapped up in a very friendly interface. Highlights include: Rebecca (note: once you see the site, you'll understand how cliché that statement really is).... Read more
There are a lot of people making really good cartoons with 3D imagery, but Rustboy.com does stand out in a number of ways. Complete with a diary, a "Making Of" section, concept art, and test scenes, Rustboy and his creator, Brian Taylor (XL5), have put together a website with some real meat. For the casual viewer, I doubt very much that this site will yield much more than some "oohs" and "aahs", but for a designer (or anyone who has ever wished to be an animator) this site provides much more. As mentioned, Rustboy comes complete with a "Making Of" section - and therein is the treat. As you watch Sundance quality QT files, you can read the details of how each effect was accomplished. To be fair, he only goes into detail on a few things, but the site is updated pretty regularly and it is safe to assume... Read more
These bizarrely cute misfit creatures are right up the alley of Japans and Chinas art audience, where Pete Fowler has just hit it big. And rightfully so! You just can't help but want one for your collection... even if all you collect is stamps.... Read more
Just another really sick animated Flash music site from our falafel-eating, funky-faced, far out friend, Todd Purgason. But this time it's different - this time the site ain't anything you've seen before. So figure out what the hell a fugly fairy really is, and even torch her with a bow and flaming arrow by a belligerent french ferret. And hey, there's cool Easter egg stuff to download, like free MP3s from some bands, and a blog by Mark Hoppus. Did we forget to mention this was a site for Fuse TV? Have fun!... Read more
This is an oldie, but goodie. It's one of those sites that gets your blood pressure up because, try as you might, you cannot fully explain how Insert Silence was built. Sure, one can go on about tracer movie clips and masks, but that doesn't fully explain it. There's something else at work. Normally, we like to provide a description of a website in these little blurbs, but Insert Silence is something that should really just be seen for itself. Think Nosepilot meets the Bauhaus School of Design.... Read more
Owning a home or a small business can be a risky proposition. To help identity and avoid those risks, Fallon & B-Reel helped insurance company Travelers create "The In-Synch Challenge," an interactive experience - complete with fully 3D rendered environments and composited green screen footage of actual actors - that puts ones safety awareness IQ to the test. Sure, the insurance companies want to put a little fear into you, but the real fear should come from checking out this demo and asking yourself as a web design company... Damn, how the hell could one possibly compete with the depth of this production? Sure, it's a touch dry, but from a development standpoint, it has every possible feature one can cram into a website design - film, motion, 3-D, voice-overs, acting, plus interaction with a bit of game-play. And from a business view, it must be seen as a total... Read more
From a simple seed can sprout the most implausible creations, and the only thing that you need to do is to go up, up and up… So starts a journey through one of the most original websites we've ever visited. Discover the brain-bugs, the hand-flowers and the hearts with human caterpillars, all inside the incredible universe of “El Semillero�", a school for creatives, advertisers and designers located in Mexico. The site is truly an ingenious work of love, with 5 stages of such beautifully animated and rich interactive sections, it makes it difficult to put into words. From what we could gather with our tepid Spanish skills, El Semillero is essentially an elite design school that is responsible for filling up many of the open positions in Spanish speaking advertising agencies across the world. It's really worth checking out every section completely, as each area has its own fantastic elements.... Read more
Broken Saints is a very, very, very painstakingly created online comic book. As a long time comic book enthusiast, I can assure you that Broken Saints is not just a good comic book in the online sense, it really would be a good comic book if it were published in a more traditional format. The presentation is absolutely beautiful. The crew at Broken Saints has triumphed in the area of navigation, mood, music, and lighting, if you can believe it. And of course, last but not least: the fonts. It's not the only way to publish an online comic, but it's definitely one of the best hybrids of technology and tradition we've seen. If you have ever endeavored to publish your own comic book ideas online, you simply must examine the Broken Saints website - because the bar has been raised. Highlights include: Chapter 17.... Read more
This independent artists' showcase reveals a fiercly original & often sexually bizarre, but cute, 3-d experience. Check out this futuristic miscreant! Fiercely original, strange and even cute, Bam-b is a 3-dimentional showcase of artistic expression and imagination from a Dutch digital artist living in NYC. Since this posting a few new areas were added.... Read more
You needn't be an engineer to enjoy these 13 short animation experiments exploring sound, electricity, and interface interactions. Each funny animation unfolds like a short film, with a unique variation upon the theme of sound and electricity. We loved that the site has no words(!), and all the elements are self-explanatory.... Read more
