Tailsmack Chobani

The Brief

We were approached by the team at 180 LA to create a way for Sony to showcase a series of videos and photos that documented a group of students and their exploration of "Shipwreck Alley" in the Great Lakes region. It needed to be Flash, housed in a frame within Sony's existing website and deliver a feature video followed by a group of supplemental videos and still photos.

As with any project, there were a few major challenges: the first and foremost being the timeline, there were literally only a few weeks for design and development. The second was content, which was being produced at the same time as the site, and wouldn't be entirely ready in time for launch. So the design and build had to be scalable to accommodate content that was added gradually over time.

Concepting

To kick things off, we gathered the creative team for concepting. It was important that we convey a sense of adventure and come up with an interface that allowed still photos and video to be shown seamlessly together, without looking like a traditional gallery. We initially came up with a few concepts that were maybe a little too ambitious, but settled on a simple theme that let the user explore the depths of the lake, revealing content as the user dived down.

After a rapid wireframing session, we got sign-off on our concept from the client we jumped directly into production. Due to the tight timeline, we needed design, video animation and development all working concurrently in order to hit our deadline. This required tight communication from all parties, making sure that everyone was exactly the same page and all of the pieces would fit seamlessly when they came together. As a small shop, this is one of BKWLD's biggest strengths. We are used to working closely together – for an animator to chat with a designer, it's just a matter of walking a few feet to that person's desk.

Concepting in our Sacramento office.

The initial storyboard.