Last month we were lucky enough to catch up with one of the world’s most important web design forces, California’s 2Advanced Studios. With the fifth version of the company’s iconic website only recently going live, they opened the doors on Attractor’s development, to provide an insight that took even our breath away.
So choosing to spread this special feature over two instalments, we’re back to learn more from the team directly, and also indulge ourselves with the stunning concept art that they were able to provide. We were so taken with the examples of 3D modelling work, early renderings, abandoned concept art, storyboards and matte paintings, that we’ve decided to bring you even more, to sign off in real style. So please kick back, and enjoy an exclusive pass into the production of surely one of this year’s most eagerly anticipated site redesigns. Special thanks to all at 2Advanced, and particularly Christi Nishiyama, for making it all possible.

EJ: Eric Jordan, chief creative officer
TN: Tony Novak, chief operations officer
CN: Christi Nishiyama, marketing manager

WD (Web Designer): You created an awful lot of conceptual design work for this project. What was it about the eventual site that persuaded you to go down that route in the end, and abandon some of the more spacey themes or technological ideas you’ve shown us?
EJ: We conceptualised multiple different directions for V.5 before making a final decision. Here’s a little background on our process over the two years: In 2004, I took a ‘vacation’ by myself to the Caribbean in order to experiment with concepts for V.5. I spent a few days comping up designs on the beach and taking photos of the island (which later became the reference materials for the plant life in River of Eschaton… the second V.5 matte painting of the Attractor series.) During the last three days of my trip the island was hit by a small hurricane, so I stayed confined to my bungalow and finalised the designs for V.5. It was then that I decided on the idea of having a black background with multiple coloured sections. Months after getting back from my trip, it was suggested by a few team members that we go a different route than what I had originally envisioned. We had a lot of ‘round-table’ meetings talking about usability and search engine optimisation and I think we just got wrapped up in it, and lost sight of what 2Advanced was all about. There was some bumping of heads around the studio, and a few heated discussions on which way to go. This was perfectly natural in the course of a creative project where you have a lot of different people involved who all have different ideas. Of course, not everyone is going to see eye to eye. Eventually, this new route was scrapped and we went back to the drawing board yet again. This time we used some of the concepts and design elements that I had created in the Caribbean, mixed with a new digital matte painting direction that I had been learning and studying at the time. We infused those concepts with some great ideas on usability and pushing the functionality of Flash to make it more browser friendly, without having to go with a hybrid design. So I think the one or two years we spent going back and forth trying to figure out the general direction of V.5 were worthwhile, because it really helped us clearly define a site direction that satisfied everyone and still kept to the true essence of 2Advanced. TN: On a completely unrelated whim, Eric had taken personal interest in the digital matte painting techniques commonly practised in the movie industry by companies such as Industrial Light & Magic (ILM). When he unveiled his first creation, Edge of the Ocean, the vision for V.5 was born. The excitement it generated in the studio was overwhelming.

WD: Is it likely that you’ll revisit design ideas that didn’t quite make the grade this time round in future developments?
EJ: We may revisit some of the design ideas in the future, although it’s important for us to remember why we left them out in the first place.

WD: The attention to detail (in Attractor V.5), commitment to forging exciting and yet accessible content, and intricacy of the Flash interface work is stunning. How important was it for you to get the balance right between a great-looking site design, and something that still feels light and intuitive to the visitor?
TN: It was extremely important for us to achieve the proper balance between design and function. V.5 was an internal challenge to explore new methodologies and techniques without sacrificing aesthetics. V.5 became a massive undertaking because we needed to maintain that sense of emotional connection with 2Advanced, but empower it with new functionality that makes it really usable and accessible. We truly pushed the boundaries (and ourselves) to accomplish all that we have with V.5.

WD: What do you consider the most successful parts of the site to be, based on your own connection with the project, and any feedback you’ve had?
TN: Our integration of an entire modular sub-system of Flash Dynamic Deep Linking (DDL) has generated much discussion and positive feedback. We’ve seen countless forum threads asking: ‘How did they do it?’ Well in answer to that, we created classes for performing DDL as a method of communication between the site’s Flash movies and a user’s browser, enabling many features that have traditionally been useless on a Flash-based site. In V.5, users can effectively create bookmarks to content pages, utilise the Browser History function, refresh the current page and navigate with the browser’s Back and Forward buttons. All without the concern of returning to the start of the movie. Moreover, the DDL system dynamically updates the Address Bar, therefore making it possible to share links deep within the site (and bypass several layers of navigation and animation). We’re also quite proud of our dynamic loading of language specific fonts. Our development team was intent on developing a superior method to ease future implementations of multi-language solutions. While we could have very easily relied on the user’s system fonts from language to language, we felt that the limited system font choices with Flash would severely impact aesthetics. Moreover, it was important to remember that V.5 was indeed dynamic, meaning that we didn’t have the option to simply embed a subset of any particular font. For Asian fonts that have over seven thousand glyphs, the challenge was very real. So we created a complex set of rules to essentially ‘auto-detect’ fonts based upon a user’s country, system language settings, IP address and URI (Uniform Resource Identifier). Together with an embedded Font Manager that enables dynamic font switching between languages and a multi-language based CMS, the V.5 framework now allows for new languages and fonts to be introduced without the need for modifying the Flash movies.

WD: Do you have any cheeky exclusive hints on up and coming projects you might want to let us in on, plus what 2Advanced version 6 might have in store for us when it comes around?
TN: Without giving anything away, we have some exciting projects coming out for Japan. Keep checking the 2Advanced website for updates on our latest works. As for V.6… I think we are still recovering from the madness that ensued during V.5’s development.

WD: We have plenty of creative people over here dreaming of making it in this business, so what would our readers have to do to impress you guys if they fancied trying their luck in sunny California?
TN : Show us an outstanding portfolio that displays a powerful and diverse skill set. With only 25 employees in our Studio, each member truly needs to wear multiple hats. But we’re always looking for the next member of our team – and we pull individuals from all over the world. We have guys from the UK, Canada, Serbia… so if you have what it takes, don’t hesitate to send in your portfolio.

WD: Lastly, what do think of our publication Web Designer magazine, and other than 2Advanced Studios (obviously!) what do you see being the big things in online design that we should be covering in the coming year?
CN : We definitely look forward to checking out each month’s issue to catch up on the latest and greatest trends to hit the internet. Web Designer offers incredibly helpful tutorials alongside entertaining editorials that keep us anxiously turning each page. We highly recommend the magazine to anyone interested in web design and development because it’s a high quality industry publication that’s just plain enjoyable (and educational!) to read. As for other things big in web design, we’ll certainly be keeping our eyes peeled for any exciting developments.