September 14, 2000

7:20 AM

Anyone remember Studio Archetype? Man, were they ever great!

Today, as I was looking through the "Official Site of the Sydney 2000 Games", I was saddened, at how sick it all is, I mean, little 30x50 banners for texaco? or for something called "win big, click here", it all might as well be "Click here for live nude 18 year olds" for all I care. Design?

There is no design, well, a good one anyway, all you see is this little 2point verdana type that shows the news. Seeing, ofcorse, how no one else does this sorta thing. NOT AT ALL.

All I can do now, is dream of how good the Nagano site looked. And days of Archetype have been long over. Maybe it's sometimes good to look back, you see how every single site has become the same, link news here, provide in-depth stories here, place important graphic here.
posted by tiaka (8 comments total)

Wow, that site is really awful! I can't believe it is really that awful. There is a little navigation bar that is supposed ot be at the bottom of the page, but instead of being in the bottom frame, which is there but empty, it is on the bottom of the middle frame, so you don't see it unless you scroll all the way to the bottom of that pile of crap.

Low Quality.
posted by donkeymon at 7:38 AM on September 14, 2000

I am so overjoyed that someone else misses Studio Archetype and their Nagano Olympics web site! I don't know why Clemet Mok deceided to change styles once his company was purchased by Sapient. Now his work looks like everything else.

I wish he would write a book about his early days of web design and his theology behind his methods and style.

Until then, I cruise over from time-ti-time to the Big Blue site to reminisce
posted by Brilliantcrank at 8:20 AM on September 14, 2000

Did Sapient design the new site or is it IBM or another design firm?
posted by tomalak at 8:32 AM on September 14, 2000

I'm sure a lot of people were disapointed with Archetype going away. I remember typing in the url, and then looking at this red/black site, No, you don't have the wrong adress, Studio Archetype is now part of Sapient. It's a shame. Studio Archetype had one of the best sites ever, if you're talking about classic design that changed it all. I recall, when the so called 'webdesign' started coming around, and you'd see all these new books about it, it'd always feature Archetype.
posted by tiaka at 8:53 AM on September 14, 2000

As is Adjacency, the other firm that did amazing work back in 1996-1997. I still remember the Land Rover site they did, complete with a Java applet that allowed you to change the color of your truck. Amazing. Way ahead of their time. It's too bad that these web design companies who build amazing teams of designers who understand technology get sucked up into the corporate monoliths like Sapient.
posted by camworld at 9:14 AM on September 14, 2000

Well, as a former employee of Studio Archetype, I thought I'd chime in.

I was the studio's Web Developer for early prototypes of the Nagano site. We ended up not doing the final tech--IBM (who built the site) was better suited to handle that. I'm happy to hear that people remember it fondly. A lot of credit goes to IBM--for a corporate behemoth, they have a marvelous tradition of supporting quality design (Paul Rand, Eames, etc.)

The Deep Blue site was built out of Archetype's New York office, with a whole different team of designers than who worked on the Nagano site.

I think y'all are actually being unfair to Sapient. While many visual designers left Archetype after the merger, many stayed on, and pretty much all the information designers stayed on. They're still a brilliant bunch of folks doing important and ground-breaking work. To Clement's credit, he's maintained the integrity of Studio Archetype's work, while making it truly relevant to building businesses--a tough challenge.

If I had to choose between creative talent at Sapient, Scient, Viant, Razorfish, Organic, iXL, marchFIRST, and any of those big boys, I'd choose Sapient in a heartbeat.
posted by peterme at 9:45 AM on September 14, 2000

I would choose Spaient over the others but have they done recently? At least the other developers that you mention have posted a pretty good portfolio and update it frequently. Studio Archetype always had interesting case studies with visuals. Sapient's case studies are all text and very, very boring.

Not too mention that Sapient's web site very rarely changes. Boring boring boring.
posted by Brilliantcrank at 3:46 PM on September 14, 2000