Wednesday Flash Design Fun

April 26, 2006 8:35 AM

Leo Burnett Ad Agency - A pretty cool site, and, says this rank amateur, the best implementation of Flash I've ever seen (and I hate Flash).
posted by loquax (30 comments total)

(I know the URL has been posted before, but the link is dead and it was pre-flash overhaul)
posted by loquax at 8:36 AM on April 26, 2006

Cute. It would be great if, instead of fading out old pencil marks, you saw them being lifted off the page and transmitted directly to the firm's user-tracking software.
posted by arialblack at 8:46 AM on April 26, 2006

BBDO has a similar type of interface:
http://www.bbdo.com/
posted by kalessin at 8:47 AM on April 26, 2006

I really like the navigation, the fact that you can click on the whitespace to go back. Makes poking around deep into a flash site much easier than usual. Of course, this may not be revolutionary or unique. Some of the brand-specific little features and mini-games are cute. Hitting that 8-ball is addictive.
posted by loquax at 8:49 AM on April 26, 2006

That was indeed very cool, although I wish it hadn't resized my window.
posted by Potsy at 8:49 AM on April 26, 2006

Yup, that was pretty good. I could grumble a bit about sites that resize your browser window, etc., but really it's excellent.
posted by 327.ca at 8:52 AM on April 26, 2006

Why must they resize the browser? Do they not know how irritating that is?
posted by jsavimbi at 8:58 AM on April 26, 2006

Mystery Meat Navigation.
posted by brownpau at 9:04 AM on April 26, 2006

I work in IT for LB's parent company...I'll have to see if I can find out who's responsible for the website design, and let them know the browser resize is an annoyance.
posted by JaredSeth at 9:13 AM on April 26, 2006

Safari doesn't get resized.
posted by airguitar at 9:16 AM on April 26, 2006

One of the most clever Flash navs I've seen.

The ideas aren't new but the implementation and presentation is fresh and fun.

Sweeeet.

-r
posted by rmmcclay at 9:20 AM on April 26, 2006

I love flash, and I love flash games. However, I don't think business websites should resemble a modernist escape-the-room adventure game: Unreadable text, no bookmarking, no linking, no back button, confusing menus, confusing navigation, broken bits, annoying bits. But yes, it is flashy. I don't understand why these websites exist. Or maybe I just wish I didn't understand.
posted by MetaMonkey at 9:20 AM on April 26, 2006

It's not the least bit usable or intuitive. Potential clients will have to work before they find the information they're looking for. But the "wow" factor of the site overwhelms this. It's perfect for an advertising agency.

Still, from an organizational and structural standpoint, it's positively awful. I can't imagine visiting the site more than one or two times . . . once the novelty wears off, it doesn't have a lot of utility.
posted by aladfar at 9:28 AM on April 26, 2006

Not to rain on the parade but these guys are responsible for the "I'm Lovin' It" Macdonalds ads (whatever "It" is). No amount of clever interface can hide that much evil.
posted by doctor_negative at 9:46 AM on April 26, 2006

once the novelty wears off, it doesn't have a lot of utility.

Such a statement applies to their industry as a whole, however. Marketing: to grab one's attention as long as one can. If one is really looking for information its available via the menubar at the bottom of the screen in a more traditional style (useability/standards aside).
posted by Ogre Lawless at 9:48 AM on April 26, 2006

Not to rain on the parade but these guys are responsible for the "I'm Lovin' It" Macdonalds ads (whatever "It" is). No amount of clever interface can hide that much evil.

Bah-bah-ba-ba-BAAAAAARRGGHHHHOHGOD
posted by Drexen at 10:08 AM on April 26, 2006

I've always thought that forcing their employees to wear a T-shirt/cap with that slogan on it was kind of.. I don't know. Demeaning? I've worked in McDonalds and, I can assure you, I wasn't lovin' it.
posted by Drexen at 10:10 AM on April 26, 2006

Oh come on.
It's a neat website.

sourpusses.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 10:21 AM on April 26, 2006

granted, it's a neat website. but realizing as I scrolled through the 80's on that totally sweet flash corporate history timeline exactly how much effect this corporation has had on my childhood and rearing, not to mention my pop culture sensibilities, is unsettling.
posted by carsonb at 10:31 AM on April 26, 2006

yugop.com has been doing stuff like this since 2000, and while the techniques are fun to implement, anyone in your organization who suggests doing so in critical-path navigation belongs in the mail room.

That said, this example is just inside the line (where the line is drawn in a fairly arbitrary place by me) in that it takes mere seconds to learn (I've seen comparatively "conventional" navigation an order of magnitude harder to figure out) and doesn't really impede the user, and is probably fun enough to be worth it.
posted by George_Spiggott at 10:36 AM on April 26, 2006

carsonb - yeah, I've realized that after the fact too. These guys seem really huge and I'd never heard of them. Granted, why would I unless I was in the industry, but still. The number of current campaigns they have going on that I'm aware is amazing (Tide, Wrigley, Kellogg's, Fiat, in the "relentless" section they have tons of video clips and print ads).

The number of offices they have worldwide is amazing too. Though no LA, which is odd considering they have offices all over South America and Eastern Europe.
posted by loquax at 10:43 AM on April 26, 2006

On second thoughts, I was probably being a bit grouchy earlier, and I have a semi-rational loathing for all things Flash from years of hindered surfing. This is probably an example of about the best you can hope for in a flash website; fairly usable, very slick, rather pretty. So change my vote to kinda neat.
posted by MetaMonkey at 11:26 AM on April 26, 2006

According to the Webbies, the Leo Burnett site was designed by Arc Worldwide - a division of Leo Burnett
posted by stumcg at 1:12 PM on April 26, 2006

The Leo Quotes are pretty trite. I guessed the "kicker" on several in a row.

However, Leo Quote 65 gets points for ironic presentation:

"Make it simple. Make it memorable. Make it inviting to look at. Make it fun to read."

All that IN CAPS ON A SPINNING 3D APPLE!
posted by sonofsamiam at 1:18 PM on April 26, 2006

The aforementioned BBDO site was done by WeFail, who have also created some other interesting bits of work with odd Flash navs.
posted by stumcg at 1:27 PM on April 26, 2006

done by designed by
posted by stumcg at 1:31 PM on April 26, 2006

sonofsamiam, I was going to make the exact same point, but the words were moving too quickly for me to write them down, and trying to make out the whole phrase gave me a headache, as well as causing a severe overload of my irony meter.
posted by MetaMonkey at 1:35 PM on April 26, 2006

loquax writes "Though no LA"

Site needs updating I guess, loquax. LB has offices in LA as well (just got off the phone with my counterpart there as a matter of fact).
posted by JaredSeth at 2:12 PM on April 26, 2006

Look at the shiny things. Look and giggle ... while we steal your soul.
posted by Blue Stone at 2:38 PM on April 26, 2006

Wow. That sucks. Not the post, since the website was interesting to look at. But the website. The nav is impossible. I couldn't even read the subheaders until after I clicked on the main headers, half the time I couldn't tell what I could and couldn't click, so would end up jumping back to where I'd been. Pretty, but sooooo unuseful.

Not to mention the thing is optimized for a browser window configuration that doesn't allow me to have the Windows nav bar open on the bottom of my screen and still see the content. Resizing my window, I see there's an actual, useful, navbar at the bottom, which I couldn't otherwise see because apparently someone thinks that everyone devotes all of their screen real estate to their browser all the time.
posted by jacquilynne at 2:52 PM on April 26, 2006